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BLENDED LEARNING IN DC PUBLIC SHOOLSDANIEL K. LAUTZENHEISER AND TARYN HOCHLEITNEREducation and founded New Classrooms, whose goal isto expand the School of One model, now called Teachto One, to other schools and other cities. New Classroomsis currently operating the TTO math programin 15 schools in five cities.In 2013, researchers at Columbia University TeachersCollege conducted a study of students in sevenTTO programs and found that these students experiencedmore growth than their peers nationally onthe Measures of Academic Progress assessment. Thestudy was conducted after only one year of implementation,though, and found that gains varied by demographics—blackstudents did worse than their peers. 18What’s more, two of the initial three New York Cityschools dropped the program after the first year, citingpoor student outcomes. Still, the results seem to suggestthat, in the right context and with sufficient time, theprogram can make a difference. And DCPS ChancellorHenderson appears willing to give TTO that time,saying on the record that the new program needs threeyears of implementation before it can be judged a successor failure. 19DCPS elected to house TTO at Hart over severalother interested schools because of a strong commitmentfrom the principal, Bill Kearney, and histeachers. 20 Tracy MacKenzie, who works for NewClassrooms out of their New York City office, agreedwith this decision. “Leadership is really, really key,” shesays. “We need to know both at the district level andthen at the individual school level [that] we have strongleaders that really support this type of innovation andare willing to take some big, bold risks in bringing in anew program that really changes the way that instructionis delivered.” Hart, having worked aggressively tobuild new math labs and use technology to improvestruggling student performance even before TTO wasin the picture, fit the bill.The basement of Hart, which was remodeled duringthe summer of 2012 to fit the distinctive TTO design,is a cavernous room with large screens that list each student’sschedule for that day. The room also containsclusters of different arrangements of computers andtables throughout. On arrival we are greeted with mildchaos; the entire seventh-grade class, nearly 200 students,was noisily transitioning to the first modality (oftwo) for this block.The modalities, each of which lasts 32 minutes,include virtual instruction (for example, a high-qualityvideo offered by an online provider such as LearnZillion),virtual reinforcement (using online practice toolssuch as BuzzMath or Destination Math), teacher-ledinstruction, peer-to-peer assignments, and “tasks”(cumulative projects that students work on for six daysin a row that seek to answer real-world questions). Everymath period concludes with a 10-minute, five-questionassessment for each student. TTO considers a score offour or five to be passing, and a student’s result on theassessment is used by TTO’s algorithm to churn out theplaylist for the next day’s class. The 80-minute operationis responsible for, with a handful of exceptions forstudents with more significant learning disabilities, theentirety of math instruction for Hart Middle Schoolstudents.This is year two of the TTO pilot at Hart. Afterthe first year, the school observed minor gains in mathscores on the DC CAS assessment for seventh andeighth graders, although Hart’s sixth graders experienceda significant (to the tune of 22 percentage points)drop, according to a DCPS analysis. Andrew Pratt, asenior program manager for New Classrooms in Washington,DC, attributes this to the fact that many of thesixth graders entered middle school significantly behindgrade level. The TTO program, Pratt contends, helpedthe students catch up on pre-grade-level skills, but formany students, the gaps were so large that one year wasnot enough time to both catch up and master all of thenecessary on-grade-level skills.But even given mild test score increases for moststudents under TTO, a couple practical issues remainconcerning the administration of this radical approachto math class. For one, the program is expensive. Itcost roughly $1 million to implement TTO at Hart,including $600,000 in infrastructure costs from DCPSto revamp the basement and the contract with NewClassrooms that covers both New Classrooms’ costs(for use of their tools, technical support, consulting,and training) and licensing fees with the digital vendorsfor TTO’s online content. 21 Most of the remainder wascovered by an outside grant. Such an investment mightbe feasible for a single school with the support of financialpartners; it seems an insurmountable burden if DCwanted to expand the program to many more schools.10
BLENDED LEARNING IN DC PUBLIC SHOOLSDANIEL K. LAUTZENHEISER AND TARYN HOCHLEITNERThe shift to TTO has also dramatically changed theresponsibilities of Hart’s math teachers. Teachers whorun a teacher-led modality are granted only 32 minutesof instruction time, far less than they were used toin traditional classrooms. Given the fluid nature of theprogram, the modality that students use can vary day today, with teachers having less of a chance to develop thesame kind of relationship with individual students thatcomes from a year-long class assignment.Teachers also see big differences in their lesson planningpractices as they work with the daily TTO playlists.For example, they can no longer plan ahead for theentire week on a Sunday night. Originally, the TTOalgorithm generated a student’s playlist for the ensuingday by 4:00 p.m. (or even later, as John Rice recalls),limiting the time teachers had to plan a lesson. Whenasked about this problem, MacKenzie said New Classroomsis in the process of developing the capacity forschedules to be generated throughout the school day asdifferent cohorts of students complete their daily exitslips—an encouraging evolution that will likely be welcomedby teachers.Challenges with the teacher’s role presentan important dilemma for any schoolthat seeks to shift to a blended modelwith existing personnel.Still, such challenges make it clear why teachers whoare used to a traditional classroom may have a difficulttime transitioning to TTO. Changes to the teacher’srole present an important dilemma, not just for Hart,but for any school that seeks to shift to a blended modelwith existing personnel. Indeed, after the first year ofTTO, Hart Middle School experienced significantturnover among a number of its math teachers. Of theseven teachers in the math lab in the 2012–13 schoolyear, only one remains, and three left the school completely.“What all seven teachers from last year had incommon,” Rice explains, “was difficulty adjusting tothe radically different teaching model required by TTO. . . and all found other positions either within Hart orwith other organizations.”The high costs, coupled with some of the challengesteachers face in this different style of “classroom,” suggestthat the TTO program might not be the rightmodel for every DCPS school. And that is okay. TTOis a bold experiment for the district—one they knowinglytook on, and one that has much promise in astruggling school. Part of the advantage of the DCPSstrategy is that it allows the district to experiment withmultiple blended models and see which ones work andin which contexts they work. The district seems willingto wait and see how that plays out at Hart.Anacostia High School: Discovery Education Techbooks.When we arrived at Anacostia High School,only 5 of the 30 or so desks were occupied. Threemore students trickled in during our visit, but the paltrynumber is reflective of a school grappling with highrates of truancy. After a few minutes of overview, theteacher instructed the students to take out class laptopsand log into their “techbooks.” The techbooks are runvia a DCPS partnership with Discovery Education, arapidly growing arm of the media and communicationsgiant based in nearby Silver Spring, Maryland. As wenoted earlier, the techbooks are an entirely online portalwith a host of multimedia and other features.In theory, this model is filled with possibilities. Notonly does an online platform allow for a wide variety ofcontent, but the assessments can be taken quickly andresults viewed immediately. If the students log in usingunique IDs, the teacher would be able to track eachstudent’s progress. The techbooks also allow studentsto work at their own pace, with the teacher free to walkaround the room and give more tailored instruction.But such capabilities are beneficial only when usedto their full advantage—a responsibility that fell, inthis case, on the classroom teacher. Students loggedin not with unique IDs but with generic ones, negatingthe ability of the techbook to track their individualperformance. At the same time, the teacher asked studentsto answer questions on a worksheet rather thantaking advantage of the capability to do so online. Inthis classroom, in other words, the blend of teacher-ledand online instruction did not lead to a new learningexperience. Digital content had simply replaced thenondigital, rather than being a catalyst for restructuringthe teacher’s lesson, freeing up her time to focus11
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