Module 2: VI.) Stories of Inspiration

Designing a more student centered learning experience clearly takes a lot of thoughtful planning and effort. But think about how exciting this is for students and teachers. If we get this right, the three schools we're profiling are already having some early successes. A moment I'll never forget in a blended learning classroom is I was in a boob group of children and I randomly sat down next to one and I said, how do you like being in this environment where you get to go at your own pace? And the student looked at me and he said, you'll never know this, but I'm a special education student. I have an individualized education plan. And this is the first time I've never felt different. And when you. We always talk about what modifications, what supports do we need for special education students. And it turned out when we handed, we put this kid in control of his modifications, in control of the things that he needed, needed to help him learn. He knew exactly what to do with them. And so I think part of agency is not just unleashing the great learner who was held back and is going to do great things, but it's also for the students who are really, really brilliant, but for some reason they don't have the tools and resources available to them. And just seeing what happens when you put them in control. And really, it's astounding. Kids constantly amaze me in these environments and it's often the students you least expected.

I think the blended learning model benefits all the students, but one student in particular that comes to my mind is Orlando, who's actually one of our higher students, but he's also an El. So the fact that we have lots of partner talking, he's actually benefiting just by having that oral language and being able to get that out. And also his partner's benefiting because Orlando is a relatively high student, but then also he's able to go off into the computer lab and be challenged. And that's one part that I really like, is that it's not just for the lower kids, not for the intervention, it's not for the remediation. It works for that, but it does also work for challenging the students that are ready to take on those harder concepts.

My background is special education. One of the reasons I was interested in founding this school is with those types of kids in mind, those kids who kind of are outside the mainstream. When we got some of the, some of those students at our school, when we started this school, some of them were from special day class kids with autism. We have a student who's educably mentally retarded. And from the time they came to us to now, they are doing amazing. So for example, a little boy with autism who was, you know, making noises and just growling and doing a lot of self stimming, he is now speaking in complete sentences, he is doing writing. I mean I can get choked up now because it's just he's our poster child for why this school works. He is thriving. The teachers are just amazed by his abilities that were he would have never had a chance except for what was created by this school. And also the buy in that the teachers have that those students belong to all of us and they deserve a great education too. So for me, seeing those students succeeding so much more than I know from my background that they would have been doing to what they're doing now has just been.

The blended learning model is great for all kids. But in particular I can think of one student that I have. His name is Ashton and he was actually born with cerebral palsy. At any other school this boy would not be sitting with the rest of his class. And he is in here. And the fact that he has hand gesture to do it, the fact that I can do one on one intervention with him, the fact that he's in the computer lab getting his individual leveled reading, he's thriving.

Especially with students coming right out of fifth grade. They are, you know, a lot of them are very used to having that one teacher they're with all day and who is kind of like their mom or their dad. They just know really well and who some of them are clearly used to like asking for everything. Like we have definitely some kids who you can tell got to a place where they were not comfortable proceeding with anything until they'd asked about seven questions of the teacher. And it was a struggle for them at first. Like they would sit down and you could just see them kind of sit down, like, oh man, I don't even know where to begin here. And they start asking all their questions and we'd have to like, I'm not going to answer any more of your questions. You got to sit there and figure it out. Everything you need is right there. Like you can do this. And it's taken a lot of work for them but you know, we're starting to see little like bit by bit they're kind of figuring it out and they're getting better with it, but it's not easy. It takes a lot of work for them. But it's worth it because you know that that's, you know More than any science they could learn, more than any English they could learn. That's going to help them be so much more successful in life.

I had a student named Oscar last year who came in from another school for the first time. He came in at the beginning of the year, was a full year behind grade level in reading, had great conceptual understanding of math, but struggled with the implementation and putting things on paper carefully. The blended learning model with small group instruction worked beautifully for Oscar. He found the technology really motivating in itself because he was able to work at his own pace. Almost everything he interacted with was right at his level. Even though he wasn't at the same level as the rest of the students. He was able to interact with math material, with reading material right at his level, which enabled him to grow even more quickly. His typing skills were not there at the beginning of the year, but by the end of the year, I was getting almost daily emails from him on Achieve 3000 telling me about everything from his opinion on the article that he read to the staring game that he had in the car with his brother that morning. So he was using the technology and it was giving him a lot of voice and helping him to grow. It was incredibly powerful to watch.

So in particular, I think of a student like Aiden A. Aden A. Is introverted. He just is not the most confident speaker. But he loves technology, he loves blended learning, and he becomes and he became a leader within his peers with blended learning in a way he didn't. Wasn't able to do maybe within direct instruction. So I think that blended learning is a way for students to become leaders because it's sometimes that's what they need. They like the technology, they're able to express themselves in a way they hadn't before.

And I had a student named Christian last year who was already going above and beyond in everything in the math curriculum. Curriculum and the math adaptive learning program we had last year, he was able to go at his own pace. By the end of the year, he had already in the adaptive learning program, had already gone through all of the third grade math standards. So when he took the map test at the end of the year, which tests common core standards, he achieved at a really high level because even content that we hadn't gotten to yet in our second grade curriculum, he had had exposure to through this program. So he was able to achieve at even higher levels because of.