Education Week - October 22, 2014 - Special Report - S17

Taking Stock of Personalized Learning > www.edweek.org/go/personalized
EDUCATION WEEK OCTOBER 22, 2014 | S17
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Challenges:
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District has not yet defined how to continue its
personalized learning efforts once the grant period ends.
District is confident in the programs, but is looking for
data to confirm and establish a clear picture to make
a case for sustainability.
Future plans:
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The school system's investments in the social and
emotional health of students will be critical to the
success of personalized learning.
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Miami-Dade County Public Schools
Miami, Fla.
Enrollment: 353,000
Racial/ethnic profile: 67 percent Hispanic,
23 percent African-American, 8 percent white,
2 percent other
Students qualifying for free and reduced-price
meals: 81 percent
RACE TO THE TOP AWARD: $30 MILLION
Personalized learning goals:
l Strengthen algebra at the high school level by building a
strong foundation of math at the middle school level.
l Focus on middle school mathematics so the lowestperforming
students are algebra-ready by high school,
and more-advanced students are ready to accelerate in
high school.
l Use a blended learning model to teach math.
l Add laptops, interactive whiteboards, and furniture that
encourages group collaboration and small-group work
with teachers.
l Focus on professional development and add a three-week
summer institute. Use math facilitators as support
specialists to do job-embedded professional development
at 49 schools.
l Increase the student-teacher ratio to 20-to-1 in targeted
classrooms, with three adults and 60 students in a room.
Technology-based approaches:
l Lenovo laptops for every student, two interactive
whiteboards in targeted classrooms.
l Students use Carnegie Learning's Mathia, a blended
learning curriculum, which also contains an adaptive
component aligned to the Common Core State Standards.
l Students may set up their own learning paths using
the Mathia software and progress when they have
demonstrated proficiency. Teachers use data collected
by the program to provide personalized instruction the
following day.
Measuring success:
l The budget includes funding for external evaluators to
assess the program.
l Two Carnegie project managers are assigned to work with
the 49 schools, to facilitate student-data analysis.
l Principals receive biweekly reports from Carnegie
detailing student usage.
l The end-of-the-year summative report for 2013-14 found
a positive correlation between more skills being mastered
in math, assessments scores, and the use of technology.
Challenges:
l Changing longtime teacher practices and mindsets.
l Technology glitches, including login issues.
l Last year, they introduced a new set of standards but
students were still being tested on old standards. This
was difficult for teachers.
Future Plans:
l The district hopes to continue with the iPrep Math and
expand into other subject areas. The results from next
few years will be critical in determining what actions they
take when the grant ends.
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Harmony Public Schools
A district with charter schools across the state.
Grant applies to middle and high schools only.
Based in Houston
Enrollment: 28,500 (Middle and high school
enrollment is 14,600)
Racial/ethnic profile: 48 percent Hispanic,
19 percent African-American, 18 percent white,
14 percent Asian
Students qualifying for free and reduced-price
meals: 59 percent
RACE TO THE TOP AWARD: $30 MILLION
Personalized learning goals:
l Boost individual student support to master essential
skills and deepen content understanding.
l Increase proficiency in math and reading on summative
assessments.
l Decrease achievement gap between minority and lowincome
students and whites.
l Maintain a 100 percent high school graduation rate.
l Increase college matriculation rates and the number of
students interested in stem majors and career choices.
Technology-based approaches:
l Provide students with 1-to-1 device environments using
Chromebooks in grades 6-12. Allow schools to choose
between a take-home or in-school model for their Google
Chromebooks.
l Implement adaptive-learning software in math and
English/language arts. Students can work on individual
modules, and programs provide feedback to allow
teachers to personalize instruction.
l Students can use Chromebooks to work online on student
programs as well as access offline resources.
l Use digital learning tools that support mastery-based
instruction progression.
l Use a project-based learning approach in stem and other
core subjects.
l Make use of data systems and dashboards to provide
teachers, parents, and students with metrics and key
performance indicators to customize education.
Measuring success:
l Formative and summative data are collected from
assessments, learning software, students' project-based
learning products, and other student-created work.
l Student progress is tracked using personalized learning
plans, mastery reports, college- and career-readiness
indicators.
Positive outcomes:
l Initial results from 2013-14 show all grade levels
participating in Race to the Top programs have
improved their performance in both math and reading
assessments.
l Harmony has outperformed state averages for both
reading and math at each participating grade level in
middle and high school. Almost all high schools scored
90 percent or higher proficiency in biology end-of-course
assessments and 100 percent on physics end-of-course
assessments, attributed to a project-based learning
approach.
l There is increasing student demand for Advanced
Placement science courses, and more students are
choosing to study stem-related subjects in college.
Challenges:
l Identifying the best technology tools, getting teacher
and principal buy-in on every decision, communicating
strategies to stakeholders effectively, and recruiting
talent for some projects were among the district's general
challenges.
l It's been more difficult for some reading teachers to
adapt since the technology effect is not as strong as in
math, for example.
Future plans:
l Harmony's personalized education model is sustainable.
The district is building the human capacity to carry out
and sustain each of the projects beyond the grant years.
l District plans to pursue additional grants.
Measuring success:
l The district uses results from the California state test as
well as adaptive benchmark assessments such as the
Measures of Academic Success (map) test. The district
also uses surveys to track teacher use of technology.
No results from state testing are available because
California did not administer tests last year.
Positive outcomes:
l Student and teacher use of technology for personalization
has increased significantly from last fall to this past
spring. High school teachers who never used technology
in the classroom dropped from 22 to 0 percent; 40
percent of teachers reported using technology to
personalize learning on a weekly basis.
l Map test scores remained flat, but the school system
considers this an accomplishment, given the burden of
switching to the new common-core standards and the
concern that scores would drop as a result.
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Last summer, more than 200 teachers participated in
professional development, and more than 90 percent of
them rated that training as effective or highly effective.
l Coaches have been helpful in making sure that the
pedagogy teachers are learning is actually being
implemented and in providing teachers with a highly
skilled coach they can go to for support.
Challenges:
l Finding the time to implement changes. School structures
are still rooted in the past, and change happens slowly.
New Haven Unified School District
Union City, Calif.
Enrollment: 12,700
Racial/ethnic profile: 37 percent Hispanic, 23
percent Asian, 20 percent Filipino, 8 percent
African-American, 7 percent white, and 3
percent Pacific Islander
Students qualifying for free and reduced-price
meals: 46 percent
RACE TO THE TOP AWARD: $29.4 MILLION
Personalized learning goals:
l Ensure that students acquire critical literacy and
mathematics skills while emphasizing real world
applications of those skills.
l Align instructional units with the Common Core
State Standards, and provide extensive professional
development in classroom practices that give students
the skills to analyze texts, make key connections, build
knowledge, and think and communicate about the
reading and analytical process.
l Use data systems that will inform teachers and
principals about how they can improve instruction and
learning, and give teachers the tools and support to use
these systems effectively
l Use 21st century hardware, software, and teaching
methodologies to create an inquiry-based, studentcentered
learning environment
Technology-based approaches:
l Established a technology committee, with representatives
across the district; the committee included students and
parents.
l Selected Chromebooks for its personalized learning plans,
but not as part of a 1-to-1 computing project; iPads were
cost-prohibitive. Rollout of Chromebooks was intended
to occur over three years; now in the second year, every
student in grades 6-12 has a device.
l Teachers who received laptop carts in the first phase
had to agree to undergo PD in the summer, collaborate
throughout the process, and then help out with the
second rollout of Chromebooks the following year.
l Two students per every computing device in grades 3-5.
l Asked library staff to become library media technicians;
they take responsibility for all the technology integration
at the individual sites.
l Allowed teachers to experiment with using a number of
open-education resources, in addition to commercially
produced lessons.
l Established after-school intervention using instruction/
assessment e-learning software for students in need of
extra help.
l Overwhelming to the system, putting an additional
burden on teachers to enact so much change so rapidly.
Future plans:
l The district plans to allocate funds to continue the work
being done.
l Priority will be placed on keeping the coaches, who district
officials believe are critical to sustaining progress.
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Metropolitan School District of
Warren Township
Indianapolis
Enrollment: 12,100
Racial/ethnic profile: 48 percent AfricanAmerican,
32 percent white, 12 percent
Hispanic, 7 percent multiracial
Students qualifying for free and reduced-price
meals: 72 percent
RACE TO THE TOP AWARD: $28.6 MILLION
Personalized learning goals:
l Institute more rigorous standards and make changes
to the curriculum accordingly, with a focus on English/
language arts and math.
l Integrate new instructional technologies and high-tech
learning environments.
l Recognize that secondary students need alternative
options for earning required graduation credits.
l Build a comprehensive online curriculum that takes
advantage of instructional technologies.
l Professional-development efforts involved 80 P-12
teacher representatives, administrators, department
chairs, and coaches.
l School-based training took place across the school year
to support teachers' and coaches' implementation of
instructional shifts anticipated through more rigorous
standards, effective mathematics practices, and closereading
strategies.
Technology-based approaches:
l pIVOT, the district's newly acquired data dashboard
provider, gives staff access to classroom and
student data in a single, Web-based site to track and
disaggregate student performance across time.
l All preK and kindergarten classrooms have access to
iPads.
l Students in grades 1-12 have individual Chromebooks
(9-12 can take them home), and iPads and Chromebooks
are used in special education classrooms.
l Students have options when selecting their courses to be
in a virtual course through Apex Learning Inc.
l Some teachers utilize the materials from the Apex
curriculum for a more blended learning approach in their
traditional classrooms.
l Dry erase walls and interactive projectors have been
added to 74 high school classrooms, and all three middle
school libraries, now called mediaplexes, have been
renovated to provide high-tech learning environments
and to accommodate highly-collaborative work among
students and teachers.
Measuring success:
l The district uses the Indiana state tests as well as
benchmark assessments aligned to the Indiana College
and Career Ready Standards. These assessments are
administered online every three weeks for English/
language arts and mathematics.
l Teachers create summary forms that inform instruction
by showing which students mastered or did not master
certain standards. Unmet standards are recycled into
future assessments, and teachers are aware they need
to keep working on them.
Positive outcomes:
l Online testing has given the district the ability
to gather performance data and act on it much
more quickly than it could using paper-and-pencil
assessments.
l Reports of higher student engagement in the new
high-tech learning environments.
PAGE S18 >
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Education Week - October 22, 2014 - Special Report

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