Let’s give them better than the current system built on averages and provide for them, instead, models that allow them to discover, develop, and deploy their individual talents.
Southern Nevada Urban Microschool. The Las Vegas Review Journal reports on the ongoing demand from families for this unique community-based partnership between the city of North Las Vegas and Nevada Action for School Options that offers students a mastery-based approach to learning where the curriculum is tailored to meet student needs and uses a variety of innovative digital providers from Zearn, Dreambox, and Lexia to Cadence Learning that pairs master subject matter expert teachers with in-person learning guides to help students learn while building strong relationships with trusted adults:
At the City Council meeting, Goldberg, the assistant city manager, shared written testimonials about the academy. One was from eighth-grader Adelmo Calvo, who described it as a caring environment where things don’t get swept under the rug.
“With the teachers being so involved, you don’t see some of the problems that happen in other schools when kids get lost in the shuffle, like bullying, since teachers can see our individual needs and can tell if we are having a hard time,” he wrote.
Learn Everywhere in Florida. The Pioneer School provides a great example of “education unbundling” that allows for a more individualized education using multiple education approaches and providers. As Ron Matus explains, this is a microschool that is funded by Florida’s state scholarship program, uses the Florida Virtual Academy for core academic classes, and then leans into eclectic student-driven opportunities for enrichment:
Then they’ll immerse themselves in enrichment offerings as eclectic as it gets:
Coding, gardening, public speaking, civil rights history, an award-winning drama program …
Along the way, they’ll learn how to make fire, use a knife, change a flat …
In the fall, they’ll add small engine repair.
Ron Matus also describes the Pioneer school’s overall approach to education:
The Pioneer curriculum is a blend of Waldorf, Montessori and other learning models Pope fused and honed. It’s aimed at developing skills in “leadership, citizenship, entrepreneurship … and practical life responsibilities” that will help Pioneer students excel at the next level, in whatever they pursue.
Surf. Skate. Science. For the Walton Family Foundation, Jamie Jutilia interviews Toni and Uli Frallicciardi about their unique homeschool co-op program in Broward and Miami-Dade Counties that use surfing and skateboarding to teach STEAM lessons. In the true ‘learn everywhere “ spirit the beach and skateboard park become the classroom. As Toni Frallicciardi explains:
Surf Skate Science is a program that teaches science through action sports like surfing and skateboarding. We describe it as an action science class. Our goal is to get kids interested in science and technology careers, and to get them excited about learning. There’s a ton of science involved in skateboarding and surfing. We want kids to learn science with all their senses – to feel it, taste it, smell it and see it.
See a video of their school in action here.
Public Schools Everywhere. In forward-thinking “learn everywhere” thought leadership, Robin Lake of the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) recently called for a new “normal” for public schools where “the basic idea is that small, nimble hubs or microschools allow educators to join forces with community organizations, businesses, and social service providers to create student-centered learning programs that are unbounded from past assumptions about what school has to look like.” Some CRPE examples include:
“Career pathway hubs” that focus on serving students in flexible schedules so they can develop their career interests while still finishing high school.
“Home learning hubs” that serve students (and their families) who are educated primarily at home or in pods. Community maker spaces, performance stages, curriculum and counseling services, and tech support could all be available to support high-quality learning co-produced with families.
“Affirmation hubs” that focus on racial identity and culturally relevant curricula. The many successful educational pods or hubs designed by parent or community leaders for Black and Brown children, like the Oakland REACH virtual hub, could continue to operate inside or outside districts. Students might choose to attend for a semester or longer, for all or part of the school day.
“Connections hubs” that focus primarily on social development and mental wellness. The hubs might be run in meaningful partnership with social service providers who’ve had demonstrated success supporting kids who struggle with friendships, for instance, or are bullied in traditional schools.
“Hybrid learning hubs” that allow students to take some courses online and some in-person within the same space and with a strong community of learners.
Study Everywhere. In a fascinating and comprehensive Every piece “Caught in the Study Web,” Fadeke Adegbuyi worries that “study web” grew out of our current high-pressure academic climate. However, the larger story is the brilliant self-organizing and “learn everywhere” sentiment of Gen Z and millennials to accomplish their learning goals in the most spontaneous and co-creator fashion imaginable:
The Study Web is a constellation of digital spaces and online communities—across YouTube, TikTok, Reddit, Discord, and Twitter—largely built by students for students. Videos under the #StudyTok hashtag have been viewed over half a billion times. One Discord server, Study Together, has over 120 thousand members. Study Web extends far past study groups composed of classmates, institution specific associations, or poorly designed retro forums discussing entrance requirements for professional programs. It includes but transcends Studyblrs on Tumblr that emerged in 2014 and eclipses various Reddit and Facebook study groups or inspirational images shared across Pinterest and Instagram. Populated mostly by Gen Z and the youngest of millennials, Study Web is the internet most of us don’t see, and it’s become a lifeline for students from junior high to college.
As they say read the whole fabulous thing to reach this “learn everywhere” conclusion:
However superficial, with its built-to-inspire content and Amazon Prime finds, Study Web speaks to the experience of being a student in 2021, anywhere in the world. Study Web offers a respite, acknowledging the pains that can arise as a student and trying to make the best of it together. Between the soft lighting, the music, and a collective camaraderie, Study Web feels like a safe internet harbor for a generation that’s found itself adrift.
Learning Everywhere with EdTech. It is not surprising that EdTech investment during the pandemic boomed. According to EdSurge, in 2020, U.S. education technology startups raised over $2.2 billion in venture and private equity capital across 130 deals, a 30 percent increase over 2019. And it is telling where that investment landed, not in investments to education technology that serves the K-12 school market. Instead, seven of the 10 largest investments went to U.S. EdTech companies selling their services directly to consumers. As EdSurge’s Tony Wan explains:
Plenty of companies did raise capital to reach K-12 teachers and students where they were: in their own homes. School closures led to a rise in spending for supplemental educational services, and investment capital followed. Outschool, which offers an online marketplace of live classes for kids, raised $45 million. Juni Learning, a similar service, secured $10.5 million. These companies offer private classes, often taught by public school teachers who can make just as much, if not more, on those platforms than at their day jobs.
Also attracting capital were new, “parent-driven, next-gen school models” like Sora Schools and other services that support private homeschooling pods, observes James Kim, a principal at Reach Capital.
What distinguishes much of this new EdTech investment is the extent to which it is not just EdTech models offering individualized learning opportunities direct to consumers but also new models supporting individualized learning opportunities that include relationship development with trusted adults and peers.
Global EdTech Unicorns. Speaking of EdTech, Holon IQ (May 2021) published the complete list of 25 global EdTech unicorns, each worth more than $1 billion but still privately held. Many of these unicorns have direct to consumer models that offer more individualized pathways to learning. For example, Outschool, which offers live teacher led classes on a variety of topics, joined the list in April 2021, raising a $75M Series C.
Parent Agency Everywhere. In May 2021, Tyton Partners with support from the Walton Family Foundation released phase 1 of “School Disrupted,” a three-part series investigating the scale and scope of alternative education models and the future state of K-12 in the wake of COVID-19, a longitudinal survey of 3,000 parents across the country. A few key findings include:
Parents and caregivers took greater responsibility for school decision-making. More than 15 percent switched their child’s school for the 2020-21 academic year, which is estimated to be 50% higher than behavior pre-pandemic.
School enrollments shifted with public and private schools experiencing an estimated decrease of 2.6 million in student enrollment; charter schools, homeschooling, learning pods, and microschools all realized net increases.
The pandemic catalyzed growth of supplemental learning pods – defined as cohorts of students gathering in a small group – with adult supervision and outside the framework of their traditional physical or virtual classroom – to learn, explore, and socialize.
Households spent an estimated $20 billion more on an annualized basis on education-related activities, primarily stemming from the emergence of supplemental learning pods.
Not sure I understand all that is written here but at age 87 I will continue to try.