As personalized learning emerges as a leading research-based educational model – and as part of our commitment to ensuring every Holy Family student leaves our schools with the knowledge and skills to be college, career and citizenship-ready – Holy Family is proud to embrace a personalized approach to education.
What is Personalized Learning?
At Holy Family, we believe in educating the whole student. We recognize that every child is a gift from God, and they come to us with unique backgrounds, individual needs and interests. Our teachers and school leaders partner with your family, getting to know your children to create a learning experience that will prepare them to become the best versions of themselves.
In every classroom, students engage in hands-on, real-world learning to practice and develop Whole Student Outcomes that will set them apart in college, career and life.
Through one-on-one mentoring, students build key habits proven to support academic achievement and well-being, while learning how to set and achieve their goals.
Working with community partners, Holy Family students are empowered to employ their God-given gifts as they enhance their sense of purpose in the world by exploring interests and serving the needs of our community.
The Benefits:
Personalized learning provides that every individual, upon reaching adulthood, will be equipped with the skills, knowledge, and habits to realize their God-given potential, through engagement, discernment, growth, and excellence in all they do.
The approach encourages students to take ownership of their work while digging deeper into their interests. As students progress, educators learn about each student’s academic strengths and challenges. Program studies have shown that many students who have historically struggled are able to access the curriculum in new ways, while students who excel are finding opportunities to accelerate their progress even further.
Pillars for Success
Personalized learning at Holy Family is built on a set of pillars that, together, support the growth and well-rounded development of the whole child:
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Through relevant and meaningful projects, hands-on learning, and real-world experiences, students develop critical thinking skills, that will stick with them for life (long after they've forgotten content). Throughout their entire academic career at Holy Family, students are practicing and progressing through a continuum of skills tailored to each academic discipline.
To put academic skills to work, Holy Family students must develop a broad knowledge base and a deep understanding of the core subjects.
A foundational component of personalized learning is the ability to demonstrate competency on standards-aligned assessments in all core subject areas. Content Knowledge includes a set of vocabulary, ideas, events, concepts, properties and details related to a given academic discipline.
The curricula provided by Gradient Learning are selected from among the leading open-source curriculum providers to offer best-in-class learning materials that support mastery of both academic content and critical cognitive, social and emotional competencies. They are aligned with the common core and vetted through EdReports. Furthermore, Holy Family provides an additional level of scrutiny to ensure the recommended resources meet our Holy Family standard for rigor.
Teachers target instruction individually and offer small-group and whole-class instruction based on real-time student assessment data.
Students reflect on their experiences with the support of their own personal mentor on a weekly basis, working toward a set of Whole-Student Outcomes, including learning strategies, emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills. Weekly check-ins provide ongoing feedback so that mentors may serve as a coach and advocate for their mentees.
Fostering a sense of purpose through Faith in Action means students engage in relevant and meaningful enrichment experiences outside the classroom to more fully realize what they are called to do in college, career and life. No matter what students want to accomplish in their lives, they need a plan to make that dream a reality.
Students set and track short-term academic goals and long-term college and career goals. Mentor teachers develop strong relationships with their student mentees to understand their aspirations, help them set their goals and reflect on their progress through weekly mentoring check-ins.
You may enjoy this blog post on Mentoring in Personalized Learning.
Students will prepare for these experiences throughout the year but will focus in on them during Religion time. Each experience will be one week long and take up half of each day. During this time we will take a break from core courses and connect students with local experts in an effort to develop social and spiritual awareness, while also putting student knowledge and skills to the test.
Read this blog post highlighting a Faith in Action retreat organized for students at Wahlert Catholic.
The Unique Elements of Personalized Learning
- Authentic learning
- A core focus on real-world skills and whole child outcomes
- Student-driven learning supporting a sense of ownership of individual success
- Competency-based programming
- Community partnerships that foster students' sense of purpose
- One-on-one mentoring
- Regular practice in goal setting
Through our personalized learning, students become aware of what they are learning, why they are learning it and how they learn best. They become self-directed learners and develop behaviors and mindsets necessary for success.
The Student's Role:
Students are empowered to become scientists, historians, mathematicians, critical thinkers, readers and writers by learning and adopting discipline-specific skills in each academic subject. With the support of teachers and personal mentors, they set goals for their learning, reflect on their progress and build habits and mindsets to help them succeed in college, career and life.
The Teacher's Role:
Teachers have the necessary tools to identify their students' unique needs and customize instruction to meet students where they are. Daily classroom interaction may involve full-class lessons, small-group workshops or one-on-one instruction and support, depending on the needs of the students that day. By keenly understanding their students' needs, teachers can build stronger relationships and support their growth better than ever before. As one Wahlert Catholic High School teacher said, "I have been teaching for 30-plus years, and I have never known students this well!"
The Mentor's Role
One-on-one mentorship fosters a sense of connectedness and trust among our students and the adults at their school. Every student is paired with a mentor who will act as their advocate both inside and outside of the classroom through the duration of their years at each school. Mentors can be teachers, counselors, or principals who meet one-on-one with their student mentees for at least ten minutes each week, throughout the school year. With the consistent support of a trusted adult, students are empowered to set and achieve both short- and long-term academic and personal goals. Mentors also serve as a guide and partner for parents at their child's school.
Personalized Learning Q & A
As with anything new, there are always questions, and we want to help answer yours! Here are a few to start with. If you have other questions, please submit the form below. Thank you!
Gradient Learning, formerly known as Summit Learning changed its name for several reasons. The leading justification was to reduce confusion with Summit Public Schools, which was where the initial Summit Learning program began, but now operates as a separate entity. The name "Summit" is also widely used by organizations in education and other industries.
Since the Summit Learning program as we know it is evolving, the timing made sense for a rebrand to highlight the organization's refined focus on instructional coaching and support. The transition to Gradient Learning will neither change the nature of our partnership nor the mission of the organization.
When the Summit Learning platform was created, a learning management system (LMS) did not exist that could meet the needs of the robust program, so they built one themselves.
Since then, multiple, high-quality platforms have emerged (such as Blackboard, Google Classroom and Canvas), and Gradient Learning felt it would be more efficient and beneficial to partner with an already-successful learning management system developer rather than tweaking the older platform.
Our New Customized Learning Platform
Our customized LMS was developed exclusively for and with the Gradient Learning team and partner educators. Built with Canvas – one of the world’s top LMS providers – the platform houses our rigorous curricula, dashboard, resource library, mentoring tools and more, all in one place.
Gradient Learning has made an effort to ensure all content necessary for each course is integrated into course activities. Teachers can personalize instruction for each student through the numerous resources and supports provided by Gradient Learning.
Our Whole-Student Outcomes represent the most impactful, higher-order habits among the original 16 Habits for Success introduced by Summit Learning (which are still represented in this resource). They also align closely with our Leader in Me 7 Habits, reinforcing our commitment to fostering leadership and success in every student. These Whole-Student Outcomes are woven into the core curriculum and will continue to be a focus of students', mentors' and teachers' day-to-day work together.
Still have questions about personalized learning at Holy Family?
Submit your question here and we'll be in touch! If we feel your question is one others might also have, we'll post it here on the website.
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