Stage 1: Getting Clear
My school and staff should understand the value of using blended learning in the classroom. One representative from every level of English will meet with me, as well as one representative from every department, to discuss the structure and importance of blended learning. This process will be used during our current advisory periods that take place on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
I will create a blended classroom that will be used for academic growth and acceleration that students will have access to during the Fall semester of 2022 and Spring of 2023. These classes will be created in order to give students the opportunity to recover credit, enhance their education, or to gain credit by examination. The biggest challenge will be that students will have to work at their own pace, and path while the course material should be challenging and engaging at the same time.
Stage 2: Launch
During the 2022-2023 school year, this program will be expected to launch its first pilot course. Prior to the course launch, in the summer of 2021 I will continue to meet with school administration and department leadership to install the potential pilot programs for each introductory level course such as English I, Algebra I, and World Geography.
Creating pilot programs will be a simple process of uploading previously used material to our learning platform that is already established in a format that gives the learners the opportunity to learn at their own pace. The information will also be submitted and graded on the learner’s pace. The Wildly Important Goals can be established and evaluated on a weekly basis.
Stage 3: Adoption
Our school currently uses the advisory period as a time for make-up work and study halls. This time would be altered for our pilot programs in order to give students the opportunity to learn as much as they can and gain credit for classes that they were previously not successful in during years prior, or even prepare the students for credit by examination for classes in which they plan to test at the end of the school year.
The PLC meetings for each department take place on different days once a week after school. During this time period, all pilot program teachers and leaders will have the opportunity to discuss and adopt necessary changes to their Wildly Important Goals.
Stage 4: Optimization
When teachers begin to see the results of the students' performance, they will have the ability to modify and adapt to their learning by restructuring the learning material. Students will be able to learn at their own pace while teachers will be allowed to modify the rigor of each class through their submitted online assignments. If students have started to learn quickly and efficiently without much resistance, the rigor could be adjusted to future assignments in order to ensure that the learning matches the assignments. All of the assignments will be used in a blended, asynchronous format, so the students can always ask questions during their advisory periods on Tuesdays and Thursdays if necessary.
Stage 5: Habits
Teachers simply have to continue to show up to their advisory periods and monitor students progress as they have before. This time, students will be actively working towards completing a goal instead of sitting, sleeping, or listening to music during the advisory period. Teachers will simply have the opportunity to either answer questions about simple projects or assignments, or send students to the other teachers that can help the students get those questions answered. Ensuring the students get their goals accomplished will come from the weekly progress checks that the online platform currently in place automatically keeps track of. Teachers will be expected to simply check progress just as simply as they check the students’ attendance.
The Four Disciplines of Execution
Discipline 1: Focus on the WIG (Wildly Important Goal)
My wildly important goal is to have one pilot program in every major subject have at least 70% of the students demonstrate 80% mastery of the particular class workload by the end of Spring 2023. The students will be able to work at their own pace while having the ability to make corrections and retest as many times as possible on all assignments in order to gain a true understanding of the course materials. Teachers and administrators will have access to all of the data because it will all be posted online with results coming in immediately after assignments are submitted.
The Lag measures will be easy to determine because the data will be displayed in the school’s automatic online grading system. If there is an issue with rigor within lessons, the lessons can be modified on a weekly or monthly basis during PLC meetings.
Discipline 2: Act on Lead Measures (Launch and Adoption)
The Lead Measures for this program will be based on assignments attempted (and re-attempted) per week and student attendance each week. The students will have multiple short, rigorous assignments to complete each week that will spiral into future assignments. Their learning will be directly related to future assignments, therefore they will see the relationship between what they are learning now and constantly in the future. When students do not complete assignments, this will immediately show a lack of understanding or lack of attendance. Both of these issues are major contributors to poor grades at the school where I work. If we can fix these issues, we can solve a lot of problems that lead to loss of credit and poor grades.
Discipline 3: Keep a Compelling Scoreboard
As a high school basketball coach, I am well aware of the scoreboard and how people perceive what winning is. What many people aren’t aware of is the idea that many teams have individual goals before the games even begin. If our students meet with their advisors before the classes start, half way through the semester, and at the end of the semester to create and adjust academic goals, the students will be more apt to complete those same academic goals.
All of the goals should be based on how much a student plans on learning or completing in a given semester. Some students may want to complete 12 lessons in a semester, some may want to complete 18 lessons in a semester, others may want to complete an entire class in a semester. All of the results will be posted by the percentage of their goals that they have completed. If a child completes 6 of 12 lessons, then they are obviously at 50% of their goal. Another student may complete 18 of their 36 lessons. They both will have 50% of their goals completed. This information will be posted as a leaderboard for all students to look at and have access to on a daily basis. This information will be updated on a daily basis in order to give the students the motivation to continue in their journey to complete assignments. This video game high score approach will always look like a leaderboard, but will be simply based on different goals.
Discipline 4: Create a Cadence of Accountability
While the assignments will be very short and rigorous, they should be based on learning and how the students can retain information. The assignments will be graded mainly through our online grading system and occasionally through our master teachers that will be the teacher of record for these classes. This is not additional work that the teachers will be doing, but instead doing the same work, but with real purpose. During these advisory classes, the teachers will eventually have the freedom to simply assist in the learning process by answering questions and guiding students to their understanding of the answers. In the past, teachers were expected to stand in front of the classroom and lecture for 45 minutes at a time. If the students feel that they are in control and WANT to learn at their own pace, there is no pressure when it comes to if they are behind other students or if they need additional help.
Students will begin to form the habit of enjoying a class period free of real structure, yet it holds them accountable for learning at their own pace. They will eventually be able to sign up for any class that they choose. When a student is in control of their own education, they will be more apt to learn at a pace that they feel comfortable.
These classes currently meet twice a week for an entire school year. If a student has the ability pick their own class and at the pace in which they learn AND have the option to get as much help as they need from a teacher without worrying about where the entire class pace, a student will begin to enjoy learning once again.
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