Leveraging Technology for High School Reform Initiatives

Leveraging Technology for High School Reform Initiatives Published by PLATO Learning, Inc. 10801 Nesbitt Avenue South Bloomington, MN 55437 800.44.PLATO Real learning. Real results. ™ Executive Summary There is increasing interest in high school reform among governors and education leaders. A half century ago, a consensus emerged surrounding the comprehensive high school as the preferred model for secondary education. Now that model is being challenged. It is unlikely that a single new preferred model will emerge. Instead, leaders are being encouraged to build a portfolio of excellent high schools, incorporating a wide range of innovations. Eleven key strategic “building blocks” for innovation are identified, which may be applied in combination for a wide range of new high schools. Technology plays a key leveraging role in these strategies. Through appropriate use of technology, it is possible to create flexibility of cost, time, and space for staff and students by providing effective new ways to instruct and assess, and—perhaps most important—make detailed information needed for data-driven continuous improvement easily available. Technology can also help bring change initiatives “to scale” at the district-wide and state-wide level, by enabling new strategies for professional development integrated with daily work and by providing detailed and up-to-date information on standards, curriculum, instructional resources, and assessment. The 11 “building block” strategies are listed below, with examples of technology applications that can support each of the strategies: I Small schools Decentralized resources Differentiated instruction On-demand, personalized formative assessment Flexible scheduling and staffing I Aligned curricula K–16 Curriculum alignment technologies Online retrieval of standards-relevant curriculum plans I Integrated governance K–16 Data interchange K–16 Coordinated assessment systems and standards I Higher, world-class curriculum standards Standards implementation support systems Embedded professional development I Growth in literacy and language proficiency Direct online instruction in reading and writing Improved assessment and tracking of language skills ESL and special needs interventions 1 I Dropout prevention and recovery Remedial instruction, especially in intermediate and advanced reasoning/inference skills and conceptual understanding Detailed diagnostics and targeted mini-lessons Motivational strategies I Meaningful benchmarks Standards implementation support systems Technology as a tool for meaningful learning tasks Balance of online conventional and performance-based assessment I Accountability Continuous assessment Data-driven decision making I Excellent teachers and principals Online communities of practice and mentoring Scaffolded instructional resources available on demand Combination of targeted workshops, mentoring, and online coaching I Personalization Differentiated instruction using mastery Modular, online direct instruction, with teachers in “guide on the side” role Automated teaching and administrative tasks to free professionals for “high touch” environments I Intensive help for the lowest-performing high schools Continuous improvement processes which are based on formative assessment and data-driven decision making Continuous professional development combining online communities of practice and in-person consultation Building community demand for change among parents, communities, and at the state level. 2 Introduction It may be that the comprehensive high school is not the right solution for the 21st century. Consensus is growing that there is a mismatch between the needs of today’s adolescent learners and the education most of them receive. The symptoms of the mismatch are widely recognized: High school achievement has barely budged over the last decade. Just 36 percent of seniors are “proficient” in reading, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, and only 17 percent are proficient in mathematics. Near the end of high school, AfricanAmerican and Latino students have reading skills virtually the same as those of white 8th graders. Most troubling, up to 30 percent of high school freshmen never earn a standard diploma—and in some urban districts, more than half of 9th graders leave before their senior year. Of those who graduate and go on to college, more than half are forced to take remedial courses. And more than one-fourth of those who enter four-year colleges and nearly half of those who enroll in two-year colleges never return for a second year. All these problems are worse for poor and minority students. Moreover, ask most students about their high school experience and the 1 Olson, L. “Calls for Revamping High Schools Intensify.” Education Week, January 26, 2005. answer comes back: Boring, boring, boring. A 2003 study by the National Research Council found that, by the time many teenagers reach high school, they often lack any sense of purpose or connection with what they are doing in the classroom.1 Post-secondary education, academic or technical, is no longer optional for a career with enough earning power to support a family. Roughly 60 percent of today’s jobs require such training, and the percentage is expected to increase.2 In this context, the small proportion of high school students who successfully complete postsecondary study is particularly alarming. The consequences for our international competitiveness are sobering. In a recent address, Susan Sclafani, assistant secretary, Office of Vocational and Adult Education, pointed out: We may have the best-educated 55 to 64 year olds in the world, but our education edge has eroded or disappeared among younger generations. We rank number one in the world in the percentage of 55 to 64 year olds who have completed secondary and post-secondary education. Among 25 to 34 year olds, however, we rank number eight in secondary completion and are tied with Japan at number three in post-secondary completion. The performance of our middle and high school students on international academic assessments is mediocre. However, we still lead in the world in the amount we spend per pupil at every level of our educational system.3 2 Carnevale, A. and Desrochers, D. (2004) Standards for What? The Economic Roots of K-16 Reform. Washington, D.C.: Educational Testing Service. 3 Scafani, Susan (2005), Statement accompanying Fiscal Year 2005 Budget Request for Vocational and Adult Education Programs.Washington, D.C.: US Department of Education. 3 The Causes There is less consensus over the causes of these symptoms, but among those most commonly identified in recent policy studies are: I Low expectations We can no longer hide behind the fiction that a high level of achievement is required only of the minority of “college prep” students. Everyone needs it, regardless of the path to further learning and career. Many state exit exams reflect 10th grade curriculum standards, not 12th grade. Furthermore, in many states the standards themselves are well below levels required for success in college or technical school, below those of the NAEP’s definition of “proficient,” and below those of many developed and developing countries—our competitors in the global economy. And there is still considerable variation between states in what is required to graduate from high school.4 Furthermore, tests and curricula often do not adequately stress high-level critical thinking, fluency, conceptual understanding, analysis, and application.5 When standards define only the “floor” of educational minimums, they can draw the focus away from the “ceiling” of what is really needed. 4 Barth, P. (2003), “A Common Core Curriculum for the New Century” Thinking K-16, 7, 1,Winter, pp. 3-19. Washington, D.C.:The Education Trust. 5 National Research Council Institute of Medicine (2003) Engaging Schools: Fostering High School Students’ Motivation to Learn.Washington, D.C.: The National Academies Press. I Weak curricula Critics argue for a rigorous core curriculum for all, which provides preparation for post-secondary work. Graduation requirements stated in terms of Carnegie Units (contact hours or semesters) rather than competencies contribute to the lack of a widely accepted meaning for the high school diploma. Routing some students through a “general education” track or informal tracking to less-demanding electives is another part of the problem. An example frequently cited is that scientific and technical careers assume proficiency in Algebra II, yet many states do not require it; many students are instead allowed to end their math education with courses such as “consumer math.” This leads to the criticism that the common American definition of mathematics curricula is broader but shallower than those of our international competitors.6 Another example frequently cited is the failure of the majority of secondary students to advance their reading comprehension level. Only 36 percent of high school seniors score as “proficient” on the NAEP—far fewer than the percent who graduate. Seventy percent of U.S. middle and high school students require differentiated reading instruction targeted to their individual strengths and weaknesses, including native English speakers and LEP students.7 6 The American Diploma Project (2004) Ready or Not: Creating a High School Diploma That Counts. Washington, D.C.: Achieve, Inc. 7 Alliance for Excellent Education (2004), Reading Next A Vision for Action and Research in Middle and High School Literacy: A Report to Carnegie Corporation of New York. New York: Carnegie Corporation of New York. 4 I Troubled 8 high schools DTI Associates (2004) “Turning Around Low-Performing High Schools.” Issue Paper for The High School Leadership Summit.Washington, D.C.: US Department of Education. 9 A recent federally funded study estimated that 1,000 to 2,000 high schools (6 to 12 percent) promoted fewer than 60 percent of their students to 12th grade on time.8 In a great many more schools, aggressive intervention is needed for at-risk and underperforming students, particularly in reading, language arts, and mathematics. I Somerville, J. and Yi,Y. (2002) Aligning Poor alignment of secondary and post-secondary curricula Post-secondary institutions vary widely in their expectations of entering students, and almost all states have obvious mismatches between their high school graduation requirements and their own state institutions’ college admissions requirements.9 This misalignment is almost certainly a factor in the high dropout rate among freshmen in community colleges and four-year institutions, as well as the large number of entering post-secondary students in need of developmental studies. K-12 and Postsecondary Expectations: State Policy in Transition.Washington, D.C.: National Association of System Heads. Quoted in Barth, P., op.cit. 10 National Research Council (2003), op.cit. I Impersonal learning environments Large “factory” schools, little individualization, passive instruction, and weak guidance and counseling make it difficult for many adolescents to feel engaged with their educational experiences.10 5 Solution Strategies: Building Blocks for 21st Century High Schools For over 50 years, the comprehensive high school has been the primary strategy to meet the needs of the “industrial age” economy. Now, with the transition to the “information age” economy well under way, no similarly unified vision of the 21st century high school seems likely to emerge. Instead, policy leaders at both the federal and state levels assert that there is no “one best way,” and that the goal should be to create a portfolio of great high schools11 which assemble in different ways with avariety of “best practices” and resources to meet the varying needs of a heterogeneous population of students who pursue a variety of goals. The shape of high schools in the portfolio will necessarily reflect the values of the nation and the community as much as the research on “best practices” in schools. 12 11 Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (2005) Creating a Portfolio of Great High Schools. Seattle,WA: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. 12 Ferrero, D.J. (2005) “Pathways to Education leaders should use the many solution strategies proposed for high school reform as “building blocks” which they can select, adapt, and combine in a variety of ways to meet the varied needs of their states and communities. Among the most widely recommended strategies are: Reform: Start With Values.” Educational Leadership, 62, 5, February.Washington, D.C.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, pp. 8-14. I Small schools The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is leading a national initiative to break up the large comprehensive high schools into smaller schools with enrollment in the range of 100 per grade. Foundation materials emphasize that it is rare simply to scale down a traditional comprehensive high school; instead, the intent is to create schools with dramatically different focus (often theme-based), culture and identity, and instructional practices (often student-centered), so the range of attractive options available to each student increases. I Aligned curricula from Elementary through PostSecondary (K–16 Education) The Education Trust is among those promoting a new core curriculum for all students, which will assure that students don’t “fall thorough the cracks” in the transition into secondary school and again into postsecondary education. Post-secondary remediation (developmental studies) should be unnecessary—if the system works well. Note that post-secondary education includes 2- and 4-year colleges as well as technical schools. I Improved integration of K–12 and Post-Secondary governance The National Governors Association has recognized that planning and implementing the aligned curricula will require streamlined governance practices such as common strategic planning, common record keeping and data interchange, uniform admission standards built around improved secondary-level standards and tests, and greater operational integration. 6 I Higher, world-class curriculum standards There are frequent calls for deeper and more demanding curricula with advanced coursework in grades 11 and 12 as the core curriculum for all students, whether their goal is post-secondary academic or technical education. For example, greatest attention by the American Diploma Project has been given to English, mathematics, workplace tasks, and post-secondary assignments. Others have recognized the value of wider use of Advanced Placement (AP) coursework, International Baccalaureate (IB) curricula, and “2 plus 2” programs for college credit earned in high school. Also relevant are calls by the National Academies and others for greater emphasis in curriculum and assessment on conceptual understanding and analytical skills, which students find both challenging and motivating. I Literacy and language Many high school students don’t adequately grow their reading and writing skills in their secondary education. Consequently, The National High School Alliance argues that literacy and language needs to be a priority for any curriculum, including direct instruction in reading comprehension (now rare beyond the elementary level) and systematic writing skill development. I Dropout prevention and recovery In an ideal system, special programs for dropout prevention and recovery would be unnecessary. However, the National High School Alliance points out that since the evidence demonstrates that we have left many behind and continue to do so, aggressive interventions are needed at the secondary and post-secondary levels. I Meaningful benchmarks The revised curriculum standards need to be accompanied by revised and more rigorous exit exams and other assessments that reflect the demands of college and the workplace. Examples are available from the National Governors Association. I Accountability Secondary schools succeed when their graduates succeed at the postsecondary level (not just college or technical school admission). Accountability standards need to be extended to bridge the gap from secondary to post-secondary. Examples are available from the National Governors Association. 7 I Excellent teachers and principals The National Governors Association, the U.S. Department of Education, and many policy studies on school improvement recognize that reforms are impossible without highly qualified teachers and excellent leadership. There are particular challenges associated with small learning communities that often place an emphasis on new skills of collaborative teaching and learning and cross-disciplinary work. I Personalization The Gates Foundation and other experts have a growing appreciation of the importance of strong and personal student-teacher relationships, supported by strong counseling and integrated social services interventions. In this “high-touch” culture, every student should get an individualized learning plan (ILP), allowing students to see the relationship between their personal goals and those of their learning activities, resulting in personal engagement and motivation. I Intensive help for the lowest-performing High Schools A study by the Aspen Institute, studies by the Southern Regional Education Board’s High Schools That Work project, and policy recommendations by the National Governors Association, emphasize that underperforming high schools need a coordinated combination of interventions. Interventions may include design-based assistance, professional development for teachers and leadership, aggressive dropout prevention, and intensive remediation for students, breakup of the schools into smaller learning communities, mobilization of the community with a focus on at-risk youth, strengthened academic counseling, integrated social service interventions, and adequate finance of change initiatives over a sustained period. I Build community demand for change There is a paradox in political support for high school reform. The U.S. Department of Education and many policy studies have noted that while the public’s general confidence in secondary education is only modest, confidence in local schools is typically much higher. This may reflect ignorance of the need, complacency or apathy, but it will surely stifle change initiatives. Public leadership is needed to build demand for the necessary changes, and parents need timely and detailed information on how their children are progressing toward world-class standards. 8 These are among the strategies most commonly advocated for secondary school reform. Any state or local change effort will combine a number of them. The challenges associated with each of these change strategies are great enough when they are used alone. The challenges only increase in size and complexity when the strategies are combined into practical change plans, then brought “to scale” across an entire school district or state. Technology can be used to leverage a number of innovations in support of these strategies. The next section will present some examples. 9 Using Technology as a Lever for Change The “building block” strategies for secondary school reform listed above encompass a great many alternative change initiatives. In many of these initiatives, technology can play an important leveraging role to improve effectiveness, increase efficiency, strengthen integration and information sharing, power new intervention strategies, increase the reach of educational services, and drive change “to scale.” This section identifies initiatives often undertaken to implement each of the “building blocks” and gives examples of how technology can help. An Integrated Middle and High School Math Curriculum in a Small School—Waialua High and Intermediate School Waialua, Hawaii –718 students –51 percent free and reduced lunch –36 percent Filipino, 26 percent Hawaiian, 14 percent Japanese, 12 percent Caucasian Waialua High and Intermediate School officials saw a significant need to improve the mathematics academic achievement for their student body, grades 7–12. “Students come into the secondary school with many gaps in their knowledge,” said Aloha Coleman, principal at Waialua.“We needed to be able to identify those gaps and reach the students with appropriate instruction.” They decided on a technology intervention for two primary reasons—students are very used to interacting with technology so they are comfortable receiving instruction through that medium and it allows for more individualization than other instructional methods. Waialua decided that PLATO® Instructional Solutions would best help them meet their achievement goals. Small schools and personalization Research supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation defines small schools as having no more than 100 students per grade and distinguishes three types of small high schools—traditional (often stressing college prep for all students), theme-based (such as schools emphasizing science and technology or the arts), and student-centered (stressing individualized learning plans and often focused on dropout prevention and at-risk youth). The schools may be placed inside remodeled buildings originally built for large comprehensive high schools, or they may be situated around the community in a variety of repurposed buildings, often close to a key thematic resource (such as a performing arts, museum, or technology center) or within easy reach of the student population (near where they live or work). Decentralized Resources. The case for the traditional comprehensive high school was based in large part on the efficiencies of providing specialized resources at large central campuses. But centralization is no longer an absolute requirement. Technology makes it possible to provide many specialized resources in a decentralized network of small schools. Examples include: I Online libraries and web-based information resources I Science simulations, which reduce the need for costly science lab equipment and supplies while increasing access and safety. I Involvement of community, regional, national, and international resources, such as online “expert faculty in residence,” counseling, mentoring and career trial programs, “virtual field trips” or “cultural exchanges,” and collaborative projects with other classes and individual students anywhere in the world. I Online virtual high school courses, which can be offered “off cycle” and for remediation and review or to facilitate accessibility, often under the supervision of an on- and/or off-site master teacher. I Online specialized and college-level courses for Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB). Waialua Model (Cyclical) 1.Teacher instructs 2. Learning assessed 3. PLATO math lesson prescribed 4. Students work in math lab 5.Teachers monitor progress 6. Evaluation and Adjustment continued on page 11 10 Waialua story continued The school decided that intermittent training would best serve their teachers, so the schedule included teacher training before the implementation, support as they got started in November, and then continued training throughout the year as the teachers used the product and integrated it into their instruction. Achieving Results Using this model for only one year, Waialua has already seen dramatic test score improvements on both PLATO pre- and post-assessments and state-mandated exams. “The impact of PLATO Learning at our school is showing up in our test scores,” said Coleman. Differentiated Instruction. In any learning environment, the scarcest and highest-value resource is the teacher’s time. In a small, decentralized and personalized school, a great deal of differentiated instruction is needed. Whether or not the differentiation is formalized in individual learning plans (ILPs), small schools need to be flexible. The differentiation is likely to span a very broad range of skill levels, from remedial to advanced. Furthermore, it is often desirable for each student to work at his or her own pace in a success-oriented environment that assures both full mastery and adequate rate of progress toward standards. In a small school, this broad range of needs inevitably means that teachers need to be able to spend a great deal of time working with individuals and fluid, small groups of students who come together around a particular learning task; traditional tracking is both ineffective and infeasible. Working in this way requires new teaching skills and can create an overwhelming work load, even for expert teachers. Instructional management technology can help by automatically tracking, reporting on, and managing the daily progress of each student, making sure that no one is left to “fall through the cracks.” In addition, technology-based instruction can take on the burden of some teaching tasks, freeing teachers to spend more time on the teaching tasks only humans can do. Thus, “high tech” facilitates “high touch.” On-demand, Personalized Formative Assessment. Annual or triennial assessments are designed for accountability. They do not provide the timely, granular information on achievement that teachers need to make decisions about the specific instruction each student needs. At the same time, the decentralization and personalization of the system intensifies the need for high-quality information to administrators and parents about adequate progress toward curriculum standards. In small schools, assessment systems need to be as personalized as the curriculum. Teachers need to be able to assess students frequently, on demand, on what their specific personal learning “These results show that schools can go from the training stage into implementation and realize results in one year’s time,” said Robinson. “ I find this a key benefit to the way PLATO Learning has developed their product and their training program.” goals require, and with detailed and timely reporting of results. Accomplishing this degree of personalized assessment by conventional paper-based means is cost-prohibitive. Online assessment, by contrast, provides a number of powerful strategies that allow each student to receive a unique test, on demand, with near real-time reporting of results and interpretations for teachers, administrators, and parents. Flexible Scheduling and Staffing. Using technology for specific learning and assessment tasks can help create options for innovative scheduling and staffing of small high schools. For example, highly qualified master teachers could create and manage teaching of curricula but need not necessarily be physically present at all times when the students are studying. Instead, direct supervision could be done by various levels of paraprofessionals, apprentice teachers, or assistants. 11 Because it costs no more to make technology continuously available, scheduling can be flexible, with options for extended-day and week. The uniform class period demarcated by bells can be replaced by a much more flexible, student-, task- or project-centered time schedule. Aligned curricula for K–16 The purpose of curriculum alignment is easy to understand—we want an orderly progression of knowledge and skill development without gaps from kindergarten through post-secondary education. But high-quality, aligned curricula are extremely difficult to design and implement. In an aligned curriculum: I Careful attention must be paid to what is taught and what prior knowledge is assumed, so there are no gaps at each level and for each skill. I Learning outcomes with performance standards must be clearly specified at each level. I Learning activities must match the outcomes in terms of topic, cognitive process type, and cognitive level. I Assessment activities must match outcomes and learning activities in terms of topic, depth, cognitive process type, and cognitive level. I Learner-appropriate learning resources must be selected to support teaching and learning of every learning outcome. In a complete K–16 curriculum, this amounts to literally tens of thousands of discrete alignment decisions. Furthermore, since curriculum standards, courses, learning activities, resources, and assessment components change continuously, a fully-aligned curriculum requires frequent updates. If the alignment is to be K–16, professionals from elementary, middle school, high school, and post-secondary institutions must maintain communication about the alignment and retain the commitment and discipline to use it in their daily teaching. Across the education enterprise, standards from many states and postsecondary institutions need to be coordinated. The sheer scope of this task is overwhelming. Large-scale databases designed to manage curriculum alignment can help. Using such systems, it takes only a few seconds to align all state and national curriculum standards and tests with local curriculum resources, generate standards-aligned assessments, and retrieve standards-aligned lesson plans that employ locally available resources and have been locally-developed or adapted and approved. The same upto-date information is always available to each professional using the system, ensuring consistency. The system makes the information very task-specific, so practitioners have the information they need on a daily basis and are not overwhelmed. Furthermore, since the system is online High Standards in an Individualized Math/Science Curriculum Integrated with Technical Training: Guajome Park Sci-Tech 15 Sites in California, Florida, Arizona, Georgia, and New Mexico Guajome Park serves 3,000 students at 15 sites across five states. Students are diverse, with high proportions of ESL and special needs students and a variety of ethnicities and immigrant populations. Most are high school dropouts, aged 16-22 who volunteer for the program under Job Corps. Students study a trade while they are earning a full academic diploma. New students are often rotating in every Monday! Students can complete the program in 9 months or more, depending on their schedule, their placement, and their pace. Each student has a computer, so implementing individual learning plans is easy.“PLATO Learning has become an integral part of our math and science programs,” Coordinator Kevin Pressley observes.“We use it to supplement our own curriculum so it helps us provide teachers with more than one viable instructional tool. Our students learn at their own pace, and PLATO software provides a way to accommodate those differences. Pressley reports “We’ve customized learning paths to accommodate state standards and exit exam requirements in five states. In math, PLATO modules comprises over half of the lessons continued on page 13 12 Guajome story continued in the 3-module program. In science, lessons are selected and embedded into an integrated labbased physical and life science module.” Professional development is a critical success factor. “We’re devoting lots of brainpower and resources to train our teachers to become ‘practitioners,’ rather then ‘technicians’ of a curriculum. We’ve found that having students in front of computers and curriculum does not mean we have differentiated learning. Many teachers end up tutoring students, unless they have a growing knowledge of how to manage their classroom, how to design engaging lessons, how to assess students formally and informally, and how to prescribe and customize activities.” Frequent, high-quality assessment is critical to data-driven decision making at Guajome Park. “Mastery-based learning is the bedrock of our academic program,” said Pressley.“Our students must show mastery with high scores on assessments within the content areas.They are also given pre- and posttests to measure progress, state tests, and exit exams.We collect data from several different sources including proficiency tests,TABE, STAR Math, Scholastic Reading Inventory, and in-house writing assessments.We use this data for a variety of purposes—placing students, evaluating effectiveness of our overall program, and driving instructional design.” and scalable, practitioners throughout the education enterprise can use it as they work within their institutions, thus avoiding a great deal of committee work which would otherwise be needed for coordination. Improved integration and accountability of K–12 and PostSecondary Improved integration involves coordinated strategic and curriculum planning and standard admissions criteria based on mutual acceptance by post-secondary institutions of high school assessments and curricula. Improved accountability involves judging the performance of secondary education by the performance of graduates at the post-secondary level— not just admission. This extensive assimilation work involves integrating the data interchange and reporting systems across K–16. Many states are already at work on uniform data interchange standards and unique student IDs for K–12; these efforts must be expanded to include postsecondary institutions as well. Interoperability standards, such as the Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF), are an important start, but they are only the beginning. Joining together the data from student information systems, data warehousing, and instructional management systems, and attaining K–16 interoperability, is a large task for any state and requires collaboration of K–12 and post-secondary institutions, technology providers, and state agencies. World-class curriculum standards and meaningful benchmarks States are being challenged to raise the bar in their curriculum standards, to expect deep understanding (even at the expense of breadth of coverage), and to develop curriculum benchmarks which incorporate valid performance tasks. And, the standards need to apply to all students. Implementing such a change on a district or statewide scale is a tremendous challenge. Policies, standards, and assessments need to be reworked and disseminated; curricula and assessments at every level need to be revised or created from scratch, and teachers need to be trained to the new “best practices.” Special programs need to be put in place to help students of all abilities attain the new standards. Technology plays a crucial role at every point in this process. The processes for curriculum alignment should also be applied when there is a transition to new curriculum standards. Implementation of the 13 standards is greatly facilitated by online instructional components and assessments (including both tests and performance-based assessments which reflect valid tasks). If they are online, they are available to all teachers and students and can serve to scaffold the teacher just as much as they scaffold the student. By incorporating the same resources into online professional development, this process can be transformed from a few days of (often disconnected) workshops at the beginning of the school year to a continuous learning process facilitated by an online community of practice for teachers. Dropout Prevention/ Credit Recovery in Decentralized Small Learning Communities: Sunnyslope High School Glendale Union High School District, Phoenix, AZ With students ranging in age from 14 to 21, with a high percentage of ESL and high proportion of minorities, Sunnyslope High School needed a way to do something really different for credit recovery, dropout prevention, test prep and special education.Their strategy: create ten small learning communities of up to 30 students each—one was even placed in a local mall. Open them from 1:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Start the day with an hour of class time, and spend the rest on PLATO® courseware. PLATO Learning works for Sunnyslope because of the scope of the curriculum and the teachers’ ability to manipulate the material and “seed” it into the existing curriculum. PLATO courseware is aligned to the AIMS (Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards) state test and correlated to Glendale Union High School district standards. The age-appropriateness of the instruction is important no matter how low the students’ skill levels may be, the content is nonthreatening or embarrassing. Teachers like that their time is free to work as tutors and mentors continued on page 18 Dropout prevention/recovery At-risk students particularly need intervention based on remediation, and technology plays a key role. Remediation can take the form of supplemental services delivered in-school or in extended-day programs or specialized programs for at-risk and special needs students, including recovery programs for those who have already dropped out. An excellent study of remediation by researchers at Center for Social Organization of Schools at The Johns Hopkins University13 makes a number of key points about successful programs: I Most high school students in need of extra help do not need traditional remedial instruction in basic elementary skills. Simply reteaching the elementary curriculum wastes their time. I The majority of students need extra help developing intermediatelevel skills and advanced reasoning strategies. In reading, this includes use of the skills of inference and metacognition to read for understanding. In math, this includes understanding of number concepts and mathematical principles, as well as mathematical reasoning. I Extra help in reading should use targeted mini-lessons, cooperative learning, and self-selected reading to focus on explicit instruction in cognitive strategies for reading comprehension and fluency building. The few students who still need phonemic awareness and initial decoding should be helped separately. I Extra help in math should focus on explicit instruction in conceptual understanding of foundational knowledge and skills, use of students’ informal knowledge, and challenging mathematical tasks. I Motivational strategies are critical. Research done by PLATO Learning has led us to understand that the key motivational strategies should help students relate their school learning with personal life goals through counseling and mentoring, as well as to place students in a positive, success-oriented and taskoriented, “no excuses” learning environment which emphasizes personal 13 Balfranz, R., McPartland, J. and Shaw, A. (2002) Reconceptualizing Extra Help for High School Students in a High Standards Era. Baltimore, MD: Center for Social Organization of Schools, Johns Hopkins University. 14 Sunnyslope story continued and to grade offline activities.They are required to present very little material; they find that PLATO Learning tutorials and self-paced instruction does a good job of teaching skills. The teachers use the online tests in PLATO courseware to regulate progress, but they measure student gains with paper-and-pencil exams; they have found many students can do well on computerized exams but struggle with paperbased tests. The program has resulted in the lowest dropout rates in Arizona.The success has spawned a High School Diploma Program for learners over 21 that has been accredited by the State Board of Education, allowing adults that never graduated an opportunity to earn a high school diploma (rather than high school equivalency or GED). responsibility. For example, conventional grading systems often are punitive for underachievers, and conventional teacher-centered classrooms only reinforce disconnectedness. By contrast, a competencybased grading system rewards attainment of personal goals rather than competitive standing. And individualized classrooms create the opportunity for a deep personal connection between every student and a caring teacher-mentor with high expectations—perhaps the most critical motivational factor. Secondary-level remediation should begin as early as possible, preferably early in middle school as part of the effort to keep students from “falling through the cracks” as they transition between elementary and secondary school. The programs need to be highly individualized and need to take into account the prerequisite relationships between English language learning, reading and language arts, and mathematics. Technology plays a critical role in a great many effective remediation models. Direct instruction in reading comprehension and mathematics can be delivered effectively using a combination of computer-based tutors, problem-centered small-group work, and coaching by teachers. If the instruction is modular, it can be targeted very precisely on the needs of each individual student, and students can proceed at their own pace. This greatly improves efficiency as well as effectiveness. While the range of time spent in remediation can be quite broad in self-paced individualized programs, the average time is often shorter than in conventional group-paced teacher-centered programs. Intensive help for the lowest-Performing High Schools Most of our secondary schools need to intervene proactively with at-risk students, before and after they have dropped out, to put them on a track of learning success. For our lowest-performing schools, we need coordinated intervention strategies to strengthen leadership and teachers, improve curricula and assessment, remediate students and create a supportive and guiding culture, and upgrade the often-crumbling infrastructure. An excellent resource on such coordinated initiatives is the Southern Regional Education Board’s High Schools That Work project. The PLATO® Student Achievement Model is a useful intervention strategy. The model is based on a continuous improvement cycle, shown in the graphic below. The core processes of the cycle are: I Assess. PLATO® Professional Services consultants work with administrators and teachers to articulate and develop program strategies based on school and/or classroom data. 15 I Align. PLATO Professional Services partners with educators to align resources, tools, and processes. I Instruct. PLATO Professional Services partners with educators to translate knowledge into effective instructional practices. I Evaluate. PLATO Professional Services partners with educators to collect and analyze data to determine results and next steps. The model is applicable to any initiative to improve student achievement in any school context. In low-performing schools, it can be applied to mainstream classrooms or to targeted interventions such as supplemental educational services, in-school remedial programs, or dropout prevention and credit recovery programs. The PLATO® Student Achievement Model 1. A s se ss 2. Al ig n Student Achievement at e 3. I n str Highly-qualified teachers and leaders For more than a half century, research has shown repeatedly that student achievement depends on the skills of the teacher, and no school can rise above the vision and leadership of its principal. A recent policy study by the Aspen Institute14 points out that there is a complementary relationship between high-quality professional development for teachers and school leaders, development of better tools for data-driven school improvement, and adequate financing and support for capacity building. All too often, professional development and leadership development are “shotgun” efforts in which everyone is rounded up for a stand-alone workshop, with little follow-up. What is needed is a continuous, datadriven “rifle” approach, in which specific needs for change and capacity building are identified and specific interventions are planned with a sustained, programmatic combination of training and ongoing mentoring. Pre-service teachers and administrators should be indoctrinated into this culture, and their in-service colleagues need help to make the transformation. Technology makes this feasible by creating online communities of practice which pre-service practitioners can join and which in-service practitioners can use on a daily basis. Online coaching and mentoring can be timely and task-specific, provided by colleagues and by professional development specialists. And online informational resources designed to support and model best practice in daily work can be readily available. If we automate enough of the lower-value tasks which clutter the teacher’s day, then we can make time for teachers to participate in professional development. Curriculum materials and assessments often scaffold teachers just as much as they do students. Online instruction and assessment can be particularly helpful since it is highly interactive and always available, on demand, and it generates a steady stream of feedback data to teachers and administrators to help guide their performance. This helps assure consistency of best practices, for both master teachers and those who are new or in need of capacity building. 14 Cohen, M. (2001) Transforming the American High School: New Directions for State and Local Policy.Washington, D.C.:The Aspen Institute. ct 4. E va lu u 16 Independent Study in a Diverse Student Population: La Costa Canyon High School San Dieguito UHSD, California La Costa Canyon High School has a very broad range of students, from GATE and AP students to ELLs and those with special needs.The student population is mostly Hispanic and Caucasian. Meeting the needs of so diverse a student population challenged the resources of conventional classrooms, so the school turned to PLATO Learning. Today, about 120 students per year use PLATO® Instructional Solutions for independent study. Some use it for enrichment, while others use it for additional practice and remediation. In the independent study program, the computer is the primary tutor. Students work a wellstructured, individualized plan which has been carefully aligned by a faculty member to California state standards . A typical plan includes lessons within PLATO® courseware, textbook assignments, and tests. Teachers are in a critical “guide on the side” role, helping students with textbooks and with PLATO Learning instruction and administering paper-based tests (which are easier to proctor in their context). Teachers use the test data to monitor student performance and individualize assignments. In the 3 years PLATO Instructional Solutions have been in use, the program has grown in popularity. Recently it has expanded into special education and ESL, making it possible for the school to better meet the needs of an even wider range of diversity in their student population. Building community demand for change Educators often observe that elementary school parents are much more involved in their children’s learning than is true at the secondary level. At the very time when every parent has difficulty communicating with their adolescent children, the specific and timely information from school that they need to help their children is often not available. Furthermore, parents often lack awareness of and commitment to their crucial role in fostering learning. One part of the solution is to provide parents with accurate, specific, and timely information on the performance of their own children, as well as specific information on the expectations for their child’s performance. Simply sending home a quarterly report card with a letter grade and a short comment does not suffice. Innovative schools are using standardsbased report cards which provide detailed competency profiles of performance against benchmarks. Technology-based communication with parents provides additional power. Weekly or even daily confidential updates on performance and assignments can be made available from a secure web site or via e-mail. Communication with teachers via e-mail can be much timelier than the usual in-class conference time. At the community level, this same information can be rolled up through databases to school and district reports, which demonstrate where improvements are needed. This provides the detailed data needed to build public support for school improvement and break through the complacency which often characterizes public attitudes toward secondary school reform. 17 Conclusion High school reform is neither a “quick fix” nor a “one size fits all” solution. Developing a successful strategy for high school reform requires careful thought about needs, K–16 systemic thinking, willingness to experiment, and a goal of developing a portfolio of excellent secondary schools representing a range of solution options. In these efforts at change, technology is no “magic bullet.” But it can act as a major lever for change by creating flexibility of cost, time, and space for staff and students, by providing new ways to instruct and assess, and—perhaps most important—by making the detailed information needed for datadriven continuous improvement easily available. Carefully planned and executed change interventions which are part of a coordinated change management plan are needed to get us from the “industrial age” education system we have today to the “information age” education system we need. Achieving this goal will require an unprecedented level of partnership among the elementary, secondary, and post-secondary educational systems, as well as private-sector providers of technology and services. Only with a shared commitment to change will we succeed. 18 PLATO Learning, Inc. 10801 Nesbitt Avenue South Bloomington, MN 55437 www.plato.com Copyright © 2005 PLATO Learning, Inc.All rights reserved. PLATO® is a registered trademark of PLATO Learning, Inc. PLATO Learning is a trademark of PLATO Learning, Inc. Printed in the U.S.A. MC150 04/05