What is Fuse?

Too often, many of the best ideas and strategies for personalization get stuck behind the closed doors of classrooms, schools, or districts. The Fuse Fellowship strives to share, implement, evaluate, and scale best practices by convening educators who are passionate about this work and committed to breaking down silos. The name Fuse captures how the experience both “ignites” a movement and intentionally brings together like-minded educators to collaborate and grow. This 18-month program:

• Identifies enthusiastic and skilled practitioners, preparing them to lead a shift away from traditional instruction and toward personalized learning in both their own contexts and in the classrooms of partner districts.
• Acts as a catalyst for a school or district to make this shift by crafting a vision, identifying instructional priority practices, and piloting strategies to operationalize these practices.
• Provides high-quality embedded coaching to pilot teachers, growing a district’s internal capacity.
• Creates a regional network of teachers, Fellows, coaches, and administrators who support and push each other both during and after the Fellowship.

Since its inception in Rhode Island in 2014, the Fuse Fellowship has focused largely on blended learning as a vehicle to tackle the challenge of personalization. Based on a recent analysis of our field work as well as the study of corresponding research, our organizational thinking has evolved to center personalization efforts on culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogy. Core beliefs in the areas of awareness, community building, relationships, high expectations, and rigor underpin our definition of personalization, our Priority Practices Tool, professional learning opportunities, and our Pathway to Personalization framework for supporting school-based change.