Flexible, Personalized Learning for High School Students

[00:01] SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to Principal Center Radio, bringing you the best in professional practice.

[00:06] Announcer:

Here's your host, Director of the Principal Center and Champion of High Performance Instructional Leadership, Justin Bader. Welcome everyone to Principal Center Radio.

[00:15] SPEAKER_01:

I am your host, Justin Bader, and I'm honored to be joined today by George Philhauer, Assistant Superintendent of Western Wayne Schools in Indiana, which is doing some remarkable work around rethinking high school.

[00:30] Announcer:

And now, our feature presentation.

[00:32] SPEAKER_01:

George, welcome to Principal Center Radio. Thanks so much. Happy to be here. I wonder if you could tell us a bit about what you're doing to build flexibility and personalization into the structure and the process of schooling at the high school level for your students.

[00:49] SPEAKER_02:

Well, we've been doing a lot of research for a while and just doing some thinking, and it's caused us to question some of the things that are in place as traditional practices in our school. In our traditional programming, we've got some things in place that are wonderful. And then there are some other things in place that we really need to be questioning. And there are things that we've done just because that's the way they've always been done. In our current system, we feel like it's set up around compliance. Students are told where to go, what to do and how to do it.

[01:22]

And we're not sure that that's necessarily preparing them for their world after they leave a place where we're there to guide them. And our system also currently it allows for failure, but it seems as though as a society we know that there's something not right about this. So then we have invented these things like extra credit and participation points that really don't mean anything in order to account for it. And then our system also, when it was originally designed, was designed to sort students and those who pass and then there will be those who don't. However, over the years, our goal has changed and our new goal is to prepare all of our students. And we are not sure that our current system is structured to allow that.

[02:15]

Not making it really shouldn't be an option for our students. And we really feel like that if we can restructure some things, then we can make that happen. So we are trying to change our system to meet the needs of all of our students. And in my district, we're looking at questioning things that have been in place for a long time. So the bell schedule, traditional semester timelines, and even what it means to earn a credit.

[02:43] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And I think the, the Carnegie unit or the, the traditional kind of credit, uh, that, uh, that students get for, uh, you know, for kind of a standardized unit of learning is, is very much at the core of the structure of, of high school. And that's something that's easy for those of us who worked at the middle school or elementary levels to forget that, that there's quite a bit of legislation and, uh, you know, college policy. And, you know, there are a lot of implications to, uh, any change that we make to the way high school is fundamentally structured. But at the same time, we know, you know, even though now more students than ever, I mean, graduation rates are higher than they've ever been, which is kind of shocking to us because we know still we have, you know, a fourth to a third of our students not graduating in most places. You know, we need to do better.

[03:28]

We need to rethink some of the ways that we're helping students gain those credits. So what does that look like compared to, say, a traditional high school where students show up and go to first period and then a bell rings and they go to second period and then the bell rings and then they go to third period and they go to lunch and each subject is separate and takes the same amount of time and pretty much all students go through the same curriculum. Some students may get more challenging courses. What are you kind of toying with as you rethink that model and what are you changing and what are you finding about how that's working?

[04:03] SPEAKER_02:

So we're looking at giving students more control and giving teachers more autonomy over pace, place and path. And those three things are kind of the core of what we talk about. Pace, place and path. So in pace, what I mean by that is the pace at which a student earns a credit. As you mentioned, typically students earn credits in December and May, depending on when your calendar is. And it's typically based on seat time and what percentage, if you have an average of a passing grade, then you get that credit.

[04:38]

And what we're looking to, what we're changing is that we're redefining what it means to earn that credit. And that instead of seat time, students will earn credits through competency. So once you've shown us that you are able to do all the skills required in that course or for that semester's work, then you get that credit. So if that credit is earned in October on a Tuesday, you will finish that course on that Tuesday and start the next course on a Wednesday. So that provides some flexibility for those students who are able to work at a faster pace than the traditional settings allow. At the same time, it's also designed to help the students who need to take longer than those traditional timelines allow.

[05:23]

This year, I've had some students who did not earn credit at the end of December. In a traditional schedule, those students would have to retake that course the next year. However, at my school, they receive those credits in January or February and begin working on the next course immediately. And it's also by doing this, what we've done is not given the students the option to opt out. And sometimes that over time, a student has learned that if that they can choose to not complete a course or to, you know, if you get six weeks into a nine week grading period and I'm in a place where I am. mathematically, I know I'm not going to pass.

[06:11]

It makes little sense to continue with those next three weeks. And so by redesigning and rethinking how this works, our students are never in a place to where there's that hopeless situation to where they might as well not keep going. And so we've seen some benefits. We had students earn earning credits as early as September, October. We also had a few students who were earning credits into second semester, earning first semester credits into second semester. And we've seen that have a long term effect, too, that they earn that credit early.

[06:45]

in January, where if they would have received the F in December, they would have been defeated and looking forward to likely not passing second semester either. But by earning that credit, they have that sense of accomplishment, and in a lot of cases, they've picked up the pace in second semester, and we're anticipating a lot of those students ending this year as if they completed both semesters on time. And we're looking at structuring our summer to give those students a little bit more time. So the summer for us will likely look like a fifth quarter to where those students just have an extended amount of time to be caught up. And that maybe that would also be an opportunity for students who are working ahead to earn more credits and to get further along their path.

[07:35] SPEAKER_01:

I love the way that takes advantage of... What's most rational for the student? Because as you said, you know, once it's mathematically impossible for you to pass the semester, you know, why would you stick with it? Why would you keep coming to class?

[07:48]

And for every class that that happens in, you know, that impacts the students overall, you know, willingness to come to school and increases the chance that they're going to drop out. And, you know, simply by adding a little bit of flexibility, you know, you're keeping a student in school and, you know, very good chance that you're actually getting them back on track. So that's pretty remarkable.

[08:09] SPEAKER_02:

And it's also putting them in control, which is a powerful thing for a lot of our students at the high school level. to where they feel like they're the ones controlling that. And it's much easier to teach students lessons about making decisions and being responsible when they are the ones in control. Part of our job, I believe, is to teach students lessons In addition to teaching them math and language arts and social studies and science and art and all the other great things that we teach them, we need to teach them skills about how to manage their time, how to advocate for themselves, and things like that that are sometimes not as easy to do in a traditional setting where a student can put themselves very quickly in a situation where they might as well not go on. And the other end of the spectrum, the students who are working –

[09:02]

have the same opportunity to where we can provide the same kinds of coaching to them as well.

[09:10] SPEAKER_01:

Well, that's a great overview of how you're differentiating on pace. What does it mean to differentiate or provide flexibility in terms of place?

[09:18] SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, so what we're looking to do with our bell schedule is to really kind of blow it out of the water. So students, an easy explanation of this would be that we're going to take a student schedule and take their English, their math, their social studies, and their science courses, and we're going to put those courses together. So maybe that's first, second, third, fourth period. Maybe that's – wherever it is, it's together in their schedule. So it's in one particular block of time. And then what we're also going to do is take the courses – to where these students have the option to spend their time and put them in a central location in our school so that within that time, students have lots of control about where they are spending their time.

[10:10]

So place has to do with where students are spending their time. And what that allows is for students who prefer a quieter spot to work, they have that option. Students who work better in a more active environment, that's an option for them as well. Students who need more time to work on a specific subject than the traditional daily schedules allowed are able to do that as well. So if a student needs to work on math for two hours a day but only needs 20 minutes a day to check in with their language arts teacher, they're going to have the flexibility to do that. And of course, we've got some structures in place to help students make those decisions and help them along that decision-making path.

[11:00]

This also gives our teachers quite a bit of flexibility with how they structure their instructional class sessions as well. Instead of having the students that come to them on 45 to 55 minute blocks every day, they're going to have some flexibility to say, I need this specific group, but I only need them for 20 minutes. Or we're going to do a discussion about this topic but it doesn't need to be 45 minutes. Maybe I need them for just a half hour today. And our teachers are able to work together and have lots of autonomy to put together a, I don't want to call it a schedule because it's not anything like the bell schedule, but a plan, a weekly plan around their students' needs that fits their needs instead of the bells ringing and students moving based on that.

[11:53] SPEAKER_01:

Right, right, because, I mean, it's just kind of the default thing we've always done, that a class needs to be a certain length and everybody needs to be there the whole time, and too bad if that's not what you need that day. Now, how do you build in the accountability? How do you make sure that everyone is in a place where it's okay for them to be, shows up when they do need to be in class, gets work done even if they're not actually in the room with their teacher? What does that look like to kind of keep students on track and keep students accountable for – you know, for making good use of their time if that's not something they fully internalize themselves.

[12:25] SPEAKER_02:

So probably the most important feature of the design that we're working with, and when we're working with a school in Salt Lake City, Utah, who's partnered with us and helped us because they're further along the path than we are. And the biggest piece of this program is a very robust mentor program where all of the teachers who are working with students have students a number of students that they work with individually. They check in with these students at least on a weekly basis, one-on-one. You know, those conversations may be a 20-second, hey, I notice you're doing really great in all your classes. Keep up the good work. Or it could be a 15- to 20-minute conversation with those individual students that they check in with them at least once a week.

[13:16]

Those teachers also are the point of contact to parents. You know, we do a really good job of that at the elementary level where teachers Each teacher has however many students they have, and that's the point of contact for the parents to the school. But as we go into secondary, we lose that some. So these teachers, these mentor teachers will be contacting home. frequently to give them more frequent progress reports than traditional nine-week or six-week report cards account for. And they'll also serve as the first line of contact for parents when they have questions about something.

[13:54] SPEAKER_01:

And do you use any kind of online courseware or learning management system that students or parents can access?

[14:00] SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, we are actually the school that we're working with in Salt Lake City. What we found is that there's a lot of power in a teacher's ability to edit and customize their content. And what we really want to avoid is working with teachers A content that was designed for credit recovery or something that's not what this is.

[14:29] SPEAKER_01:

Right. Because there are a lot of kind of personalized learning solutions, as we were talking about before we started recording, that basically are replacing the teacher with a computer program.

[14:38] SPEAKER_02:

And that's not your intent. Right. Absolutely not the intent. You know, if a student's taking an English class, my expectation is for them to be writing papers, having the same level of rigor, reading novels as the traditional classrooms. And the teacher is the most important part of this. But I feel like if we can put these things in place...

[15:01]

that we can help the teacher to teach. Now, we are redefining what we mean by teach a little bit. So if we're thinking of teach as stand in front of a group of students and do a presentation and hope that as many people students understand and are able to do the things that we're asking them to do, that's not the instructional model that we're working with. We're looking at more small group sessions with students, individual tutoring sessions, And we're using that online content to essentially allow teachers to team teach with themselves. So our teachers are designing that content and customizing it to meet their individual needs and then utilizing that to help them put themselves in a situation where they can meet with their students on an individual and small group basis every single day.

[16:03]

So we're defining what it means to teach to be what did you help students learn today that they didn't know yesterday. And that's hard to do in a whole group presentation when we don't really have a really good grasp on what individual students could and couldn't do without the teacher the day before. And we really want to we want to empower students to take ownership of their own learning. Nowhere near is that at the expense of the teacher being replaced by a computer program.

[16:37] SPEAKER_01:

Well, George, this is exciting to learn what you guys are doing in Western Wayne to really rethink the high school experience and how we can make that work better for more and more students. If our listeners want to get more information on what you're doing and kind of dig in a little bit deeper, how can they get in touch with you and find out more?

[16:55] SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, they're welcome to contact me by email. It's philhowerg, that's P-H-I-L-H-O-W-E-R-G, at gmail.com. Or they can reach me on Twitter, and I'm at gphilhower.

[17:08] SPEAKER_01:

Fabulous. Thanks so much. It's been a pleasure speaking with you on Principal Center Radio. Thank you, Justin. Appreciate it.

[17:14] SPEAKER_00:

And now, Justin Bader on high-performance instructional leadership.

[17:18] SPEAKER_01:

So, high-performance instructional leaders, what were you thinking about as George Philhauer talked about how his school district is rethinking the high school experience in order to provide more flexibility for students and set them up for success? One thing that came to mind for me was the idea of combining some of the best elements of elementary school, where we have a single teacher who is... The primary point of contact for parents and flexibility on when students work on different projects and how they meet together in groups and check in with the teacher. I mean, those are things that are very common at the elementary level, but very difficult to pull off in a traditional high school schedule.

[17:56]

And yet rather than simply adopt an elementary model, it's very much a high school model that Georgia's district is implementing. The flexibility is appropriate to the age of the students, the needs of the students. So I want to encourage you to think about the pieces that are already working and may just need to be recombined in a different way. It's often said that in education, we already know everything we need to know. The solutions are different. not deep mysteries that need to be uncovered.

[18:25]

Most of our problems have already been solved, but maybe in a slightly different context or in a slightly different way. And we just need to find and deploy the solutions that have already been proven elsewhere. To me, a big part of high-performance instructional leadership is not reinventing the wheel, not starting from scratch because we think it's a bold and brave thing to do, but being smart enough and humble enough to recognize when we already see things working. And Georgia's district has considered it wise and prudent to learn from another high school that's doing exactly what they want to do and going out there and visiting and seeing what's working, learning from the experience of others, and accelerating that organizational learning cycle. The faster we can learn from other people's successes and failures, the faster we can iterate and try new things to help our students succeed, the more we're going to be able to have an impact and adapt our schools to the changing needs of our students.

[19:21] Announcer:

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