since 2013, 瑞士vs喀麦隆亚盘赔率 has worked in new york to design, implement, and support personalized learning. currently 18 districts and two boces across the state have moved to a personalized learning instructional model – changing the educational experience for nearly 45,000 students.
new york districts are at various stages of implementation. many districts are just getting started on their journey. for others, personalized learning has been a way of life for many years. as the term would suggest, each district and school ‘personalizes’ the instructional approach, customizing for their own context what 瑞士vs喀麦隆亚盘赔率 calls the ‘core four’ of personalized learning: targeted instruction, integrated digital content, data-driven decisions, and student reflection and ownership.
while we are just beginning to understand the impact that personalized learning has on new york students, schools, and communities, we are buoyed by some early positive results from several districts:
the enlarged city school district of middletown has increased the percentage of students reaching their nwea map growth targets 33% in reading and 39% in math; increased the percentage of students taking a college course in high school from nine to 36%; and decreased the gap between white and minority student graduation rates from 16 to six percentage points.
in a survey of teachers across 10 schools, syracuse city school district teachers said that they believe blended learning has led to positive outcomes, including greater student learning, increased collaboration with teachers, decreased behavior issues, and greater student ownership and self-direction. over 90% of teachers reported that blended learning has increased their ability to differentiate instruction, and that they feel more effective and enjoy teaching more in a blended classroom.
grant middle school in syracuse city school district teachers shed its ‘persistently struggling school’ classification after two years of implementing personalized learning. the school saw increased proficiency scores on the state assessment, and a decrease in behavior referrals of 57% and 23% in their first and second years of personalized learning, respectively.
after just a few months of implementation, the majority of teachers at dundee central school district agree that personalized learning is beneficial for their students; leads to deeper, more accelerated learning; and that their students are more engaged with personalized learning.
great things are happening in new york, and who better to spread the word than the dedicated and courageous district and school leaders who are at the forefront of this movement. we hope you enjoy their stories.
45,000 students 2,000 teachers 18 districts 2 boces
middletown, ny
“i knew that a silver bullet wasn’t going to solve our problems.” ken eastwood, superintendent
middletown serves 7,300 students across seven schools. since 2013, middletown has implemented blended learning as a way to personalize learning for students. middletown chose an opt-in model, whereby teachers would choose when over a four year period they would transition to blended learning. by the end of 2015, middletown elementary and middle schools were fully blended. additionally, in 2015, middletown high school classrooms began the transition to a flipped instructional model.
after three years of personalized learning, middletown has increased the percentage of students reaching their nwea map growth targets 33% in reading and 39% in math. they have increased the percentage of students taking a college courses in high school from nine to 36%; students taking college courses are 54% frl and 86% minority, which reflects the population distribution. in five years they increased the graduation rate from 54 to 87%, and decreased the gap between white and minority student graduation rates from 16 to six percentage points.
about eight years ago we started looking to dive deeper into supporting our high-needs kids. we are a small city school district, and over 76% of our students are from poverty and almost 80% are minority.
as a student of school improvement i constantly was aware of the high degree of failure and lack of sustainability of school improvement efforts. i kept trying to understand in a district like ours what it would take to really close the gap. i knew that a silver bullet wasn’t going to solve our problems.
we took a hard look at all the data related to our dropouts, and constantly tracked problems back to kindergarten and elementary school. students were not on target then and were socially promoted. in 5th and 6th grade they acted out, were disciplined, then most eventually dropped out.
our approach had to be systematic. we stopped social promotion and created interventions along the way to provide extra time for students to develop proficiency in core subjects. students who are not academically ready for next grade we do not put into next grade. they receive intervention over the course of the year. some students are ready for the next grade but require intervention.
then we looked at instructional models. we were predominately – if not 100% – teaching to the center. we needed to move away from centrist education in order to meet the educational needs of individual students. that’s when we started to look at the term personalized learning.
in the first two years we could compare those who moved to personalized learning against those who did not. we saw a significant difference. the blended teachers had significantly better scores in math and literacy that those who were not involved. in year 2 that exact same phenomenon occurred. in year 3 when almost all teachers were involved, we saw improvement across all grades.
when we opened a new elementary school a few years ago, senator schumer came to open the building. he walked around building and went into a class. i turned around from a conversation and i saw him on the floor working with a group of kids. i was startled. he spent 15 minutes in that classroom. he walked out, and we were walking down the hall when he said, “so this class here, what grade is that, first or second?” i told him that it was a kindergarten class. he stopped dead in his tracks, and said, “that was kindergarten? was that your gifted class?” “no, special ed,” i said. it took him about five or ten seconds to think about what he had just seen compared to what he thought about kindergarten. he said, ‘i can’t believe it. you guys are doing phenomenal stuff.” what’s happening in our classrooms really can change people’s perception
yes, we have people that come into our district constantly. i would tend to say well over 100 visitors over last two years. it blows their minds because they don’t see poverty in our schools - they see it on the streets, but not in our schools, because we have made an investment to have the best facilities and our kids are learning at incredibly high levels. i really believe that if you want kids to believe they can succeed, you have to give them the environment to believe it.
we blend all the way down to kindergarten classes, which always surprises people. but i always say that personalized learning is going to be the way education needs to happen in the united states, especially with the influx of new to country folks that don’t speak our language or know our culture. we want to show people how we intensify the instructional experience for those kids.
south dayton, ny
“if our schools aren’t the beacon of why you would want to live here… we’re not going to survive.” scott payne, superintendent
pine valley central school has participated in the boces erie 2 consortium personalized learning work since august 2016. in fall 2016 they launched personalized learning in all grades and subjects. pine valley serves 600 students.
[scott] we are a small, rural, high-needs district. i came into the district about 1.5 years ago. they had experienced a great deal of turmoil. the district used to rank highly in the region years ago, and they lost some of that. test scores were not where we wanted them to be. the population is shrinking, we are losing hundreds of kids a year in the county. a lot of families are leaving, the industry is gone, farming has been reduced to a few large farms. we don’t have those things that are attracting members to a community. if our schools aren’t the beacon of why you would want to live here – because you would need to live here and work somewhere else – we’re not going to survive.
[christina] in our community, people travel 30 minutes away to do major grocery shopping, but even that half hour seems to isolate us enough that kids here don’t have the opportunities that others do. a lot of kids don’t even get out of the area. we’re about 1.5 hours from niagara falls, but throughout my years of teaching, about half of those classes had never been to niagara falls. so anything we can do to bring the outside world to our students is important.
[scott] it was brought to region by our boces. i was reluctant. i have intense and strong ideas about instructional practices, and i was having hard time understanding the gestalt of personalized learning. for me, it was a leap of faith on two levels. one, i was really trying to grasp the benefits and understand what it meant in terms of instruction. secondly, i didn’t want to work with other districts because i know how i am – i want to move and make things happen. i don’t want others to take my time.
[christina] our curriculum coach came to me because i was meeting with her frequently with questions. teaching the new york state modules was just not working in my class this year. my students had a hard time following directions and had short attention spans. i tried every strategy i knew that had worked in the past, and nothing was working. several weeks into school year she came to me and explained they needed another person to be on the personalized learning team and a lot of my ideas fit in very nicely. i knew what i was doing wasn’t working so i just wanted to go full bore into it.
[scott] it’s evolved to be one of the best things that’s ever happened. the ability to partner with these other three groups – the boces and two other districts – has been so incredibly, richly rewarding and valuable. the fact that i can call up my counterparts and ask “what are you doing and how are you approaching this work?” and they can approach us and get that same feedback. it’s as powerful as it is when you do good instruction in the classroom. what you can do with two students, you can’t do with one. so what you can do with four districts that you can’t do with one is exponentially strong. i love the fact we are a cohort. i don’t know that i’d want to do this any other way.
[scott] last week i sat in a classroom of a teacher who has had poor scores in last few years. i saw real, facilitated learning taking place, higher-order thinking, students working as individuals, then pairs, then groups on different pieces of content around a particular objective. without the framework we’ve developed i don’t know if we would have gotten there.
[dawn] we have a student who is very intelligent, artistic, and a reader. but she was disengaged from traditional education. once we started with personalized learning she started engaging and we noticed more work being done. she is owning what she is learning, and she has choice and control.
[christina] my whole class culture has changed. i try to provide a lot of choice. just in three weeks we’ve built of stamina. now after 20 minutes of writing, kids will want to keep writing. before they were clockwatchers and couldn’t wait to get done!
[dawn] one of the biggest keys to succeeding is being given the freedom to try something. our leaders have made it ok for to try something and say this isn’t working. we’re able to take risks.
[christina] it’s almost like we’ve been so ingrained to keep up with paperwork and worry about the scores we’ve forgotten to have fun. the kids need to see learning as being fun and interesting. it’s important for teachers to know that it’s ok to change things up and make mistakes. the superintendent’s new catch phrase is “we’re not going to break the kids!” meaning that it’s okay if a lesson doesn’t go right one day, we’ll pick up the next day and we’ll try something different. it’s great that we’re encouraged to do that now.
[scott] the most incredible thing was this emergence of teacher leaders, because we didn’t plan for that. it just happened and we just kept encouraging it because we knew that if teachers are talking to teachers there will be so much more relevance and sustainability.
marion, ny
in spring 2016, superintendent bavis was selected from a national pool to receive one of 10 lexington education leadership award fellowships which focus on developing district leaders of personalized learning. marion launched personalized learning in spring 2017.
“the idea of personalized learning made sense to everyone even though they did not know exactly what that would look like. my task was, how do you operationalize that?” don bavis, superintendent
“i have absolutely seen more engagement than i thought was possible.” dave wise, high school science teacher and parent
[don] we are a very small, rural, agricultural community. we’ve had shrinking in enrollment for a decade. we don’t have a strong business base. most companies have moved to more suburban or urban settings. we’re similar to rural districts throughout new york state. we’re all facing the same types of enrollment decline. we’re a proud community that’s fallen on tough times.
[dave] i am from marion and graduated from our schools. i have been a teacher here for 15 years, my son is a high school student and my daughter graduated from here. marion is about half the size today then when i was a student. for a while we were asking ourselves do we merge with neighboring schools and districts, but that has not turned into something the community was interested in.
[don] we hold on the many values and traditions in community. our sports and music programs are outstanding.
[dave] we are proud of our agricultural heritage. during the lead up to homecoming there is a dress up day called ‘hick day’ which has turned into a very big event. everyone is in flannel and half the kids drive their tractors to school.
[don] that’s our history. we don’t run away from it, we honor it.
[don] personalized learning was a part of the district before i came on board, it was included in their core beliefs. so the idea of personalized learning made sense to everyone even though they did not know exactly what that would look like. my task was, how do you operationalize that? fortunately for me i was chosen for one of 10 lexington institute fellows. the connections i made outside the region with like-minded leaders and organizations were incredible. sometimes when you live in small community and region you are insulated in this fishbowl. it really opened my eyes to the larger world and what that world is going to require of our students.
[don] the initial reaction from teachers was fairly positive because one of things we have seen in education is that initiatives come along, and then next fall rolls around and we forget about the last one and new one takes over. just the fact that i have been able to share with my faculty that this is not going away – next fall, guess what our initiative is going to be? we’re going to run everything through the lens of personalized learning.
[don] people are understanding that this is not going away, and that helps them move forward, because they’ve been burned it the past. that’s a message i’m trying to send. it has staying power because it matches our core beliefs, and it’s what’s best for students. we don’t have to keep swapping out fifteen different things year to year.
[dave] at the high school level, there was definitely some hesitation at first. they wanted to know what an end product would look like. they had a hard time envisioning it. we tried to show that first, there is not one picture of what this looks like, and second, just take a step, try something. each member of our personalized learning leadership team is taking a focus area – i’m focusing on flipping – and we model it for teachers. because everyone is working in different areas it’s giving us different pictures of what it could look like.
[dave] it also helps that we haven’t tried to do too much too soon. the rollout of common core and new assessments all happened so fast. people are gunshy, there’s a hesitation to try new things. we’ve taken it slow and have done surveys, newsletters, and lots of communication to let everyone know what we are doing, why we are doing it, and how it’s going to benefit their students.
[dave] i have absolutely seen more engagement than i thought was possible. there are a few students that always were the ones to sit back and were not as engaged as you would like them to be. i worried about them. in a large class setting you have everyone in the same place, and i worried when i split them off into individual tasks those less engaged would slip through the cracks. that’s actually not been the case. i’m not sure whether it’s more interesting to them, or they like that they have choice, or they feel that i am not wasting their time teaching them things they already know – but the engagement level has been much higher.
[don] if you really want this to work and go forward you have to be very active yourself. i haven’t missed a meeting, i communicate nonstop, i’m talking about it all the time, i’m out observing, i write about it. this isn’t something you should be delegating to someone else. there’s only one person that can remove the barriers, and that’s the superintendent. if you get too many levels of bureaucracy it could fail before it gets going.
[don] it’s nice to be part of something that has the momentum that you know is the right thing to do. for years education has gone through standardization – everyone has to do same thing same time, all time, every day. it feels like we’ve gotten some relief through this work where we understand that each student has different strengths, and we can give teachers freedom to be creative and innovative as opposed to following recipes. teachers went to school to become teachers, not readers of modules. teachers are having more freedom to be innovative.
[don] our enrollment challenge is not just about the instructional program, it’s about the economy in the region. however, two of my board members have already shared stories with me about families that have said they are moving to this area, and they chose to move because of our approach to personalized learning. additionally, there’s an uptick of people asking to enroll their students in marion if they pay tuition. i can’t say it’s because of personalized learning, but the timing seems odd. of course, we have a board policy against this, and i can’t say i support it, but it would be nice to be considered a destination school, not a school of exodus.
[don] i want our students to have full choice in opportunities when they leave. i don’t want them to be limited in what they can do, where go to college, what they can or can’t have. that’s the ultimate goal.
[dave] we want students to have opportunities and experiences so that they feel like they can compete with anyone, whether for job or college, and that marion students can’t say, “gee i wish i was at [name of neighboring affluent school],” but that the preparation they received was on par with anyone in the state.
syracuse, ny
“we went in kicking and screaming! we are believers now.” pam odom, principal
pamela odom, principal at grant middle school
marianne clark instructional coach at grant middle school
sharon archer, blended personalized learning coach at grant middle school
grant middle school, a school designated as persistently struggling, began planning for personalized learning in fall 2014 and began implementation soon after. after three years, the school’s nys ela and math proficiency scores rose eight and two percentage points, respectively, and the school saw passing rates above 90% on the algebra and living environment regents. additionally, behavior referrals decreased 57% in their first year of implementing personalized learning, and 23% in the second year. grant is no longer designated a persistently struggling school.
due to the initial success of personalized learning in 10 schools, syracuse expanded personalized learning to 22 schools in sy 2016-17.
[pam] we are the largest 6th through 8th grade middle school in the syracuse city school district. we have a 27% enl population and 18% of our students receive special education services. all of our students receive free lunch services. we were the only persistently struggling school in the syracuse city school district designated by the nysed in the 2014- 2015 school year.
[pam] [laughing] we went in kicking and screaming! we have now been part of bpl [blended personalized learning] for three years and have found it to be really transformational. we’ve seen an increase in student achievement and a decrease in our number of behavioral issues. we are believers now.
[pam] when we first came on board we just worried about the digital aspect, but that’s really just a small piece of what this is. understanding where individual students are struggling and making real time decisions to provide interventions has been huge for us.
[sharon] initially a lot of teachers thought, “oh we’ve done this before, it’s the same as using cooperative learning, just with a computer.” it’s taken a while to see it play out and see that it’s really an opportunity for students to interact with their own learning and having kids have more ownership and interest in their academic goals.
[pam] we were the only school in the district that was a persistently struggling school. we were at the bottom. the only direction we could have gone was up. we knew we needed to do something different. for us it was the perfect time to introduce bpl.
when we saw it was making a huge difference quickly, it was easier for more teachers to get on board. of all of the middle schools in the district, we went from the bottom to being the second highest, behind an application-based school. we attribute much of our success to personalized learning. consequently, we were able to lose the persistently struggling designation by the 2015-2016 school year.
we have four main initiatives: bpl station rotation model, avid schoolwide, data-driven instruction, and restorative practices. all four of these initiatives fit together to support students. for example, when the kids are in the collaboration station, they use avid strategies like cornell notes and socratic seminars and when they are in the teacher-led station, teachers are focused on individualized student interventions.
[pam] initially we were very worried about the whole launch of the digital component, leaving them free to work together. when you only have one teacher in a room that teacher is focused on the teacher-led station. we were afraid to let go. but what we’re finding is that giving students opportunities to develop their ability to collaborate in small groups and work independently on digital content at their instructional level translates into less off-task behavior. we are seeing a decrease in behavioral referrals. students are allowed to participate in academic conversations – skills that they need to be college and career ready. they are developing 21st century skills at a very early age, and that’s something that can’t be provided in a stand-and-lecture environment.
[sharon] there’s one teacher that has moved from going through the motions and thinking that this was group work to using a lot of real-time data in her classroom. she is always looking at her achieve3000 data. she has students flexibly grouped and her groups change often based on data. she asks students questions like, “what structure do you want to use in the collaboration station? do you want to jigsaw? think-pair-share?” the kids are partners with her in the classroom and they have a lot of input. she went from being hesitant to embracing use of data to inform instruction.
[marianne] we want our teachers to embrace the data cycle and we have been pushing that for a while. now, teachers are coming to me saying, “i did a pre-assessment, students are proficient at standards 4 and 5, and now we have to focus on 2 and 3.” they have completely taken ownership of the process.
[pam] we have one young lady, whom we initially thought traditional schooling was not going to be an option. we discovered that she really just has trouble sitting for extended periods of time. now, she can stand up, work on the computer, and receive individual attention from the teacher as needed or engage in one-on-one conversations. now, this child is in class and participating in her learning and thriving in our bpl station rotation model. she is able to have personal time with the teacher that she wasn’t getting before. those are things we didn’t anticipate happening which have really been a wonderful surprise and we’re grateful for that.
[sharon] about a month ago i was in a classroom helping a group in the collaborative station learn the jigsaw structure. maybe a week or two later, i was in a different classroom with the same group of students. they were assigned a collaboration task. one of the students raised his hand and asked, “miss do you know about jigsaw? it seems like this activity would go good with jigsaw.” i was blown away by his ability to advocate for his own learning style.
[pam] when doing walkthroughs, i’m seeing a lot of in-depth teaching and learning. it’s not surface-level stuff anymore. [laughing] i’m a principal in my 10th year and i am amazed at what i am seeing! kids having academic conversations without realizing they are talking about instruction. they’re saying, “i see i was struggling in this area and now i need more help,” or “i want to go on aleks, can you program this so i can get more help?” they are approaching teachers and advocating for themselves with statements such as, “i see i am struggling here.”
[pam] we are telling stories of triumph, but keep in mind that it has taken us three years on this journey. we are glad we stuck with it because there were times when we questioned resources, path, and the ability to succeed. in year 1, you will endure some bumps and bruises, but stick with it because you will see results. i think going and seeing it in action is important. we visited a model school in myrtle beach [horry county schools] and saw personalized learning in action. seeing a successful middle school has changed our perception of what blended learning could do for us. i want to make it clear – it’s not all about digital component. it’s about the individualized instruction that we provide for our students. we were paying so much attention to the digital aspect until we went down to myrtle beach. it was an eye opener.
[pam] we have actually had many schools come over and see our teachers and students in action. many of our high school colleagues have observed in bpl classrooms. we feel like we are preparing our kids for 21st century skills and we hope that the high schools will be able to continue our initiative. it’s still very humbling because we know how far we have come in such a short time and how quickly we could be at the bottom again. kudos to my staff – they have truly worked hard and they have genuinely bought into our personalized learning journey. they have seen the results. it’s not really hard to sell when they are seeing the bang for their buck.
ilion, ny
“it makes education exciting again.” dr. rich hughes, superintendent
in fall 2015, superintendent hughes was selected from a national pool to receive one of 10 lexington education leadership award fellowships which focus on developing district leaders of personalized learning. in spring 2017, central valley launched personalized learning in all grades and subjects.
we serve a little over 2,300 students. our district covers 54 square miles. we are mostly rural but our population is based in two towns, mohawk and ilion. prior to 2013 we were two separate districts, we merged spring 2013. this area of new york had a lot of factories back in the day along the mohawk river. the main employer now is remington arms gun manufacturer, which employs over 1,000 people. the air force base in rome closed, and a lot of companies have left the area. people drive to jobs in albany or utica. but besides remington there isn’t a large employer. it’s classic rustbelt. academically, by state or local measures, we are barely ahead of utica and they have challenges we don’t have with over 40 languages spoken and a large refugee population. we do have challenges of poverty. we are seeing a slow, downward trend in enrollment, although some of our neighbors have seen a larger drop. the last two years have been relatively steady for us.
personalized learning is buzzword, so it’s confusing to people. they end up thinking it’s something else to do, a new initiative. it’s just student-based learning focused on the needs of each child, providing them choice, and allowing for constant data feedback to both teachers and students to let them know how they are progressing. all it is is best teaching practices focused on each child. it doesn’t have a lot of mystery to me.
one of teachers said her most difficult issue to overcome was that she didn’t feel like she was teaching if she wasn’t in front of the classroom. she’s overcome that now, and the students in her class are constantly moving, talking, working on different activities. it’s no longer stand and deliver when i walk in that classroom. the teacher and students love it!
it really comes down to conversations that teachers are having. there’s so much that teachers and administrators have on their plate with changes in standards and schools being the go to for everything - not just for education but for all of societal problems and issues. to see the conversations that are going on and the work that they are doing tells me the decisions we made were the correct ones. i am no longer seeing what i would call the ‘classic classroom’ – some students that are right with the teacher; others who got it 10 minutes ago and want to keep going; others who are struggling and afraid to raise their hand because they don’t understand so they shut down or act out. in our personalized learning settings every kid is actively engaged. that’s why our kids, no matter what ability, are enjoying it. seeing that just reinforces why we’re doing what we’re doing. it makes education exciting again. not just the same old, “oh the test came out, the data says this, we have to fix this in curriculum next year.” not that model of going the same exact pace for every single kid.
absolutely. through the lexington education leadership award (lela), i was able to work with ken [eastwood] and amy [creeden] from middletown. lela helped give us a stronger base, and middletown is the star district in our state doing this work and they are only about 3 hours away. i know syracuse is doing some great things and they are one hour away. we are a bit of an island out here in central-eastern new york doing this work. i know we have colleagues that are interested in seeing how we are doing, and we’d welcome learning with them.
as a superintendent you don’t get to see as many of the ‘aha’ moments. as a chemistry teacher, i got to see students make the connection, like “oh that’s why it does what it does!” as a superintendent when you can see same kind of moments with teachers, administrators, and parents, those are the things that keep you getting up every morning. when the people who are educating your students are having ‘aha’ moments, you know the kids are going to benefit.
瑞士vs喀麦隆亚盘赔率 works with individual districts to develop and manage a district personalized learning strategy, design, and support plan. our goal is to create and refine personalized learning environments that nurture the potential of every student. in the “personal trainer” model, 瑞士vs喀麦隆亚盘赔率 works closely with both district and school leadership teams. participating new york districts central valley school district, dundee csd, geneva csd, enlarged city school district of middletown, marion csd, north rose-wolcott csd, romulus csd, waterloo csd
the consortium approach drives to the same outcomes as the personal trainer model, but requires a level of collaboration across districts. though much of the work is individualized for each district, it is accomplished through a series of group working sessions. these touchpoints build the capacity of the districts, and also enable 瑞士vs喀麦隆亚盘赔率 to pass along cost savings to each participant. in the consortium model, 瑞士vs喀麦隆亚盘赔率 works closely with the consortium leadership team from each district during workshops delivered at a central locaiton. district leadership teams then “turnkey” the workshops back at their own districts, including at the school level. participating new york districts clyde-savannah csd, eden csd, erie-2 chautauqua-cattaraugus boces, gananda csd, frewsburg csd, pine valley csd, penn yan csd, red creek csd, sodus csd, williamson csd, wayne finger-lakes boces
the lexington education leadership award (lela) fellowship is sponsored by the lexington institute, a non-profit public policy think tank focused on education reform. the 6-month program is designed to expose district superintendents to personalized learning and facilitate the first steps to implementation. the small group of ten lela fellows participate in an immersive experience to support their vision creation for personalized learningand provide them with resources to create a strategic framework for implementation. since 2015, the lela fellowship has supported three cohorts of 10 leaders across 19 states. participating new york districts central valley school district, marion csd
