A Message from Lisa Krapfl on Personalized Learing

 

This school year, with the support of our teachers and district leaders, Holy Family Catholic Schools adopted a research-backed, personalized approach to teaching and learning where:

• Students are engaged in rigorous projects that reflect the world around them, giving them practice with cognitive skills that will help throughout their life — like collaborating with a team, interpreting data, and presenting a persuasive argument.
• Students are having regular one-on-one meetings with a dedicated mentor, who is getting to know them deeply, helping them build habits of success and supporting them in setting and achieving their personal goals.
• Students are developing “self-direction” — an invaluable skill that can be applied to any task in the adult world. They’re learning how to set goals, make plans, and reflect on their learning.

Successfully rolling out any change at school can be challenging, so I’m incredibly thankful for the dedication of our teachers who are putting in the hard work. This school year we have trained and supported 40+ teachers who are implementing personalized learning for more than 340 students in grades 4, 5, 6, 7, and 9.

 

We’re already seeing the positive impact on our schools; for example, students are collaborating on real-world projects that range from applying the concepts of forces while creating models of roller coasters in 5th grade to conducting bioremediation lab research to reduce E-waste in high school biology. Students are highly engaged in these projects and are making tremendous growth in their cognitive thinking skills as they are applying subject content to their work. Teachers have noted the high level of student engagement as well as student ownership of their learning. In talking with a middle school teacher, she states, “I forgot that managing behavior was even a thing…the students are so busy and focused that they don’t have time to get distracted.”

 

Teachers and students continue to meet weekly in their mentoring sessions and that, too, has been a highlight. As one student shared, “I get to tell my problems to my teacher and I get to relax and sit down with my teacher and if it’s a major problem we will work on steps to solve it.” I am extremely pleased with the progress our system has made thus far and with the commitment of our students, teachers, and administration in making the program uniquely Holy Family.

 

On a personal note, I too, have a son in personalized learning. I’m reflecting on his recent question whether or not he will be in the program when he moves to Mazzuchelli. I reacted as you might expect, and then pursued his request with a question. I asked, “Why wouldn’t you want to be in it?” He answered me, “Because I just want to go to class and have the teacher tell me what to do and do it.” After digging in further, the root cause of his angst was some stress he was feeling related to the mastery of required work with only a few months to go!  I share this conversation with you because I want you to know that the opportunity to go back to the way it used to be or to be tempted to avoid the initial struggles of the rigorous work in personalized is so tempting! I understand this and ask you to hold tight to the promise that the struggle now will be worth it with the triumphs that will follow.

 

We’re committed to building on this progress in 2019 and have set targets for improvement based on your feedback from the surveys, the Parent Possible group that meets monthly, and conversations we have had with all of you. We will again send a survey in May to track our progress. If you have a more immediate question or concern about personalized learning, feel free to reach out to me and/or your building administrator.