Dreaming Your Dream School: Personalized Learning Takes Flight

By Dennis Deets

Suppose you are a 9^th grader. Horror of horrors. You wake up at 9:30am. You are a growing teen and need a lot of sleep. You eat and log into school. You see you have some options. Among your options, you can work on a science project that you and some friends are working on at the local animal shelter. You are developing skills addressed in the 9^th grade Natural Selection and Adaptations section of the Next Generation Science Standards. You mark on a Google form that you would like to meet with your team any time after 1:00pm at the shelter. You also see that your 11^th grade CCSS math assignment includes finding the mass and density of the local mountain that is used by everyone as a dog park.  But really, this is an ancillary math project designed to address some of the content standards. Your real math work involves mastering the Standards for Mathematical practice through your work in the program languages C++ and Python.

When working with your counselor, you have determined that by focusing on game design, you could demonstrate mastery of a number of the state-expected standards while pursuing something that interested you now.  And because your parents want you to think about your future, your solution is to tell them that you are going to make a fortune designing computer games.

Of course they want you to be a doctor.  Fortunately the counselor explained that by pursuing game design now, you would learn all of the things you need to get into college where later you might decide to pursue biology and pre-med. Maybe, but more likely a life at Blizzard is the place for you. You notice that your English teacher has left you a note that you need to finish your language conventions proficiency assessment. (She uses the word assessment; she means test)  So you plan. You need help with that exam. Infinitives and gerunds are still baffling. You have done all of the online tutorials and you still don’t really get it.  Finally, you have swim practice with the club team at 5:00pm.

You figure you can head in to school and meet with one of the peer tutors for help before the grammar test. You volunteer as a math tutor on Thursdays from 10am to noon as part of your community service hours, so you might as well take advantage of someone who knows the grammar stuff.  You see that the three others on your science team have also completed the Google form.  You have shared time at the animal shelter from 1:30 to 4pm. You send to your advising teacher your schedule for the day:

• 10:30am to 11:30am: work with grammar tutor at school. (You will take the test if the tutor thinks you are ready for it.)
• 11:30am to 1:00pm: hike up Mt Pembroke and collect measurements. (Your math teacher is all about recording and discussing measurement error.)
• 1:30pm to 4:00pm: work at the animal shelter.

After dinner and swim practice, you will work on my medieval literature and gaming blog.  And, oh ya, you will turn in your C++ Pong program to your tutor next Monday.

Ten minutes later, you get a text stating that your day has been approved and that your language assessment needs to be passed before Friday. This is your teacher’s code for saying you may need to spend more time with the grammar tutor and less time on Mt. Pembroke.

You text your friends to see if any of them want to do the math field work with you. You are using your blog in partial demonstration of the CCSS 9^th grade Writing and Speaking & Listening ELA standards.

Everyone is required to take one class on the old-fashioned semester system. (Some things never die.)  This allows teachers to organize group projects. Your course this year is science. In all of your other classes, you can either join the semester class with your peers or you can take the course at your own pace. You are responsible for finishing all of the 9^th grade content by the end of 9^th grade.  (There are exceptions to this, but schools are still not comfortable saying that it takes some people longer to learn things than others.)  But you can work ahead if you like. If you are struggling in areas, there are lots of support opportunities in place to help you learn skills and master concepts. The school has figured out, using computer adaptive testing and lots of portfolio options, how to determine whether or not you are competent at certain skills like analyzing arguments and modeling linear growth.  So, you do not need to demonstrate skills over and over again in each of your classes.

Furthermore, you will be able to demonstrate some subject area standards, for example, those pertaining to European history, through activities like your blog on medieval literature and gaming. Finally, all students are allowed to petition out of courses in which they have already mastered the content.  You have petitioned out of 9^th and 10^th grade math and are now working on Math 3. Next year you will be able to start on calculus or statistics and you will be able to work on college math courses by the time you are in 11^th grade. (By then you hope to have an internship with a game design company, but you are not really sharing that plan with your parents yet.)

Riverside Unified School District is a ways away from making this personalized learning high school a reality. But we are a lot closer than we were a year or two ago. Many sites in RUSD have begun implementing one or more aspects of personalized learning into their educational program. There are as many different definitions of Personalized Learning as there are persons learning.  But the main tenants include:

• Students actively planning their own learning experiences (often termed ‘agency’).
• Students having flexibility to pursue individual academic and career interests.
• Students learning and progressing through content at their own pace – often in blended learning environments.
• Student progression based on competency (as opposed to seat time).
• Students being supported by the community at large (and not just the school site).

This past fall, RUSD was awarded a planning grant to submit a Personalized Learning proposal.  It is our hope that we can secure the next round of grants providing funding through 2025 to fully implement their vision of a personalized learning school.

About the Author:

Dennis Deets is the Director of the Educational Options Center in the Riverside Unified School District, which includes the Riverside Virtual School. Before moving to the EOC last month, he was the Statewide CTAP Chair. He has worked in the education field for the past 28 years. Dennis worked as a high school principal and high school math teacher.  When not working on online education, Dennis spends his time reading, swimming and walking his dogs.  He can be reached at dennisdeets@gmail.com.