NEW YORK—There are a few archetypes of students one can find in every classroom: the rowdy kid that bothers everyone else, the bashful boy or girl in the back of the class who never speaks, the smart kid who answers all the questions first, and the pretty girl that gets all the attention.
Having both the bashful kid and the smart kid reach the required level by the end of the school year can be a challenge for teachers, as different students excel in different settings.
Joel Rose, from the Department of Education had this in mind when he created School Of One, a project of the DOE, which offers a personalized curriculum for each student in the school based on his or her needs.
Every student in a School Of One receives a personal daily schedule that focuses on the skills he or she needs to master. Every day, the students are evaluated and their level determined. After that, the schedule for the next day is produced.
“It will blow your mind!” said Dominick D'Angelo, principal of IS 228 in Brooklyn, one of the three schools offering School Of One. “This is a game changer. We are changing the way we are doing the business of education, of teaching, and learning. We are focusing on the learning of every student. We are applying different types of teaching styles and modalities to maximize the learning of every individual student,” he said.
Using an algorithm, the needs of every student are analyzed, and the skills they have mastered are tracked, explained D'Angelo. The algorithm then generates a playlist of specific lessons for a particular skill at a particular level.
The types of classes a student might go to vary. Among the possible modalities are small group learning, computer tutorials, one-on-one, or a regular class setting.
Currently, 1,500 students in three schools are enrolled in School Of One. Four more schools are expected to join the project next year.
“I am a former teacher, and I remember how hard it was to meet the needs of each student in my class,” explained Rose, on how he came up with the method. “I was teaching the fifth grade and I had students at the second-grade level and some at the ninth-grade level and everything in between.”
Rose came up with the School Of One idea while working at the Human Resources Department of the DOE. He then wrote a proposal and presented it to then Chancellor Joel Klein.
“When I read about this program I was very excited because, as a former math teacher, this is a dream come true,” said D'Angelo. “We are differentiating instruction by the student level each day. Instead of having a classroom where you have 30 students at different levels, needing different amounts of time for a particular skill, you focus on what the student needs most.”
“You are not wasting time if the student already knows a particular skill. It is very productive, [and] very efficient,” he added.
The individualized way of learning will not hurt the school’s social aspects, said Joel. “School of One does not mean that a student is on a computer all day— to the contrary,” said Rose. “Collaborative instruction is a modality that we schedule. Sitting with other students and a teacher is a modality that we schedule. What is personalized is the schedule. The experience is not individualized,” he added.
It is too early to know if the program has a positive effect on students’ academic performance, said D'Angelo adding that preliminary data indicates there is a positive impact on students’ achievements.
“The students love it,” he concluded.
Having both the bashful kid and the smart kid reach the required level by the end of the school year can be a challenge for teachers, as different students excel in different settings.
Joel Rose, from the Department of Education had this in mind when he created School Of One, a project of the DOE, which offers a personalized curriculum for each student in the school based on his or her needs.
Every student in a School Of One receives a personal daily schedule that focuses on the skills he or she needs to master. Every day, the students are evaluated and their level determined. After that, the schedule for the next day is produced.
“It will blow your mind!” said Dominick D'Angelo, principal of IS 228 in Brooklyn, one of the three schools offering School Of One. “This is a game changer. We are changing the way we are doing the business of education, of teaching, and learning. We are focusing on the learning of every student. We are applying different types of teaching styles and modalities to maximize the learning of every individual student,” he said.
Using an algorithm, the needs of every student are analyzed, and the skills they have mastered are tracked, explained D'Angelo. The algorithm then generates a playlist of specific lessons for a particular skill at a particular level.
The types of classes a student might go to vary. Among the possible modalities are small group learning, computer tutorials, one-on-one, or a regular class setting.
Currently, 1,500 students in three schools are enrolled in School Of One. Four more schools are expected to join the project next year.
“I am a former teacher, and I remember how hard it was to meet the needs of each student in my class,” explained Rose, on how he came up with the method. “I was teaching the fifth grade and I had students at the second-grade level and some at the ninth-grade level and everything in between.”
Rose came up with the School Of One idea while working at the Human Resources Department of the DOE. He then wrote a proposal and presented it to then Chancellor Joel Klein.
“When I read about this program I was very excited because, as a former math teacher, this is a dream come true,” said D'Angelo. “We are differentiating instruction by the student level each day. Instead of having a classroom where you have 30 students at different levels, needing different amounts of time for a particular skill, you focus on what the student needs most.”
“You are not wasting time if the student already knows a particular skill. It is very productive, [and] very efficient,” he added.
The individualized way of learning will not hurt the school’s social aspects, said Joel. “School of One does not mean that a student is on a computer all day— to the contrary,” said Rose. “Collaborative instruction is a modality that we schedule. Sitting with other students and a teacher is a modality that we schedule. What is personalized is the schedule. The experience is not individualized,” he added.
It is too early to know if the program has a positive effect on students’ academic performance, said D'Angelo adding that preliminary data indicates there is a positive impact on students’ achievements.
“The students love it,” he concluded.
