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GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools
on the ground
July 21, 2009
In action, School of One mixes high- and low-tech teaching
School of One students speak to remote tutors. (GothamSchools)
I reported earlier today about the School of One, a new program to personalize instruction for every student. This morning I got to see the program in action.
Inside the library at MS 131, where bookshelves had been covered with canvas, one set of students dialed in to distant tutors by phone while another set worked one-on-one with teachers in a section of the room called “The Bronx Zoo.” At the same time, data analysts manned a behind-the-scenes command center, where a powerful computer calculated exactly what each student needed to learn.
For a classroom being revolutionized by technology, some of the interactions between teachers and students were decidedly low-tech. In a partitioned area of the library called “Brooklyn,” a teacher patiently redirected several of the dozen students sitting around a large table when they shouted out. “I want to play games,” one boy called. “I want to go home,” another interrupted.
In another part of the library, a girl talking with a distant tutor through a headset raised her hand and summoned a teacher. “I need a pen!” she said.
School of One founder Joel Rose said today that tasks that can be uniquely accomplished by teachers should be all the teachers do. “What we want our teachers to focus on is the hardest part of the equation, which is delivering great lessons,” Rose said.
So at the School of One, teachers aren’t expected to do much daily planning. Instead, the same computer program that generates students’ schedules also gives teachers a personalized lesson plan for each day along with suggestions about the best materials to use. The four teachers added materials of their own to the program’s “lesson bank” before the summer started, and most also augment the curriculum materials suggested by the “learning algorithm,” according to a teacher, Matt Miller.
Teacher Matt Miller works with a small group of School of One students. In the background, students work independently. (GothamSchools)
Miller, who has taught at MS 131 for four years, said School of One offers more than lip service to the in-vogue tropes of data-driven teaching and differentiated instruction. He said the school’s teachers are communicating more than ever about what works in their instruction. And he noted that the program’s robust data collection schedule has the potential to let curriculum publishers about which materials are most effective.
Schools Chancellor Joel Klein said he asked School of One officials to make sure the pilot program didn’t cost any more on a day-to-day basis as a regular summer school program.
The vast majority of the program’s $1 million price tag, 90 percent, went into developing the “learning algorithm,” the bank of curriculum materials, and other things that can be scaled up without much additional cost, Rose said. The program’s development has so far cost the city about $300,000, with the balance being footed by private companies such as Cisco and Microsoft.
A sign posted at the event said the city hopes to expand the program to 20 schools in three years. ”We’re moving as fast as we can,” Klein said today. “I wish we could say we were going to roll it out tomorrow.”
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July 22nd, 2009 6:30 pm
While I think technology can be beneficial to learning, I am somewhat cautious of this new program. I previously piloted a computer based reading program in my classroom (Jamestown Reading Navigator) and the program had a lot of problems. While individualized learning plans are great, and being able to immediately see which concepts individual students are mastering and not mastering is an excellent tool, learning from a computer is not always a good thing. Additionally, if students become too accustomed to a system that designs their “playlists” and is “fun” (as shown in the NYT article) they will never learn how to be independent learners who learn for the sake of learning. If a student can’t learn in a class of 25, how will they learn in a college lecture of 300 students. Isn’t part of the goal of K-12 education to prepare students for college? Also, I tend to think math lends itself better to computerized learning than other subjects. Does anyone know what other subjects they plan on adopting? I can imagine it now: students being forced to work on the main idea while reading boring passages. Is this really what learning is supposed to look like?
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July 26th, 2009 8:49 am
Sounds very much like what was suggested by George Leonard in the 1960s in his book “Education And Ecstasy.”
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August 2nd, 2009 8:33 am
Why the big rush to implement a program that seems such a hodgepodge and so conducive to distraction? I don’t see how this allows teachers to “deliver great lessons,” when whole-class instruction is forbidden and the computer generates the lesson plans for the teacher. This program may have limited benefit, but to make it the wave of the future, to usher it in without looking carefully at the effects on curriculum, is to slap education in the face as so many fads do. Why not slow down, look closely at it, ask good questions, and consult with a wide range of teachers and students?
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October 27th, 2009 7:21 am
Education Fads like this are what set us behind the rest of the world, and account for the US lag in education globally. Our students today are digital natives, they spend hours a day using technology to communicate in so many other ways, when are they going to learn interpersonal skills and how to function in the real world if we incessantly push technology on them for everything else? Kids today find technology fun, and incorporating it into education draws them into the lesson in a way they want and need to be engaged, but this is just outright disturbing! It’s one thing to have students receive online supplemental instruction and tutoring assistance from home, when there is no teacher there to support them. But technology is just that: a SUPPLEMENT! Wake up, NY. You’re barking up the wrong tree. You’ll never re-create all the value of a daily classroom experience in a Virtual World. Maybe this is an option for students who can not otherwise function in a realistic school environment, be it medical reasons or aggressive behavior, etc., and this is the ONLY way for them. But, this appears to be just another excuse to outsource education to other countries and save money to fix the potholes I often encounter in my travels through NYC streets. Get back to reality, stop trying to save a buck at the expense of children’s learning. Becasue, when this fails, you better hope parents don’t sue you for wasting a year of their child’s education! You’ll be out more money then than now!
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November 27th, 2009 9:17 pm
This is exciting I would love to try this out with our school. We have a three tier Client server
network with the most powerful server in LAUSD and top of the line Cisco switches. What we lack is a comprehensive software program that could let us work to our full potential, also money
the district is broke. I would like to see us continue to work this investment in technology
till it pays off we are so close to being able to really make school wide networking a content
delivery system tying classroom smart boards and computer labs together in a way that has
so much potential and would be really exciting to see and use. Adding to that an individual
student tracking software that creates a virtual one on one experience for the student I think
API scores will go up a 100 points. This ties everything that’s been done for the past ten years
together very few schools are ready for it, we are I wish someone would work with us to get
this program into our school. John Muir Middle School District 7 LAUSD. muirmiddle.org
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