New Designs for School
Virtual Video Tour at Whittemore Park Middle School
Silke Koester
Program Manager
NGLC
in Colorado
Topics
We’ve all had the experience of truly purposeful, authentic learning and know how valuable it is. Educators are taking the best of what we know about learning, student support, effective instruction, and interpersonal skill-building to completely reimagine schools so that students experience that kind of purposeful learning all day, every day.
Created by students and teachers at Whittemore Park Middle School in Conway, SC, this tour introduces the school's iCAN personalized, blended learning model.
Majestic live oak trees, beautiful shoreline, and personalized digital learning!
Welcome to Conway, a small town tucked just a few miles inland from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Zoom in to Whittemore Park Middle School—a turnaround school within the Horry County School District. Now take a walk through the halls and into the classrooms with 6th grade student, Evan.
Whittemore Park MS began implementing a blended learning rotation model (teacher-directed learning, independent learning, digital content learning) as a pilot before rolling out the full implementation of a personalized digital learning model across the 6th grade and then the whole middle school. Now, Whittemore Park’s innovative iCAN model is transcending across several schools in Horry County.
iCAN stands for Individualized, College and career readiness, Aspirations of students, and Network of support. These are the model’s central elements. Whittemore Park focuses on tailoring each student’s progression of learning to their needs, enabling real world connections in an effort to build a culture of college & career readiness, and motivating students in both a close family-knit relationship-building community and through a network of life skill supports.
Become a part of Evan’s iCAN Family, and join her math, science & social studies and language arts classes. You’ll notice the positive energy and holistic student support network in the iCAN Family. Evan’s math lessons are focused around real world applications, she learns science through song, works on project-based learning in social studies, and alternates between digital content days, teacher instruction & 1:1 teacher conference days in language arts each week. Evan is held accountable for her progress on the classroom walls which display the percentage of coursework that she’s completed. The personalized structure and support mechanisms of the iCAN model enable Evan to become engaged, proud and in charge of her learning and future.
Resources
This virtual video tour was created by students and teachers at Whittemore Park Middle School in Conway, South Carolina. This virtual video tour is meant to give brief background into the development of the iCAN model at Whittemore Park, offer a quick snapshot into a day-in-the-life of a student at WPMS and allows you to glean some insight into their personalized digital learning & rotational blended learning model. More information and resources on Whittemore Park’s personalized digital learning model, iCAN model and focus on college & career readiness are included here.
Whittemore Park MS/ Horry County School
Personalized Digital Learning at Whittemore Park MS/Horry County
- Keeping Pace with K-12 Digital Learning: “Digital Learning Snapshot: Horry County Schools, Conway, SC” (published March 2015)
- EdWeek “District’s Ambitious Personalized Learning Effort Shows Progress” (published October 2014)
College & Career Readiness
Professional Development
- Digital integration specialists + content learning specialists
iCAN Model
- iCAN stands for “i” = individualized, “C” = college and career readiness, “A” = aspirations of students, and “N” = network of support.
Silke Koester
Program Manager, NGLC
Silke is program manager for Next Generation Learning Challenges.
