Student-Designed Personalized Learning

Having exhausted all core and elective science course offerings in the Meriden, Conn., Public Schools, Luke L’Heureux, a college-bound senior, was searching for more learning opportunities in the sciences. He knew he wanted to pursue advanced studies in the STEM fields, which require exceptional science knowledge and experiential learning, so Luke took charge of his learning and consulted with a personalized learning experience coordinator to design his own academic plan.

Luke is one of hundreds of students in Meriden designing and pursuing their own personalized learning experience, or PLE. These credit-bearing opportunities allow students to design a program or a learning schedule and embrace anytime, anywhere learning.

Students’ schedules and limited in-school course offerings make the PLE a necessary addition to our high school core offerings. As schools prepare to assure that all students are college and career ready, the PLE experience provides students with greater choice and a voice in their learning, as evidenced by accountability for skill attainment and mastery of content.

Laying Groundwork

Creating student-centered learning environments began five years ago in the Meriden Public Schools. The school district laid the groundwork by using the work of Carol Dweck, a leading researcher at Stanford, on what motivates individuals to succeed. We’ve been applying her ideas on the growth mindset, reducing the number of academic levels from five to two, adopting “no zero” grading policies, opening access to all classes and increasing Advanced Placement and Early College Experience enrollment, leading to significant gains in participation by our black and Hispanic students.

We successfully implemented the Common Core State Standards by providing support to staff. The American Federation of Teachers encouraged our teachers to participate in the Common Core’s Training of Teacher Leaders, a program to help teachers make the transition. We also collaborated with our higher education partners to ensure students are college and career ready. Our application for personalized learning experiences requires students to identify learning objectives tied to the Common Core that must be met to earn credit.

To support the district’s digital transition and the personalized learning approach, we adopted bring-your-own-device guidelines for students across all grade levels, added thousands of devices and implemented a one-to-one program at our two high schools.

The district also recognized that we needed to view outcomes through two lenses — an academic lens as well as a climate and culture lens. To support the instructional environment, the district launched school climate surveys and created an online support portal.

Board Backing

In August 2014, the Meriden Board of Education reviewed and revised its policy and goals relating to student-centered learning. The board adopted these four goals:

• Provide a student-centered learning environment to meet the individual needs of each student;
• Provide an educational program that will lead to college and career readiness;
• Provide a technology- and resource-rich learning environment; and
• Provide opportunities for learning outside the traditional classroom.

We consulted with the Connecticut State Department of Education and the Connecticut State Department of Labor to have them support and approve unpaid experiential learning programs. With policies in place and attainable goals set, Meriden launched its personalized learning experience program.

PLE students review their proposals with school counseling staff and faculty sponsors. With funding from the Nellie Mae Education Foundation, the district added four part-time PLE coordinators at each high school to help students design their own program, make community and business contacts, support students with digital content and device usage and assist students through the application and approval process. The coordinators spend two periods each day working with students to develop, monitor and assess the students’ programs.

Once a PLE proposal is accepted, students maintain a log of their learning experiences and carry out a culminating project to demonstrate that learning standards have been met satisfactorily. Students must complete a learning target application that requires the following information: a basic description, expected outcomes, criteria for successful completion, anticipated hours, reasons for selecting the PLE, key components and location(s) of the learning experience.

Union Endorsement

Before unveiling the personalized learning experience program, we met multiple times with leaders from both the teachers’ and administrators’ unions. We did not want union members to see the PLE experience as a means to reduce certified teachers or minimize a teacher’s professional judgment. The concept needed approval from the district’s curriculum committee, as well as the full board of education.

Teachers supported the personalized learning experience because it was not motivated to achieve staffing reductions or budget savings. Union leaders recognized the importance of giving students greater voice and choice in their learning. Having effective union leadership, as well as a collaborative culture, helped with the successful launch.

Our students are embracing the concept, challenging themselves and earning high school credit through authentic learning experiences. Middle school students are taking required high school classes so they can earn academic credits and add flexibility to their course schedules to participate in a self-designed personalized learning experience once they reach high school.

More than 100 students from Meriden’s Platt and Maloney high schools earned PLE credits in the past year. These students designed their own programs at school, at local businesses, at community agencies, online and at home.

Projects ranged from chairing the Go Green Committee at the local Sheraton hotel, to providing technology support at the district courthouse, to lifeguarding at the city’s community center, to working with the contractors rebuilding our high schools, to mastering a computer programming language and creating remedial games for students, to self-directed play writing, to trout preservation projects with the Quinnipiac River Watershed Association.

Growing Participation

Participation is on the rise — we expect a 20 percent increase in PLE students in 2015-16 — and here to stay. Platt High School seniors Jasmine McLeish and Kiera Flynn directed the play Lockdown by Douglas Craven as their credit-earning PLE. The play deals with eight teenage students left in a dark classroom by themselves during a schoolwide lockdown, uncertain whether it’s just a drill or an actual emergency.

Flynn says “what hooked me” on the drama she chose was its personal relevancy. “It was something that happens now. It’s relatable, and that’s what drew me to it,” she adds.

“We were a little concerned at first about doing it, but it’s a play that’s worth people seeing. Audiences need to see this,” says McLeish.

Platt High School seniors Christine Jacobs and Joshua Dwyer expressed these comments about their PLE experience — Jacobs designed a personalized learning experience related to special education after she admits, “I had too many study halls.” Her semester-long project had her working with students with disabilities during gym class. Based on that experience, she says, “I would like to work in a group home and work with special-needs kids.”

Dwyer, who participated in Platt Builds, an on-site learning experience with building contractors that’s available to students while both high schools undergo $230 million renovations, says he recommends personalized learning experiences to others “because it teaches you stuff beyond the classroom.”

When Justin Duran, a Maloney High School senior, completed his personalized learning experience in Maloney Builds, he decided to explore career options in engineering. “The PLEs are different from the academic subjects because they are more focused. They are personalized for different people, for different interests.”

Trina DiMella, who completed a PLE as a teller at the local credit union, says she enjoyed the personal finance course she took as a sophomore, so a senior-year opportunity to spend time inside a credit union was appealing. “I learned a lot about confidentiality, dressing professional and how you need to act in a work environment,” she says.

Redefining Learning

While 149 high school students have earned high school credit through their personalized learning experiences, we judge our overall success on student voice, student engagement, academic indicators and climate and culture data. Students’ perceptions of school as a positive place climbed 16 percent at our high schools. While more students than ever are taking Advanced Placement and early college classes, hundreds of others are recovering credits during the school year and at summer school. Most strikingly, since 2010-11 we have seen declines in suspensions (62 percent), expulsions (89 percent) and school-based arrests (86 percent). The PLE experience is a key component of our student-centered learning approach.

We will continue to redefine teaching and learning in our pursuit of student-centered learning. We expect to consider or reconsider the role and function of the high school counseling department; the purpose of high school study halls; methods to allow middle school students to earn high school credit; the district’s relationship with the Chamber of Commerce and business community; allowing students to keep school-issued personal technology devices over the summer; staffing to support more personalized learning; documentation of anytime/anywhere learning; and summer learning opportunities.

Most importantly, our personalized learning experience program has demonstrated that students really can learn anywhere and anytime. In Meriden, we encourage both our students and staff to take charge of their learning.