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New Designs for School

Generation Schools Network: West Generation Academy

This Denver public 6-12 school operated by Generation Schools Network, which opened in Fall 2012, redesigned the academic model to a rotational blended model for greater personalization, more time for learning, and stronger support for academic and 21st century skills development. It also redeployed the school’s existing resources to change the model without adding to school costs and operating within key parameters of teacher contracts. The goal is to ensure that innovative practice and change occurs not just outside the system, but within it as well.
New Designs for School

The Great Oaks Foundation: Great Oaks Charter School of New York City

In this charter school serving students in grades 6-12, the model combines an intensive tutor corps staffing and instructional model (adapted from Match Education in Boston) with blended learning. The blended learning approach is supported by the model, professional development, and online platform and curriculum of the Kunskapsskolan schools in Sweden. Great Oaks is designed to specifically serve English language learners, and the learning experience is tailored to student needs and goals through teacher-led sessions, sustained tutoring sessions, and customized online content.
New Designs for School

InnovateEDU: Brooklyn Laboratory Charter School

Entrepreneurial learning is the backbone of this Brooklyn charter school network which opened in Fall 2014 to serve grades 6-12, including English language learners and students with disabilities. LAB’s academic model combines empirically effective learning practices with innovative implementation strategies, including a blended learning model that integrates high-dosage tutoring with game-based adaptive courseware and teacher-led lessons.
New Designs for School

Profile: Intrinsic Schools

Students spend time in open, flexible “pods” rather than classrooms at this 6-12 charter school in Chicago. In each half-day Humanities block and STEM block, 90 students move fluidly within a pod between individualized adaptive digital content, multimedia content, small-group instruction, seminars, and group and independent project work. Master teachers design units around essential questions and curate online curriculum.
Why Schools Need to Change

It’s Time to Trash the Terms “Non-Cogs” and “Soft Skills”

Andy Calkins presents an argument for new language that is more accurate, less comparative, and less antagonistic.
New Designs for School

Schools for the Future: SFF Detroit

Designed specifically for students who are off-track academically, this 8-12th grade blended high school in Detroit uses a mastery approach to help students recuperate lost credits while accelerating their path toward college ready standards. Groups of 12-14 students form “PACT Teams” with weekly meetings facilitated by a certified social worker as part of the school's emphasis on addressing social-emotional development, wraparound services, and intensive staffing.
New Designs for School

Summit Public Schools: Summit Denali

The model of Summit Denali, a 6-12 charter school in the Bay Area of California that opened in 2013, flipped the traditional school model, placing students at the center and allowing them to self-direct and drive their own learning. The school day includes personalized learning time, project time, mentor time, reading time, and community time. Students, teachers, and parents navigate through the learning using the Personalized Learning Plan dashboard.
New Designs for School

Touchstone Education: Merit Prep Newark

The model for this 6-12 charter school located in Newark, NJ hinges on six key values: achievement, innovation, excellence, teamwork, urgency, and integrity, and attempts to maximize the best of both technology and "offline" time with teachers and peers. Each day students log in to the Touchstone Scoreboard which shows their daily schedule of online content and which skills they need to conquer; they work from online playlists that teachers personalize for students. The model is explicitly designed to scale.
Technology Tools

K-12 Roundup of Digital Tools & Content

You’re probably painfully aware of the fact that the field of digital content and platforms is constantly evolving. To help you sort through what’s available, check out this curated list.
New Designs for School

Profile: Valor Collegiate Academies

The four guiding principles behind the blended, competency-based, personalized learning model of Valor Collegiate Academies, a charter organization serving grades 5-12 in Nashville, TN: 1. Reflect the diversity of our country and local community. 2. Meet students' unique academic and non-academic needs. 3. Leverage a strong school community to create self-directed learners. 4. Develop a new approach for selecting, training & retaining great teachers.