Tag Archives: personalized learning

High-Tech AND High-Touch

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The Atlantic recently took a trip to San Jose, California to visit Rocketship Discovery Prep, one of seven schools run by Rocketship Education. Rocketship has been hailed as a model for future high-tech classrooms, and reformers have been impressed with their achievement outcomes with poor Latino youth. But is the secret to Rocketship’s success really in their blended learning model, or is it something entirely different? Read The Atlantic’s take:

[W]hile Rocketship attracts a steady flow of visitors hoping to glimpse education’s high-tech future, I came away from my own pilgrimage to Discovery Prep believing that the school’s success proves the opposite point: the younger and more disadvantaged students are, the more they need adults supporting them in many different ways day in and day out–the more they need school to be a place rather than merely a process.

Each morning at Discovery Prep and the rest of the Rocketship network, everyone gathers on the playground for announcements and a sing-a-long. Students receive recognition and rewards for outstanding behavior and achievement and teachers and students…sing and dance…surrounded by parent-volunteers. In the same spirit, teachers greet every student by name as they enter their classrooms, a routine that Rocketship calls a “threshold invite.” Personal connections between adults and students are paramount.

Parents are everywhere in the life of 640-student Discovery Prep. The schools organize meetings on curriculum, instructional strategies, and student behavior to enlist parents as educational partners. They take students and parents on bus trips to Stanford, Berkeley, and other local colleges and universities to get them invested in higher education. And they ask parents to spend 30 hours a year in their children’s schools and most do. As a result, students have the sense that there are always adults ready to help, that their parents care about them, and that education is important. When I visited Discovery Prep, parents were reviewing young students’ rudimentary homework assignments, freeing teachers to spend more time on instruction. (Rocketship’s parents have also been active in the local community, forming a political action committee to elect reform-minded San Jose school board members.)

Nearly every aspect of Rocketship’s model, it seems, contributes to a high-touch culture….Even Rocketship’s much-touted computer-based educational platform promotes stronger, rather than weaker, ties between teachers and students. Every day, students spend two hours in headphones in one of a hundred brightly colored cubicles in a big, open “learning lab,” doing a wide range of exercises in reading and math through programs with lots of audio and animation. They also routinely take “adaptive” quizzes that adjust the difficulty of questions to the accuracy of students’ answers….

[T]he role of computers at Discovery Prep is to supplement rather than supplant traditional teaching. Students who struggle with the reading and math exercises in the lab are targeted for one-on-one or small-group tutoring during the sessions. With basic skills monitored in this way, Rocketship teachers have more time to focus on advanced skills….

What separates Rocketship’s strategy from old-style computer learning is the purposeful way it links its labs to classroom instruction. Students’ lab results are fed into a central data system that generates color-coded charts and graphs on laptops and tablets, showing their progress against state and national standards and providing teachers with real-time “data dashboards” that they can use to shape their lessons….

Students are the center of the education experience at Discovery Prep. But they’re hardly flying solo. Discovery Prep’s most striking feature isn’t its learning lab but its extraordinarily nurturing environment, in which technology plays a part. It’s this human element that makes all the difference for students from disadvantaged backgrounds who, in many public schools, need far more adult support than they typically get — and certainly more than they’d get online in the digital future that many are predicting for public education.

To read the whole article, see http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/10/at-a-high-tech-school-supportive-adults-are-the-real-key-to-success/263857/#

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September Issue Brief – Personalized Learning

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With the Race to the Top-District competition focusing on personalized learning for students, many educators are grappling with the concept of personalization and the many questions surrounding implementation. This month’s issue brief offers resources and food for thought around personalized learning.

To access September’s Issue Brief, please click here (http://us5.campaign-archive2.com/?u=a4ae2b1b129b9f8a29d50b80f&id=a42f51f627&e=[UNIQID]).   To ensure you do not miss future issues, we encourage you to subscribe by clicking the “Subscribe to List” button in the top left corner of the Issue Brief.

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Featured Education Week ‘Spotlights’

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Education Week is again offering new “Spotlights on Education” for free.  Spotlights are collections of recent articles grouped by theme to give readers an in-depth look at education issues.  Featured Spotlights include:

The Education Week Spotlight on Personalized Learning – a collection of articles hand-picked by Ed Week editors for their insights on:

  • Digital badges as an alternative to traditional grading
  • How Race to the Top districts are embracing individualized instruction
  • Implementing competency-based learning
  • Replacing seat-time mandates with requirements for demonstrated competency
  • The promises and challenges of using digital tools to personalize learning

The Education Week Spotlight on Data-Driven Decisionmaking - a collection of articles on:

  • Districts using data-driven decisionmaking as part of school reforms
  • Putting longitudinal data to use in schools
  • Issues surrounding student data tied to teacher performance
  • Using data to prepare students for college and career opportunities
  • Developing an early warning data-system to identify and prevent school dropouts

The Education Week Spotlight on Math Instruction – a collection of articles on:

  • The potential impacts of the Common Core Standards on math instruction
  • Using smartphones as math learning tools
  • New multimedia programs tailored to math students
  • Distinguishing students who occasionally struggle in math from those with a genuine disability
  • Professional development needs of teachers preparing for common standards in math
  • Early math skills as a predictor of school success

The Education Week Spotlight on English Language Arts and the Common Core focuses on:

  • Incorporating language arts across the subject areas to meet the expectations of the common standards
  • Adapting to the increased focus on nonfiction
  • Understanding how the common core could impact popular reading instruction techniques, like prereading exercises
  • Efforts to build a free, online repository of text-dependent questions and tasks aligned to popular basal-readers.
  • Preparing English-language learners for the complex challenges of the common core

To access these free Spotlights, please visit http://www.edweek.org/ew/marketplace/products/edweek_spotlights.html

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A High-Tech Fix for Broken Schools

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Juan Williams of the Wall Street Journal recently wrote an article about technology-based personalized learning strategies being employed across the country that have shown success.  Excerpts from the article are below.

…Prize-winning documentaries such as “Waiting for ‘Superman’” have revealed the terrible cost of losing young minds to failing schools. Dropout rates are particularly high among minority children in urban schools. But even parents in the best suburban schools are alarmed by the fact that the U.S. now ranks 30th world-wide in math, 23rd in science, and 17th in literacy.

This is why the modestly funded schools in Mooresville [N.C.] are drawing national attention. The school district ranks 100th out of 115 school districts in North Carolina on per-pupil spending. But in the last 10 years, its test scores have pushed it from a middling rank among North Carolina’s school districts to a tie for second place.

Three years ago, 73% of Mooresville’s students tested as proficient in math, reading and science. Today, 89% are proficient in those subjects.

The big change in Mooresville began when Superintendent Mark Edwards took the radical step of cutting back on teachers and using the money to give every student from third grade through high school a laptop computer.

All of their textbooks, notes, learning materials and assignments are computerized, allowing teachers and parents to track their progress in real time. If a student is struggling, their computer-learning program can be adjusted to meet their needs and get them back up to speed. And the best students no longer wait on slow students to catch up. Top students are constantly pushed to their limits by new curricular material on their laptops.

…

Some 600 miles north of Moorseville, New York City’s “School of One” in Brooklyn has had similar success with a digital-learning program. The mathematics-centered middle school has reported significant gains in the test scores of its students since it was founded in 2009. Joel Klein, the former chancellor of the New York City public schools, helped initiate the program and is now one of the leading proponents for digital learning…

In Florida, former Gov. Jeb Bush pioneered large-scale digital learning as part of his education-reform efforts. “If you want to take an [advanced placement] class, you can do this online, and people flock to that opportunity. So, it has improved learning and they don’t get paid unless the course is complete,” Mr. Bush says. “Imagine if the public schools accepted that idea. You would have a lot more children gaining the power of knowledge.”

Some critics charge that digital learning is a boondoggle, a way for the private companies that make the technology to profit by selling their products to school districts. Messrs. Klein and Bush respond that we must support new ideas and budding solutions that show promise to fix schools-regardless of their origins.

Mr. Bush puts it this way: “If it’s for-profit or not-for-profit or it’s developed by the schools inside a district or by teachers inside of schools, does it matter?”

The bottom line is that bringing more technology into the classroom shows tremendous promise to improve schools. And any doubters should take a look at the little school district now speeding along in Mooresville.

To read the full article, please visit http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444184704577587452644436784.html

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Each Child Learns Act: Open for Comment

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On August 1, the Alliance for Excellent Education began an unprecedented digital process asking the American public to participate in developing major new state legislation designed to make digital learning and educational technology available to all students around the country.

The proposed draft legislation, titled the Each Child Learns Act, will help states think strategically about how to incorporate technology into their classrooms to boost student learning and increase professional learning opportunities for teachers.

Driving the proposed legislation is the reality that the current U.S. education system cannot adequately prepare all students for the increasingly global economy. Instead of the current “one-size-fits-all” approach to educating students, the United States must move to an innovative student-centered instruction model that will personalize learning and prepare students for success in college and a career. For more than a year, the Alliance has been examining the types of legislative proposals every state will need to consider in order to make this transition.

The Each Child Learns Act outlines a student-centered education approach that focuses on developing personalized student paths for academic success and incorporating digital learning. The proposed draft legislation provides comprehensive planning, language, guidance, and timelines for states to use in transitioning to this more forward-thinking and modern public education system. A major principle of the legislation is that a more personalized learning experience, driven by strong teaching in combination with the effective use of technology, should be the basis for any transition to a system that embraces high-quality digital learning.

The proposed draft legislation lays out several main elements for states that are crucial to providing a personalized and high-quality digital learning opportunity for each student. They include:

  • Developing a comprehensive strategy;
  • Transitioning to competency-based learning and eliminating “seat time” requirements;
  • Utilizing formative assessments delivered by technology to track student progress;
  • Providing teachers with enhanced continuing education and mentoring opportunities through technology;
  • Establishing a mechanism to track student data so each child can be on a personalized learning path;
  • Helping all public schools to allow blended learning and other tech-enhanced instruction models;
  • Offering high-quality online classes for students—particularly those who need credit-recovery assistance or have special situations;
  • Writing strong policy safeguards into the law to carefully monitor the quality and accountability of providers; and
  • Increasing opportunities for access to internet devices and required technology infrastructure, such as high-speed broadband connections.

To read the full language of the draft legislation, please visit http://www.all4ed.org/digitallearning/legislation.

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Culture Shift: Learner-Centered Instruction Powered by Digital Learning

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Preparing all students to succeed in today’s increasingly complex world requires a shift from a teacher-centric culture to learner-centered instruction that recognizes students’ individual learning needs, according to a new report from the Alliance for Excellent Education.

The report, Culture Shift: Teaching in a Learner-Centered Environment Powered by Digital Learning, examines the support that educators and schools will require to implement genuine teaching practices that are personalized for each student.  Digital learning, the report argues, can be a major strategy for enabling teachers to meet varied students’ needs while also supporting necessary cultural shifts in teaching.

According to the report, learner-centered instruction is personalized, rigorous, and based on college- and career-ready expectations. It is also collaborative, relevant, and flexible, with learning taking place anytime or anywhere. A true shift to a learner-centered environment powered by effective technology requires a strong school culture that embodies, encourages, and focuses on the needs of each student, the report argues. Specifically, Culture Shift maintains that the integration of technology and digital learning, school leadership, and changes in the teaching profession are critical to the transition to this new culture.

Moving to a learner-centered model will require teachers to take on new professional responsibilities and roles in working with students and peers, the report finds.   To be prepared for these new roles, teachers need support and professional learning opportunities to help them develop new skills that maximize the potential of digital learning and provide models and opportunities for improving practice.

Culture Shift acknowledges that providing effective professional learning opportunities presents a challenge for many districts and schools, but it argues that technology and digital learning can boost opportunities for quality professional learning by increasing flexibility in terms of time, providing access to more specialized courses, and enhancing exposure to peers and colleagues from around the world.

The report offers the following recommendations for education stakeholders, including state and district leaders, principals, teachers, and community and business leaders, seeking to transition schools to a learner-centered culture:

  • Develop a deep understanding of what it means to have a learner-centered environment; identify the potential changes that must be made from the current instructional models; and create opportunities to discuss and observe learner-centered instruction among all parties involved in a student’s learning process.
  • Provide school and district leaders with the professional learning opportunities needed to understand how to initiate and grow a strong learner-centered environment in a school.
  • Empower school and district leaders to develop collaborative working environments for teachers that set high expectations and provide the support needed for educators and staff.
  • Integrate technology and digital learning into the strategic planning and culture discussions within the school to maximize potential to support learner-centered environments, including the use of data and assessments, multiple types of digital content and curriculum, and collaborative opportunities for teachers and students.
  • Elevate the profession of teaching by understanding the complexities of teaching very diverse students in a learner-centered environment; establish teacher effectiveness evaluations that support growth and take into account multiple variables; and align professional learning opportunities to evaluations.

To read the full report, please visit http://www.all4ed.org/files/CultureShift.pdf

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