Chase Middle School teacher helps to pilot blended learning model

While there are various forms of differentiated learning — meeting students where they’re at academically — going on throughout Topeka Unified School District 501, Chase Middle School is taking the teaching method to another level with technology.

“They become self-learners,” said Keith Jones, now in his second year as principal at Chase. “They have the tools within the program to figure out the problems.”

Jones is referencing Front Row, an online program that allows a teacher to teach a particular concept to each student simultaneously, regardless of their level of understanding of the concept or their academic abilities. The software gives the student an assignment, customized to how well they are grasping the concept.

Jones said differentiated learning software helps reduce the amount of stress a student experiences if they are taking a little longer than their peers to understand a concept.

“It also gives differentiated homework based on where they’re at,” he said.

Victor Horton, in his first year at Chase as a math teacher, said the “beauty” of programs like Front Row is that not all students in his classes are “taught the same thing at the same time.”

“We know that our kids come to us at various different levels,” he said, adding that students quickly become frustrated if they don’t understand a concept from the beginning and don’t get the help they need from the start.

Using the software, Horton can instantly see which of his students are grasping the concept and can make adjustments to how he’s teaching right away.

The blended learning technology, he said, is a combination of students self-teaching themselves and an ability to have a laser-focus on what he needs to do to help an individual or group.

“If I need to work on a certain skill set with my lower kids, I can, while my other kids are also still learning,” he said. “Then I can offer my high kids extension activities, which provides them with additional rigor they need to also be learning.”

Mike Hester, USD 501’s director of secondary education, said regardless of the various forms of “blended” or “differentiated” teaching that are taking place across the district, the focus remains on teaching the same state-sanctioned standards. He said using technology with that type of teaching uses data much more effectively than in the past.

“Technology can crunch the numbers,” Hester said. “It analyzes for a teacher where the student is at, what formative and summative assessments (are needed) to tell them where they’re at. When you let technology crunch the data, you’re basically writing daily or weekly prescriptions for each individual student. It takes all that labor out for the teacher so they can analyze, move and group and meet the needs of individual students.”

Hester said the teaching software programs make a teacher’s work more efficient.

“It’s that individualized, personalized achievement that we can get to,” he said, “instead of just dragging them through and them getting left behind or they’re bored.”

Giving teachers the autonomy to determine what methods of differentiated learning best fits them and their students is something Hester said is up to them.

“What’s non-negotiable for us is those standards that are taught and that kids achieve,” he said. “What’s negotiable is how you get there.”

Contact reporter Angela Deines at (785) 295-1143 or follow her on Twitter @AngelaDeines.