By Sam Sherwood, Director of Instruction and School Design at Springpoint

At Springpoint, we support our school partners to design innovative school models that set students on a path toward success. This summer, we kicked off work with our partners at Barr Foundation to support the design and implementation of nine new schools that will serve students who are off-track toward graduation as part of their Engage New England initiative. As we dive into this exciting work, we are constantly thinking about ways that schools can fill students’ learning gaps and get them college and career ready.

Throughout my time in education, I have often heard teachers and principals say there is a “tension” between meeting students where they are and holding them to high expectations. I can understand where that sentiment comes from. As a teacher, school founder, and principal for almost a decade, I have worked with students who have large gaps in their education that put them far behind grade level. Specifically, as a co-founder and co-principal at Bronx Arena High School, I learned a lot about serving over-age and under-credited students who tend to struggle on their path to acquiring credits and often need very specific supports to graduate and go on to rich post-secondary opportunities. These students deserve an education that can not only “ready” them for college, but that can also set them up to thrive in higher education and the workplace.

Providing this kind of education—especially for students who the system has failed—means identifying how to navigate this “tension.” All too often, we ask ourselves an either/or question: should we prioritize meeting students where they are at—which for an over-aged, under credited high schooler could appear be a 4th grade reading level and poor writing skills—or should we hold students to a rigorous college-ready reading and writing experience, which for that student might mean they cannot do the work expected of them and therefore they fall farther behind in credits? The answer is to not see this as an “either/or” question, but rather to view it through a “yes, and” lens. When a school is designed to tailor learning experiences around students’ specific needs and current skillsets—while at the same time maintaining rigorous learning expectations—then students will be truly prepared for the next level.

What do high expectations look like?
During my time at Bronx Arena, we saw a 68% college acceptance rate and 72% retention rate of students who matriculated because we were focused on designing every aspect of the school around the needs of our students while setting high expectations they could meet. Setting high expectations does not mean that we ignore the needs of students when they come to us. It means devising increasingly rigorous benchmarks that are attainable and transparent and continuing to support students in setting higher and higher goals as they progress, facilitating their pace to ensure that they’ve mastered the skills needed to be college and career ready. For example, if a student conducts a text analysis on a poem guided by a teacher, a next step would see that student analyzing a new, more complex poem on his own. Then, he can work toward analyzing a primary source—like a science research paper—to apply this skill across disciplines. Setting the bar higher and higher helps to ensure that by the time students graduate, they can achieve at high levels in a variety of contexts—like analyzing any college level text on their own.

Consistency & flexibility in the framework
So how can leaders and teachers achieve a rigorous personalization that sets students up for this kind of success? First, there must be a blend of consistency and flexibility within the instructional model of the school. This means a school must mindfully design a strong, consistent instructional framework that can be customized for a particular class, group, or student at any given time. I like to use the metaphor of an apartment building to help illustrate this idea. Each of the units within the building might have the same structural floor plan, so if you go from unit to unit there is consistency. However, the furnishings, decor, and general organization of each unit will be very unique to the needs, interests, and personal preference of the occupant.

The framework that a school uses is important and must be rooted in research and best practices, aligned to a school’s overall structure, and consistent and transparent. There are many research-based instructional design models to pull from and start. The key will be to find one that is the right fit for your students, staff, and school. For example, Bronx Arena uses a framework in which every course (including gym) and every credit asks a student to complete two “challenges” and one “capstone” where they demonstrate interdisciplinary competencies evaluated with school wide rubrics. Since every single course follows the same pattern—two challenges and one capstone—every credit earned represents the same level of rigorous expectations. Because school-wide competencies and rubrics are clear and transparent to all members of the school community, students can be held to rigorous expectations in every class. Instead of asking students to know six different high expectations from six different courses, they are asked to know a single, consistent, rigorous expectation for every academic touch point at the school.

Personalizing the consistent framework
Once the instructional framework is designed (i.e., the floor plan), students and teachers can decorate their apartments. Teachers customize the courses to meet the needs of their students academically and students take ownership as independent learners. This might look like substituting lessons for one student to help build writing skills, while keeping the final project the same. Or perhaps this means changing the topic or output of a final project for one student to match their interests and talents. This could also look like swapping out an entire challenge in one course and replacing it with a challenge from another course to fill a learning gap, while keeping the capstone project the same.

Even more importantly, students have the ability to personalize and own their learning. Having a consistent framework allows teachers to give students more flexibility and ownership over their learning because the course will still hold the same high expectations regardless of the content or method a student chooses to explore. Students are, in turn, encouraged to drive their learning and the curriculum because they have the freedom to dictate their instructional experience to a certain extent.

This flexibility also allows the school and the students to maximize credit earning opportunities around student interests. Not only does this support students in earning credits and acquiring knowledge but it imparts essential skills—like time management, persistence, and understanding their own learning styles—that students need for success in college and career. For example, if a student loves science, but needs credits in math, she can take a class on the ecosystem of the Bronx River, swapping in geometry lessons and projects while maintaining a focus on the science content that sparks her interest. As long as she completes the geometry challenges and capstone projects, she will develop the geometry skills needed to complete a credit, while deepening her natural interest in science. I have seen this approach motivate students to achieve at high levels because their authentic interests and passions are serving to drive their learning in previously challenging areas. This flexibility can also mean that students earn credits outside the boundaries of the classroom, like offering art credit for producing a school talent show from start to finish—including staging, lighting, emceeing, coordinating, etc. Or earning elective credit for serving on the school leadership advisory committee.

Personalizing learning for students does not mean sacrificing high expectations. Nor does personalization in service of accelerating credits and coursework mean the curriculum loses rigor. All schools can and must meet students where they are at instructionally while ensuring they are prepared for college and career.