impact and sustainability

Go Slow to Go Fast - Zombie Apocalypse Spreads Practice, Gradual Release Builds Capacity with In-Building Experts

Sustainability was designed into the plans for a successful transition to personalization. Adult learning began with the district leadership, learning about and identifying the need, and aligning to philosophy and past successes. In crafting a vision for personalized learning, administrators and instructional coaches participated in monthly professional learning called P12 to explore, struggle with, concepts of personalized learning. School leadership teams used this understanding to design their three-year progression of work, acknowledging current work under way, and leveraging strengths in the building.

Much like a zombie apocalypse, as learning grew, teachers experimented and shared, and structures were built into the professional learning plan for residencies that intentionally built capacity to sustain momentum and growth over time. By establishing parallel structures, change is catalyzed at an appropriately accelerated rate, across the system. The result is a system-wide culture of innovation, focused on learning design for personalization, aligned to the EPS Essentials of Personalized Learning, with multiple resident experts in each building that act as learning models for other practitioners. Each school started with at least six studio teachers experimenting with strategies, an instructional coach deeply immersed and supporting the development and growth of teachers, and administrators leading common work being maintained through the P12 structure.

Impact on Student Learning Behavior and Teacher Practice

Student outcomes relative to changes in teacher practice change are being monitored in elements of the EPS Essentials of Personalized Learning, specifically in the areas of creative and critical thinking, student agency, communication and collaboration, and personal learning profiles. Students are increasingly assuming agency in their learning through the explicit planning and modeling of teachers. In the context of learning design for personalization, whether through project based learning ( PBL), technology, or workshop, students are presented with authentic high-rigor tasks that incorporate integrated content with voice and choice.

Built around experiences, rather than lessons or units, student work time is concentrated on productive struggle, collaboration, and exploration as opposed to what has been a traditional model of input, for example textbook reference, worksheets, or teacher lecture. Similarly, output or product has been expanded to give students voice and choice in how they demonstrate their learning. Where an entire class of 5th graders may have previously been required to write a five paragraph essay to show learning, or prepare a tri-fold presentation board with pre-determined topics and headings, students now have creative license in their product or "make." The result has been that student engagement has increased, as have critical thinking, creativity, quality of work through self-assessment, and depth of learning. More critically, increased retention and transfer of this deeper learning has been shown with students where personalization is implemented effectively.

In one particular middle school math course, one half of the grade level team intentionally designed a project-based unit of study to fit within the scope and sequence for their grade. The other half of the team maintained the more traditional format to address the same standard cluster. The team collaborated in the design of a traditional assessment to measure learning of all participating students in the grade. While the PBL cohort had assessed throughout the course of the project exploration, the traditional summative assessment was administered to all students. At the end of the study, the team observed that proficiency in skills and content from the PBL cohort was above 80%, whereas the traditional cohort reported less than 50%. In addition, students' ability to articulate purpose and relevance of the mathematical concepts was evident in the PBL cohort versus the cohort that experienced a more traditional lesson structure.

In a fifth grade PLC, teachers co-designed a PBL unit of study addressing a current environmental impact study on invasive species in the area. Students were presented with a range of environmental issues to explore and were given opportunities to build learning from a spectrum of resources, including experts in the field live and remotely through video chat. From their research, students were able to choose the area of further discovery and learning. In the design of the experience, teachers had established design and prototyping parameters as a floor for student-created solutions, while removing the ceiling to allow students to take their exploration as far as they chose to. The unit integrated language arts, mathematics and science in its design, opening the daily schedule for the grade to a fluid learning structure. The structure maintained certain scheduled classes such as music, but gave students and teachers greater flexibility in how student work time was managed during the day. Teachers had increased opportunities to confer with students, clearing misconceptions and boosting learning to fill in gaps where needed without interrupting the flow of student work artificially. This expanded WIN (What I Need) concept facilitated intervention and extension seamlessly.