| State: California | Number of Students: N/A |
| School Type: Charter School | Free and Reduced Lunch: N/A |
| Grade Level: 9-12 | English Language Learners: N/A |
School Context
This California charter school is the final stages of development and will be awarded funding this coming Spring. This progressive high school will open in 2017, with a soft launch in 2016. It will have 68 students per "house" or class. The school is modeled after an Oxford Model and will focus on inquiry and service learning, a project-based approach. All learning will be blended, allowing for flexibility, rigor, and high achievement, similar to Summit Public Schools. It will serve about 50% low-income population will have a high percentage of Black, Latino, and South Pacific students. They expect 88% to be low performing students.
State of Technology
Since students in this school model with learn in a variety of locations and times, students will need access to a centralized place where they can access materials, curriculum, a calendar, and other items for learning. Looking for a solution similar to Summit's Basecamp.
Currently, there is no solution.
Tech Needs & Requirements
The school is looking for a flexible, customizable learning management system that can handle multiple methods of instruction from flipped classroom, to standard, linear pace and sequence of assignments. Ideally, they would like the learning management system to capture as much data as possible about the students and their learning.
The administrator would like for teachers to be able to customize playlists for their students. The user should be able to change or edit these components to create learning maps specific to his/her student's preferences/needs. These playlists can be auto-generated using a recommendation engine within the tool. Since the school model is very flexible, so too should the learning management system. It needs to support cross curricular teacher/co-teaching. The tool must connect to and/or contain proprietary content and provide a method for storing and organizing the content used to create lessons, courses and curriculums. The tool should host a repository of third-party content.
The tool should ideally be able to embed content from third party curriculum vendors, but if they cannot there needs to be at least a way to integrate third party content. Teachers should be able to embed video, e-texts, and create content. They would like a tool that supports a single learning map for students but also might be flexible to create different pathways for different students or groups of students. Also, they would like the ability to build a central repository so that teachers can share lessons and assignments.
Students will use this tool all day to collect notes, recording video, and do research. Students will actively produce content as well as receive content. Therefore, they will need to access their student profiles, personalized learning plans and a calendar in addition to content, including lessons and assessments. Ideally, it would be nice for students to see progress towards their goals. For example a teacher might say, "this week work on these three standards" so content needs to be tagged with standards and visible to both students and teachers via a report or heat map that tracks standards.
The feedback loop with teachers and students must be robust and open. The tool must provide a means for teachers to create, administer and track assessment data, including results from offline assessments. Students must have a way to complete assessments online and access their results from prior assessments. If this is not possible, then at least be able to connect to a third party assessment.
The tool features must include: users to develop items and assessments aligned with learning targets and competencies; give access to an item bank of third party assessments that are aligned with relevant standards, such as SBAC or PARCC; allows users to develop and store rubrics; allow educators to plan and administer assessments online. It would be nice for the tool to enable teachers to capture assessment data from offline performance tasks online.
The administrator would like a calendar for students to be able to see their assignments and plans for the week. The tool should have the ability for students in shared classes or teams to collaborate. Announcements should be a feature for groups and classes.
Students will have a predetermined playlist and will act independently at their own pace.
Teachers will be able to access student data, adjust playlists, and offer help to struggling students.
The tool must have the ability to make playlists. Ideally, the tool pushes out a playlist that teachers can customize if need be. The tool must also have the ability for educators and administrators to sort and group like students based on different assessment and student profile related data points. The tool must have a robust feedback mechanism. The tool must integrate with third party assessment and content vendors and supports a project-based learning environment. The school provides students with 1:1 iPads. Data is very important in this model. Students will be graded based on competency and mastery of skills. Ideally, the tool allows users to create, maintain and customize a variety of reports. The learning management system should be able to report on assessment data, student progress including by course or by competency. Most importantly, there needs to be the ability for educators and administrators to sort and group like students based on different assessment and student profile related data points. The school does not have technology requirements.