The Quest to Personalize Public School Education
School of One is a first-of-its-kind summer school pilot program that uses technology to provide students with highly individualized and innovative classroom instruction. The pilot program combines traditional teacher-led instruction, independent learning, one-on-one tutoring and also the use of virtual tutors.
The pilot program is part of NYC21C, a research and development project launched at the NYC iSchool in spring 2009. The goal is to innovate instructional practices to and better prepare students for careers in the 21st century.The two-month pilot program is being held in the summer school of M.S. 131 on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
Current educational methods push groups of students through twelve years of school punctuated with high stake tests and little one-on-one attention. All students are expected to learn the same amount of material in the same amount of time. This type of instruction is based on the assumption that every student benefits equally from the same pedagogy methods.
However, the School of One pilot program is tailored to meet the unique educational needs of each student. Each student receives individualized plans about their education and lessons are altered accordingly.
Arthur E. Levin Arthur E. Levin writes "In the years to come, we will be challenged to rebuild our schools to reflect these realities, largely because our information economy, which focuses on achieving common outcomes rather than seeking common processes, demands it. Our schools will shift their attention from teaching to learning, time-based to outcome-based education, and mass instruction to individualized instruction."
The reasons that students need individual education plans varies widely. The United States is becoming more diverse and students come from widely different socioeconomic backgrounds. Many students come from non-native speaking families. Regardless even of these factors, no two people learn in exactly the same way.
For example, while one person might be a visual learner another might learn better through verbal instruction. Also no matter what their learning style of background every student must be familiar with information technology.
Personally I found the one-size-fits-all style of education to be extremely frustrating throughout my time in public school. In a large class I often found it difficult to focus on the tasks at hand and complete assignments. The assembly line style of lecture and practice did not satisfy my need for more interactive methods of learning.
I was always a creative person and did very well in art contests, creative writing and music. Although my public school experience in the Santa Monica-Malibu district was fair, in retrospect I think I would have been much more engaged in my education if my family had the means to send me to a smaller, more personalized school like Crossroads .
My public school education was largely impersonal. There were over three thousand students in my high school. At lunch they locked the gates like it was a prison and not a high school. There were some notable and dedicated public school teachers at my school but they were so overwhelmed with the amount of students in their charge they had limited capacities for outreach.
The few bright spots in my public school education were the handful of classes and programs that required more field trips and hands-on labs and less recitation and numeric testing.
I loved my middle school science magnet cohort because we got to go camping several times a year and had generally more bright students involved. I ended up making some good friends. I even considered going into the natural sciences for a short while (until AP Bio in high school).
Another bright spot was geometry in tenth grade. I always had so much trouble with math. Although the way we learned geometry was very different. The course was structured in an experimental method that asked us to work in small groups instead of merely as individuals. We used props to visualize the isoceles triangle and the rhombus. As a visual person this really helped me grasp the concepts.
On the other hand, my AP English and History courses seemed to focus entirely on testing and memorization. For AP US history I spend four evenings a week making study guides and memorizing names so I could get a B in the class.
None of that even mattered though in the long run. I would have preferred something more innovative, especially in regards to something as fascinating as history.
English was no better. Although the level of discussion was at a higher level. In tenth grade AP English I was presented with a horrible list of names and phrases from famous classical poems. Eventually I learned to stop punishing myself with analytical courses and stick to the topics I loved: modern American literature seminars and poetry.
Luckily, I ended up at the Johnston Center for Integrative Studies for college. Instead of having a specific list of requirements to meet for graduation I tailored my own program with the help of some fantastic faculty members. In many ways my undergraduate education adhered to many of the ame principles in the School of One experiment.
While there was more freedom to approach our education in a unique way the general expectation of our performance was higher because our progress was based on our individual progress as students rather than our test scores. In fact: letter grades were a moot point since we received hand written evaluations from our instructors.
Once I was able to let my obsession with grades go my school work was much better. I was able to discover what where my interests really lay and think about the careers that I was best suited for.
The School of One pilot project is an important mark in the course of education reform. It is my hope that in time more working and middle class students who attend public school can have their progress measured on principles other than their test scores.
It is one thing to expect a different kind of education in a private liberal arts college but it is quite another to give that opportunity to the children who could advantage from such the opportunity earlier in life.
- Tawny Sverdlin's blog
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