Education Week - October 22, 2014 - Special Report - S18

S18 |
EDUCATION WEEK OCTOBER 22, 2014
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Taking Stock of Personalized Learning > www.edweek.org/go/personalized
CONTINUED FROM PAGE S17
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Challenges:
l Preliminary state test results show a dip in scores, which
the district attributes to the transition to new standards.
l Many teachers were overwhelmed trying to juggle
multiple initiatives.
l The first year, students in grades 7-12 had access
to Chromebooks in school and at home. Because of
the amount of damage at the middle-grade level, the
program was scaled back for middle schoolers so that
they only have access to the devices in school.
Future plans:
l District plans to continue to try to maintain all the
initiatives that were written into the grant.
Middletown School District
Middletown, N.Y.
Enrollment: 7,300
Racial/ethnic profile: 51 percent Hispanic,
27 percent African-American, 20 percent white,
2 percent Asian
Students qualifying for free and reduced-price
meals: 75 percent
RACE TO THE TOP AWARD: $20 MILLION
Personalized learning goals:
l Build personalized learning environments for students
through the use of technology, with a focus on grades K-5.
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Iredell-Statesville Schools
Statesville, N.C.
Enrollment: 21,000
Racial/ethnic profile: 69 percent white,
14 percent African-American,
11 percent Hispanic, 3 percent Asian,
3 percent other
Students qualifying for free and reduced-price
meals: 44 percent
RACE TO THE TOP AWARD: $20 MILLION
Personalized learning goals:
l Individualize learning to improve education and teaching
through personalization strategies, structures, and
supports for students and educators.
l Improve student achievement and deepen learning while
decreasing achievement gaps across student subgroups.
l Cultivate strong teaching practices and expand all
students' access to high-quality instruction.
l Use data to inform decisions, boost instruction, and
promote continuous improvement.
l Increase the percentage of students prepared for college
and careers.
Technology-based approaches:
l Implement a 1-to-1 computing program with MacBook
Airs; the program will be tailored to meet the specific
needs of students with special needs and students in
alternative schools.
l Personalize professional development for teachers;
teachers completed self-reflections to gauge their comfort
with technology.
l Using a state data portal that allows collaboration among
teachers, students, and parents and contains students'
academic records, as well as other tools and resources.
l Placed blended learning coaches in each school to help
with coaching and support of teachers' implementation of
personalized learning.
Measuring success:
l Weigh student-discipline data to look at engagement,
preparation, and personal responsibility of students,
among other data points.
Positive outcomes:
l Many teachers have embraced technology; an example is
educators creating iBooks, iMovies.
l District officials say they've moved into personalized
learning in a slow and deliberate way focused on
students, not technology.
Challenges:
l Rollout of state system caused district to put its plans for
implementing digital portal/environment on hold.
Future plans:
l Creation of "sustainability committee" to ensure efforts to
implement plan continue.
l State's rollout of free portal will improve sustainability of
project.
l Make sure students are proficient in fundamental skills
before moving to the next grade. (Before the Race to the
Top grant, 60 percent of students moving on to the next
grade were not proficient in fundamental skills.)
l Avoid having students repeat grades, but rather have special
classes for students of specific ability groupings where the
teacher can personalize the intervention for each child based
on his or her proficiency in either math or literacy.
l Implement a two-year kindergarten intervention
program for pupils who are not academically ready
for kindergarten. Students spend 2.5 years (first
year, summer, second year) in a personalized, tightly
targeted intervention program to develop proficiency
in kindergarten readiness through foundational and
developmentally appropriate math and literacy skills
along with traditional social skills.
l Enable high school students to take college-level courses
through Syracuse University.
Technology-based approaches:
l Harnessed the power of intelligent adaptive software, which
adjusts the level of difficulty based on the skills of each
student and captures how students are learning concepts.
l Collaboratively curated a catalog of digital content
providers appropriate for each student.
l Partnered with ed-tech company Education Elements,
which helps districts transition to new teaching and
learning models such as blended learning.
l Vetted all the ed-tech products for quality to match them
up with the specific needs of the district.
l Made blended learning mandatory in K-8; the grant
focuses on K-5, which will be fully blended by 2016.
l Created a 1-to-1 computing environment in all blended
learning classrooms with students using school-issued
Chromebooks. Elementary students have access to the
devices during the instructional day, and high schoolers
can take them home.
l Designed intensive professional development around the
use of the devices as well as the integration of them into
academic environments.
l Established Technology Teachers on Assignment, a
program in which district teachers act as mentors and
coaches for technology initiatives.
Measuring success:
l The district uses interim local assessments that
are adaptive to measure student success. With
each examination, data is fed back to teachers, and
grade-level meetings are held to talk about individual
student performance and map out issues to devise the
appropriate intervention. The district does not use New
York state assessments in making decisions about
student progress because it does not believe those
assessments are reliable or valid.
Positive outcomes:
l Blended learning classrooms: Students in blended learning
classrooms performed better than both the Northwest
Evaluation Association projected growth as well as better
than their peers. Students in K-5 blended reading classrooms
on average exceeded their nwea growth expectations by 50
percent (growing 1.5 years in a single year). Students in
math blended classrooms on average exceeded the nwea
expected growth by 21 percent (growing 1.2 years in a
single year). Students in blended classrooms outperformed
students in nonblended classrooms by 57 percent in reading
and 26 percent in math.
l Paying for students to take classes for credit at Syracuse
University. In the first year (2012-13) 63 students took
courses; this school year, 255 are enrolled. The proportion of
students getting free and reduced-price meals taking these
courses has been between 40 percent and 50 percent.
Challenges:
l Problems with the Apple iPad prompted the district to
switch to Chromebooks.
Future plans:
l District leaders will evaluate each program next year
and decide what should continue. Then they will begin
to develop financial and other strategies for sustaining
those programs past the grant. Superintendent Kenneth
Eastwood believes all the initiatives from the Race to the
Top grant will be continued.
Future plans:
l Considering piloting teacher-coaching model this year, but
would need an outside grant to continue to fund a coach.
l Possible purchase of digital learning software.
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Charleston County School District
Charleston, S.C.
Enrollment: 48,500
Racial/ethnic profile: 45 percent white,
43 percent African-American, 8 percent
Hispanic, 4 percent other
Students qualifying for free and reduced-price
meals: 53 percent
RACE TO THE TOP AWARD: $19.4 MILLION
Personalized learning goals:
l Implement a competency-based system of instruction
built on individualized learning plans.
l Put in place a robust system of data-driven instruction
using frequent formative assessments to inform
instruction.
l Build a climate and culture in which students own their
learning.
l Foster student mastery of 21st-century skills necessary for
college and career.
l Create a sustainable system built on a continuous
improvement process.
Technology-based approaches:
l Implementing a 1-to-1 computing program with iPads;
roughly half the 19 Race to the Top district schools were
part of the project last year, and all of those schools will
be 1-to-1 this fall.
l Students were provided with training and teachers
with professional development on using iPads; coaches
help teachers use and integrate digital technology in
classrooms.
l Creation of digital citizenship curriculum, encouraging
students to become responsible digital citizens.
l Establishment of digital learning platform with the
aim of creating a system based on students' mastery
of academic concepts; platform allows teachers and
parents to monitor student performance. System allows
for sharing across schools and is meant to encourage
collaboration among teachers.
Measuring success:
l District has estalished a chart that grades progress on a
4-point scale; the goal is to be proficient with a 3 score by
the end of the grant.
l District officials also use student-reported data about
whether students set learning goals with teachers.
Positive outcomes:
l Students are developing their own vision as to why they're in
the classroom, and about how to go about their work, instead
of simply following teachers' direct instructions.
l Students rank themselves on behavior and on how they
hope to make progress academically on specific lessons.
l Use of iPads has been embraced by students; some
rules apply to their work, such as justifying why they
downloaded certain apps. Teachers received devices
before students to familiarize them with the product.
Challenges:
l Shift to competency-based learning has required a
major change in instruction and support for teachers
throughout the year.
l It took time to find the right vendor to provide a digital
learning platform that worked to meet district needs.
l District's implementation of technology hit "bumps in road" in
terms of the need for broadband to implement program.
St. Vrain Valley Schools
Longmont, Colo.
Enrollment: 30,000
Racial/ethnic profile: 65 percent white,
28 percent Hispanic, 7 percent other
Students qualifying for free and reduced-price
meals: 38 percent
RACE TO THE TOP AWARD: $16.6 MILLION
Personalized learning goals:
l Integration of stem-related courses and project-based
learning into the curriculum.
l Build out the curriculum from one stem-focused school,
Skyline High School, to the curriculum for elementary and
middle school.
l Creation of individual career and academic plans for
students in grades 5-12.
l Hiring of teachers to help with personalized learning and
mentor at-risk students for at least four hours a week.
l School counselors hired at three secondary schools to
train staff and monitor students' personalized graduation
plans.
Technology-based approaches:
l The creation of an off-campus facility for Skyline students
called the Innovation Center, which has technology labs
with industry standard equipment and a classroom for
multipurpose use.
l District came up with a five-year 1-to-1 computing
initiative, being rolled out this year, meant to provide all
students with iPad minis, in grades 5-12.
l Stem coordinators were trained to roll out the technology
to staff.
l Technology was integrated with district's goals in stem
subjects: The district selected specific apps for science
and math and wanted to use the devices in a way in
which teachers allow students to work in team-based
projects doing research and presentations.
Measuring success:
l The district measures success using Colorado statewide
assessments and Adequate Yearly Progress, or ayp.
Positive outcomes:
l English-language-learner students are tested on a
national exam called access. The projected goal was about
5 percent improvement, and the actual improvement was
60 percent.
l Improvement on overall Colorado statewide assessments.
Skyline hit its projected ayp performance levels for the first
time; three other schools did as well.
l Increased support from community and industry
partners, including improved engagement in a shared
vision about innovation; partnerships within the district
have increased to about 50 "major hitters" who provide
resources, expertise, and mentorships.
l Increased leadership from stem coordinators within
schools in helping staff.
l Fifty percent increase in the number of students
graduating from the district's stem academy.
Challenges:
l Trying to integrate stem into elementary and middle school
core classes, when teachers are feeling pressure to
improve test scores.
Future plans:
l District is seeking support from the community through a
2016 bond referendum to fund a stand-alone innovation
center for students from across the school system.
http://www.edweek.org/go/personalized
Education Week - October 22, 2014 - Special Report

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