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BLENDED LEARNING IN DC PUBLIC SHOOLSDANIEL K. LAUTZENHEISER AND TARYN HOCHLEITNERRandle Highlands Elementary School: StationRotation. In the 2012–13 school year, Randle HighlandsElementary School did not have a single computerin any of its classrooms. One year later, becauseof the school’s commitment to partner with the centraloffice to adopt blended learning, each classroomhas eight computers, and each school day has 90 minutesof blended math instruction and 120 minutes ofblended ELA instruction. (The additional time forELA is once again driven by DCPS literacy goals forthe current school year; the extra 30 minutes is usedfor writing.) Students rotate through three stationsduring the 90-minute blended-learning blocks: up toeight students sit at computers, working on online targetedpractice; a small group works on an independentactivity; and the remainder huddle together for a teacher-ledlesson. This model divides a large classroom intosmaller chunks while giving students targeted practiceon certain activities.The impetus behind this shift is Randle Highlands’dynamic principal, Tracy Foster. An environmental scientistby training, Foster spent her early career workingfor the Environmental Protection Agency in San Franciscobefore deciding to change tracks and take a teachingjob. In 2007, as a part of the New Leaders principalfellowship program, she transitioned to administration,with spells at the DCPS Hugh Brown campus and aturnaround with Friendship Public Charter School. In2011 she took the helm at Randle Highlands.Foster is adamant that changing a school’s culturemust take priority over any technological changes. Tothat end, the school worked to reduce truancy and suspensionsand make academic gains, especially in ELA.The resulting improvements placed Randle Highlandsinto that middle-tier for both math and ELA—nota chronically underperforming school that was eligiblefor additional resources from DCPS, but not atop performer either. “[We] have had a very difficulttime pushing the school over the 50 percent mark intohigher levels of proficiency,” Foster said. The DCPSinterventions were too low-level, geared toward schoolswith higher percentages of failing students. RandleHighlands needed something more.Foster’s answer was blended learning. She was lookingfor a tool to provide more tailored instruction, andher teachers were pushing for a small-group modelthat would give them more focused time with theirstudents. DCPS leadership also sees this as a majoradvantage of blended learning. Brian Pick explains,“There really is a powerful human capital aspect tothe blended learning model [with] the teachers in theroom able to work with a small group of students givingreal-time active feedback.” He continues,The other thing that excites me [about blended learning]is the teacher’s ability to increase the number of‘at bats.’ In a traditional delivery model you teachyour lesson on fractions one time and then you wait ayear to teach that lesson again. And here was a modelwhere a teacher was getting two or three at bats a day.In this model you are getting so good at teaching thatlesson because you do it so often.Foster is adamant that changing aschool’s culture must take priorityover any technological changes.Foster first used $45,000 of her local school fundsto make an initial computer purchase. Then came theDell Foundation grant, $250,000 to use explicitly forblended learning. “We had already developed a twoyeartechnology plan [to] try to overhaul the infrastructurehere in the school,” Foster recalled. “But in[November 2012] we received this grant, and we felt itwas ideal, because we were already focusing on smallgroupinstruction.” The school already had the commitment,including teacher buy-in, and had alreadyallocated local school funds for a computer purchase.The Dell grant was transformative, though, both inproviding financial power and in giving Foster thestructure to implement her vision properly.The contours of the grant were broad and gaveRandle Highlands a fair amount of flexibility in howit designed its classrooms. The school partnered withEducation Elements, a for-profit education consultingcompany founded in 2010 that helps schools implementblended-learning models. For the first year ofthe program, Foster leaned heavily on the recommendationsof Education Elements for content providers,8
BLENDED LEARNING IN DC PUBLIC SHOOLSDANIEL K. LAUTZENHEISER AND TARYN HOCHLEITNERultimately settling on four: ST Math, Lexia, MyON,and iReady, which offers Common Core–aligned diagnosticand instruction for both reading and math.The contract with Education Elements also camewith intensive coaching for the school’s leadership andteachers, as well as technical support.Any transition like this is bound to face certain hurdlesthat are difficult, if not impossible, to prevent. Thefirst computers Foster ordered, almost 60 machinestotal, were purchased in February 2013 but did notarrive until May because of a delay in the district’s procurementoffice. The next batch of 100 Dell computersRandle Highlands bought came with more than 30defective devices.Once the computers arrived and were operational,the school ran into problems with the DCPS mainframe.Then, Education Elements had given eachstudent a unique login name and password that wasintended to work with each of the four content providers,but the Education Elements and Randle Highlandsnetworks failed to interface correctly. To top itall off, one teacher resigned right after the school yearbegan, meaning the school had to recruit and hire areplacement.Foster also highlighted some unique challenges ofimplementing a blended-learning model in the elementaryschool context, especially for kindergarteners,who do not yet have the attention span to sit through30 minutes of computer-based instruction each day.The system had to be tweaked, with Foster shorteningthe time to 25 minutes. Foster was not alone in findingshe had to make adjustments for her youngest students.Scott Cartland, principal at Wheatley EducationCampus, a joint elementary and middle school facility,noted that when it comes to assessing kindergartenersonline “you’re measuring as much their ability to navigatea mouse and screen” as you are their cognitive abilities.Foster’s and Cartland’s counterpart at KetchamElementary School, Maisha Riddlesprigger, agreed.“Another challenge for some of the younger kids isactually the use of the mouse to manipulate some ofthe programs. . . . I think it’s just their dexterity at thatearly age.”With the rotation model up and running, and withteacher support and external funding in place, Fosterseems optimistic that this new instructional design willpush Randle Highlands into higher proficiency rates.Her approach has been thoughtful, and the logisticalhiccups she is facing seem to be fairly inevitable practicalhurdles of leading a blended-learning transition.Hart Middle School: Teach to One Math. Our daycontinues at Hart Middle School—a different school,a different blended-learning model. At Hart, almost allstudents receive the entirety of their math instructionthrough a blended model via a partnership with theNew York City–based nonprofit New Classrooms. ForHart, which enrolls 517 students in grades six througheight, this means that for three 80-minute blocks eachday, an entire grade level is in the school’s newly renovatedbasement learning math via New Classroom’sTTO model.New Classrooms is the brainchild of Joel Rose, a formerfifth-grade teacher who was working for the NewYork City Department of Education as chief executivefor human capital in 2009 when he founded a programcalled School of One. School of One is a math instructionalprogram housed in New York City’s Departmentof Education and currently operating in four middleschools. Its chief aim is to use technology to createhighly personalized instruction for students.Using both state assessments and daily mini-assessmentsto gauge student learning, and taking intoaccount student preferences, School of One createsa personalized daily schedule for each student. Eachschedule, or “playlist,” assigns a student to one of severalmodes of instruction, called modalities, that worksbest for the student on the basis of the content for thatday. For example, one student might spend part of theday with teacher-led instruction, followed by independentstudy. Another might marry the teacher-ledinstruction with peer-to-peer work. A third might doa mix of small-group work and virtual practice usingan online program. Teachers are able to track studentperformance in real time, and every student is assessedwith a mini five-question quiz at the end of each day,the results of which will build the student’s playlist forthe next day.School of One was greeted with a great deal of fanfare;Time magazine heralded it as one of the best innovationsof 2009. 17 In 2011, Rose left School of Oneto the auspices of the New York City Department of9
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