Does your program provide a customized experience that connects to every student? This approach, known as “personalization,” is a key concept that aligns with and has real implications for all elements of the NAF model. Come hear how one of NAF’s model academies uses a student-centered approach while serving an urban population of traditionally underserved students. The session will show how smaller learning communities are succeeding in personalizing secondary environments and how they have contributed to raising student achievement nationally.

1. #NAFNext2014

2. Being Student Centered: What Have We Learned
about Small Learning Communities?
#NAFNext2014

3. By the end of the sessions, we will:
• Reinforce - our understanding that a career
academy is a smaller learning community, and
how that helps our students succeed
• Reflect - on how you communicate your academy,
and it’s positive implications, to your community
• Renew– your commitment to creating a learning
community; have a plan to implement one
strategy or improvement to become more
student centered

4. Student Centered Learning
• A set of practices, policies, and supports that
matter in building strong, capable, engaged
learners.
• Personalization is the network of highways,
channels, streets and pathways that connect
individuals engaged in the learning.
• http://www.studentsatthecenter.org/topics

5. The History (in ten minutes or less)
• Rousseau to Dewey to Sizer
• A Nation at Risk (1983) – Ted Sizer and the
Coalition of Essential Schools:
 no teacher should have direct responsibility
for more than 80 students
• decisions about course of study, the use of
students' and teachers' time, materials and
pedagogies “must be unreservedly placed in
the hands of the principal and staff.”

7. In Contrast, Tragic History

8. Students at the Center :
Personalization in Schools
“The personalization movement is intended
as an antidote to the widespread feelings of
anonymity, irrelevance, and disengagement
that students report, especially in large,
urban high schools.”
S. Yonezewa, L. McClure, M. Jones

10. Reflections:
1. Backward Looking – What have you tried in
the past? How intentional and systematic
was the intervention or strategy?
2. Inward Looking – How do you feel about
the intervention or strategy? What aspect
connected with you the strongest? What
posed the greatest challenge?

11. Reforms and Strategies for
Personalization
• Smaller learning communities/ Small schools
• Advisor-advisee programs/ student voice
• Cohort models and increased teacher time
• Careers curriculum / project based learning for
relevance, integration and CREATIVITY
• Extra-curricular during the school day

12. Research on Smaller Learning Communities
Common Features:
1. Career academies and ninth grade academies
were the most popular SLC types
2. Block scheduling and teacher teams were the most
popular strategies
Challenges:
1. Scheduling,
2. Lack of physical space,
3. Lack of teacher professional development,
4. Lack of core academic teachers and guidance counselors
Outcomes:
1.Among 9th graders, promotion to 10th grade increased
2.School violence decreased

13. Going Small: Scaling down
• Small schools/ SLC’s are particularly
effective for low income, minority youth
• MDRC’s study of 80,000 students in NYC
(Bloom, Unterman 2012)
• Graduation rates favor going small 67.9 vs.
59.3 %

14. NAF Academy Development: Standard 2
2.a Students are scheduled as a group – a
community of learners; their teachers know them
2.b Core courses are linked with technical content-
academics are aligned to the students’ interests
2.c There is a common planning time – teachers
collaborate, and plan for theme and relevance
2.d Students receive career themed guidance – ?

17. Student Strengths, Teacher Benefits
Student strengths:
• Stronger student
accountability
• Performance-based
assessment
• School would be
safer
Teacher benefits:
• Increased teacher
satisfaction
• Teachers may
develop a more
personalized
program.

18. Student Strengths, Teacher Benefits
Student strengths:
• More opportunities
to develop socially
and academically
• Less anonymity
Teacher benefits:
• Teachers can learn
from and be
supported by each
other.
• Teachers are more
empowered

19. Reflections (cont.):
3. Outward Looking – Does your community
perceive your school/ academy as student
centered? How do you know?
4. Forward Looking – What is one thing you
would modify in how you create a
personalized environment?...one new idea
to become more student centered?

20. Personalization = Creativity!
Placeholder for video:

21. #NAFNext2014

22. Steve Brown
Academy Development
Director, Region 2
sbrown@naf.org
646-341-1817
Dr. Anane Olatunji
Align Education LLC
aolatunji@AlignEd21.com