Waukesha East Academy

About Waukesha East

System Type: Public School

Grade Levels: 6-12

Enrollment: Approximately 97 students

Location: Waukesha, WI (Urban-Suburban)

Overview

Waukesha East is a student-centered campus that offers 3 distinct pathways toward graduation based on individual student academic, social, and emotional needs. Students can select from a credit, competency, and GED pathway personalized for their needs and designed to support them in successfully graduating.

East students thrive in the interdisciplinary project-based learning model where authentic personalized learning experiences are created to meet the mastery learning targets and skills necessary for graduation and post-secondary learning opportunities. Students are provided with real-world connections to their learning so they become prepared to work, serve, and compete in a global society. Students work on core academics during their morning seminar and are provided workshop opportunities in the afternoon to work on a variety of skills in a more elective setting.

Technology Tools Used for Assessment and Reporting

Waukesha East uses the Beacon Learning Platform from Building 21 to document and track assessments as well as to create reports.

Outcomes: What is assessed?

Waukesha East partnered with Building 21 to develop their Mastery Learning Targets (MLTs) and skills. Their framework includes 26 MLTS across 8 areas. Each MLT has 2-5 skills associated with it.

In their student handbook, they define Mastery Learning Targets “as the essential skill sets of post-secondary readiness that are always connected to a meaningful outcome that empowers our students. MLTs are structured as a grouping of related skills that cumulatively serve as a measure of a learner’s level of mastery.”

The 8 Areas of MLTs include:

Durable Skills
Physical Education
Wayfinding
Mathematics
Science
English Language Arts
Social Studies
Health and Wellness

Above is an example of 2 MLTs in the English Language Arts area. Read Critically is the MLT. “Choose and apply reading strategies” is one of the skills that falls under the Read Critically MLT.

Above is an overview of the Durable Skills area. Explore the full list of all of Waukesha East’s MLTs here.

Teaching, learning and assessment happens at the level of the skill. Reporting happens at the level of the area.

Although Waukesha East’s outcomes (MLTs) are organized by subject area that is just for reporting purposes. MLTs and skills are not taught in subject "silos" but woven throughout multiple blended learning experiences. Teaching and learning in the school is interdisciplinary. A Project that serves as evidence of student learning (both in process and product) can serve as evidence for an MLT in a science area, an ELA area, and a durable skill area which are all assessed by the educator who facilitated that project. In this way, the learning is not siloed but the discipline aligned to MLTs and specific skills are distinguished, allowing for an easier translation back to a traditional transcript.

For example, in a Community Health project where students created and presented a campaign proposal based on research on a health issue, 25 skills were assessed spanning ELA, science, wayfinding, and social studies. A data analysis document that students did earlier in the project served as evidence of the skill “make meaning of data collected” which falls under the MLT “Analyze and Interpret Data” in the science area. Another product from the project, the campaign proposal, served as evidence for multiple ELA and social studies skills.

Levels of Proficiency: How is Progress Marked?

At Waukesha East, each skill within an MLT is shown on a continuum that describes proficiency in that skill assessed across 6 levels. This is aligned with Building 21’s mastery learning approach. With this approach, MLTs and skills remain constant across a student’s learning experience from year to year. Their progress is shown over time as they progress along the continua from level to level. For each skill aligned to a particular MLT, the 6 performance levels are defined by discrete indicators that describe mastery of that skill for the defined level. Learning targets, instructional planning, student feedback, and evaluation of student work are all based on the performance level indicators.

Students at Waukesha East aim to obtain an average of a level 4 or higher by graduation across all skills in each area. Level 5 is considered to be college and career-ready, while level 6 is considered to be college-level work. These higher levels allow students to demonstrate their growth and strengths across curriculum areas.

Above is an example of an ELA area skill, introduce my claim, part of the Compose Evidence-Based Arguments MLT.

Above is an example of a science area skill, make meaning of data collected, part of the Analyze and Interpret Data MLT.

Above is an example of a Durable Skills MLT titled, “Manage My Work and Set Goals” with a coinciding skill titled, Manage tasks and deadlines.

You can download the entire Building 21 competency framework here.

Reporting: How is Progress Documented?

Assessment at Waukesha East is tracked through the Beacon platform. Assessment data produces a progress report that is part of a larger Personal Learning Plan (PLP). The PLP provides information about whether a student is on pace to graduate, current progress towards credit, missed opportunities/missing work, behavior (including positive shout-outs and interventions), and goal setting. You can find a sample PLP from Building 21 here.

On the Graduation Progress Report page, current progress is documented. For each Mastery Learning Target Area the report details:

the Backpack the student is in (see more about this below)
the current performance level on the skills and MLTs
growth from when they started this Backpack
the percentage of the Backpack’s requirements they have completed
the translation of their performance level to a traditional grade

Backpacks: Organizing Learning Not in Grade Levels or Courses

To move away not only from traditional course structures where learning happens in silos but also from traditional grade-level distinctions to better fit the philosophy at Waukesha East that learning happens on a personalized timeline, the school has adopted the Building 21 approach to organizing learning. They call this organization Backpacks.

Here is how Waukesha East defines Backpacks in their student handbook:

“A backpack is a portfolio of work that demonstrates a student’s level of mastery of an identified MLT and skill. Multiple backpacks can be used together to scaffold students' progress toward college and career readiness. Mastery targets and skills remain the same throughout all backpacks. Students demonstrate mastery on a continuum of readiness which requires students to demonstrate proficiency on a competency multiple times and in multiple ways.”

Backpacks are analogous to grade levels, however, instead of a student being in 9th grade across all of their “classes” or “subject areas”, at Waukesha East, students are at unique Backpack levels for each subject area. For example, a student could be in the Nesting Backpack in the ELA area and the Launch Backpack in the science area. Students could even be in different Backpacks within one area across different MLTs. The report shows what Backpack the student is currently in for each area.

Below is a table showing the 5 Backpack levels at Waukesha East and the performance level requirements. This demonstrates how each Backpack is supporting learners in moving up the continua in the skills. It’s important to note that even though the Launch Backpack is generally associated with 10th-11th graders in a traditional system, students of any age could be in the Launch Backpack for any area based on their proficiency. In this system, the concept of grade levels is irrelevant and students are moving at their own pace through the continua and levels across the MLTs and skills.

Picture a Backpack as something that needs to be filled. It has requirements, which include an evidence requirement and a performance level requirement. To fill up, or complete a Backpack, students must show evidence of the area’s skill(s) a specific number of times and at a specific performance level average. These requirements become more challenging with each Backpack level. For example, in the Nesting Backpack for the ELA area, students must show evidence of each ELA skill 2-4 times (depending on the skill) at a minimum level of 2.3 (on their 6-level scale) or higher.

Determining Progress Toward Backpack Completion

Utilizing Beacon, which is East’s LMS platform, educators track the requirements and provide learners with their personal progress toward backpack completion as an overall percentage.

On the report, for each area, in the progress column, there is a percentage that shows the completion of the required pieces of evidence a student has submitted. Another requirement for completing a Backpack is not having any missed opportunities or missing assignments. These “Ms” are also tracked in Beacon and will contribute to a lower percentage of progress on a Backpack.

How Final Performance Level Scores for Areas Are Calculated

Awarding Backpacks

For each Backpack, a final performance level is determined as an average of all of the assessments given on each of the skills that fall within the MLT area. If a skill has a requirement of 2 pieces of evidence but students have been assessed 3 times on that skill, Beacon will only use the highest 2 scores in the average calculation. This encourages educators and students to provide more opportunities for evidence.

In this image from Beacon, an educator is providing a performance level score of a 4 on the ELA skill, choose and apply reading strategies. This is part of the Read Critically MLT.

In the video above you can see how Beacon tracks progress on the Backpack requirements and performance levels in real time. Note that this video is showing an example from Beacon in which Backpacks are called Portfolios and there is a 12-level progression instead of 6 like at Waukesha East.

Measuring Growth

Growth is the second column provided in the report for each area. This is measured by the difference between the student’s current performance level and their performance level at the end of the previous backpack. For example, if a student finished the Nesting backpack in Mathematics at a level 2.9 and then is currently working on the Launch Backpack at a current level of 3.3 their growth would be .4. These numbers for performance levels and growth are looking at the average scores across all skills in that area.

Sharing with Families

Every week families receive a message with an updated Personalized Learning Plan (PLP) where they can see, in real time, their child’s progress towards earning credits and graduating. A student handbook is provided to families to help describe the assessment and reporting system.

Crediting, Promotion, and Admission to Secondary/Post-Secondary

Students at Waukesha East receive a traditional transcript with course names and letter grades. All of this is translated from the Backpacks, MLT areas, and progress on the PLP.

Providing Grades for Courses on Transcripts:

In addition to receiving credit when a student “flips” a Backpack, they will also receive a letter grade for that credit/course based on their performance level on the subject area MLTs. For example, in the Nesting English Language Arts area (traditionally considered English 9) if a student receives an average of a 3 performance level across all skills within the ELA subject area, they will receive a C. At Waukesha East, students are provided the opportunity to continue in a Backpack to demonstrate more evidence at a higher level before flipping, allowing them an opportunity to receive a higher grade. If they were to provide more evidence and increase their average score to a 3.3, they would flip their backpack, thereby earning the credit and receiving an A in the correlated course. This means that they are working on their Launch backpack where they are aiming for an average of 3.8 or higher to receive an A.

Above is the grade conversion chart that describes how credits and grades are awarded by Backpack level for each area.

The graduation requirement for students at Waukesha East is to reach and complete the Ascend Backpack in all required areas. As students complete their Backpacks, grades are converted to a traditional letter grade and the aligned credit will be documented on their official transcript.

Tracking Requirements for Graduation

The PLP also includes a long-term picture of the total required Backpacks and additional requirements to support students in tracking their progress toward graduation.

Above is the second half of the PLP Graduation Report. It includes information about what Backpacks have been completed in each area as well as what other graduation requirements have been completed.