| State: Washington DC | Number of Students: 981 |
| School Type: Charter Management Organization | Free and Reduced Lunch: 73.0% |
| Grade Level: PK-12 | English Language Learners: 19.0% |
School Context
This is a K-12 charter school which focus on project-based learning. The school is developing a blended learning grant that focuses on differentiate content. The population includes 73% low income students, a large number of students are designated special education funds.
State of Technology
As a Title 1 school with a high number of students designated for inclusion classrooms, they have students with a variety of experiences and levels in math. Teachers struggle to make sure students are all being pulled up and challenged at the different levels they are at. They would like to implement a blended learning program to support this differentiation in math content starting with Algebra 1 through PreCalculus. Next year, teachers in pilot classrooms will allow students to go at different paces spending a third of their time on computers working through modules, a third working directly with the teacher and a third working on projects.
Ideally, to support student time on computers, the school would like to test out two different types of tools to support differentiation at this time. One tool they would like to pilot would be entirely assignable, where teachers could organize their own content and/or have a bank of content to pull from. Teachers would be able to assign different pathways for specific students, but maintain control over which pathway a student takes and how fast they can move through content. The second type of tool they would like to pilot would have more of an adaptive focus. This tool should use a pre-assessment to place students on their own path way and adjust content and pacing based on their skills.
Currently, teachers have a traditional approach. They tend to teach toward the middle or the lower students, with little means of differentiation.
Tech Needs & Requirements
For the first type of tool they would like to test out, teachers should have total control to make their own content, organizing existing content and push that content out to specific sets of students.
The second type of tool they would like to test out should limit the amount of control and interaction teachers have with the program. The program should be adaptive.
The school would like to use both types of tools to test out which one our teachers are most comfortable and willing to use. The school offers students 1:1 Chromebooks. The school is looking for data that demonstrates student master on standards. Teachers will use data to help identify content or standards they should revisit in small group work or project based lessons. Data does not need to be exportable.
The tools must be web based.