4. Lab Rotation

Definition: A rotation-model implementation in which within a given course or subject (e.g., math), students rotate on a fixed schedule or at the teacher’s discretion among locations on the brick-and-mortar campus. At least one is a learning lab for predominantly online learning, while the additional classroom(s) house other learning modalities.

Benefits:

• Requires very little adjustment to teacher contracts, facility design, or the classroom overall, other than provisioning a computer lab and changing the block schedule.
• Some experts estimate that if students rotate to a lab with online learning and paraprofessional supervision instead of face-to-face teacher-led instruction for 25-50 percent of their day, school leaders will net out with an increase of $1,000-2,000 per student per year. They can then redirect these funds to other priorities.

Challenges:

• So far, there is little evidence of face-to-face teachers using the results and progress from the learning lab to adapt the way they teach the students back in the face-to-face classroom. There is not good linkage between the two modalities.
• Learning labs need a robust learning management system to help fit each student to the right online content and to generate actionable reports for teachers.
• The online-learning modality needs to be easy for students to do on their own with minimal adult intervention, because generally students are supervised by paraprofessionals with little training.

Example: For his mathematics course, Carlos rotates among the math/science teacher directed instruction and the math learning lab depending on his needs.