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This article discusses the importance of providing creative learning spaces for students in this modern age. These spaces should house advanced technology (interactive boards, 3D printers, audio/visual technology, etc.). They should also encourage and assist collaboration between students. Another key point was that the collaboration should extend to members of the local community, including those in industry. This helps students engage in solving the real world problems of the community they are a part of.

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This article discusses the vital importance of vertical alignment and the positive impact that it had on their school. Vertical Alignment is the practice of co-planning with teachers across grades to focus in on what you want students to learn, and create practical steps to getting them there. The teachers in this This is a perfect example of grouping personnel in a more beneficial way. Instead of teachers only meeting and planning with their department at their grade level, they are getting to experience the perspectives and new ideas of their colleagues across their district. The article also discusses that while the students may not be specifically aware of the vertical alignment steps being taken, they still benefit greatly from a more cohesive curriculum. This two year initiative led to richer teaching and serious collaboration and comradery amongst the teachers of the Baptist school.

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SBS faculty sets out to vertically align curriculum across school levels.

One of the most critical questions a school can ask itself about curriculum is, "Do we know what we do, and why we do it?" In answering this question, Second Baptist School began a two-year vertical alignment initiative in order to define and align student outcomes between grades PK-12. In doing this, we ensure clarity and transparency with content and skills taught at every level, contributing meaningfully to the goals SBS has for its graduates.

In the fall, SBS faculty prepared and updated necessary curriculum documents for their individual courses or grade levels, identifying learning objectives and student outcomes. This spring, teachers spent time collaborating within their division to align these courses and map the progression of skills and content within each subject, documenting how their course or grade level adds value to students as they progress through lower, middle and upper school.

This curriculum work yielded rich conversation and in-depth analysis of learning standards, teaching focal points and curricular needs. At the end of this school year, each division will be ready to enter the next phase of vertical alignment. During the 2018-2019 school year, our faculty will discuss and analyze cross-divisional work, to understand the larger picture of curriculum and how each course, further develops academic skills and knowledge for an academically excellent education. As we align with the desired student outcomes for our graduates, we will examine how each course or grade level fulfills to our mission.

Vertical alignment has a direct impact on our school. When teachers have time to deeply plan with their colleagues, there is increased definition and purpose in their teaching objectives. Teachers are able to identify areas of curricular need with regard to timing and sequencing, curricular overlap, and gaps in teaching and learning. In addition, the collaboration inherent in vertical alignment develops unity within and across school levels.

The impact of vertical alignment on students is felt in the classroom. A classroom guided by carefully-considered learning objectives and standards is a classroom that provides excellent teaching and learning opportunities. When teachers understand more deeply why they teach what they teach, student learning opportunities become more than just a lesson. Each lesson becomes a step along the path of a student's academic development. With greater alignment, students are more prepared to take the next step in their skills and knowledge each academic year. Students may not understand the vertical alignment process, but they are the recipients of the work, receiving a streamlined, effective and well-aligned education.

The vertical alignment process is an institutional experience that facilitates collaboration, analysis and deep reflection of the school's curriculum. This alignment process allows our school to reflect on the strengths of our current curriculum, while also identifying areas in which we can grow and align more closely with one another. Throughout this process, we have felt encouraged by our faculty's professional expertise, our students' academic experience and the partnership and collaboration we have observed amongst our teachers. While this may be a two-year initiative, our school is committed to continuously aligning our curriculum to provide a meaningful and seamless academic experience for all students.

Click here to view photos of the vertical alignment process.

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SBS faculty sets out to vertically align curriculum across school levels. One of the most critical questions a school can ask itself about curriculum is, "Do we know what we do, and why we do it?" In answering this question, Second Baptist School began a two-year vertical alignment initiative in order to define and align student outcomes between grades PK-12.

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This academy is an excellent example of using the school space in a way that is effective and encourages fun and creativity. The students actively want to come to school every day and can't wait to learn. The whimsical school environment sets them up automatically to be actively engaged in learning each day. Each student is placed in a "house" much like the Hogwarts model in the famed Harry Potter series. This video is primarily a tour of the school that includes teacher and student interviews on their experience.

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In this poignant video, the school system is put on trial. It points out that the form of school students experience now is the same form that has existed since public education started in our country. It discusses the need to change how we view schools, group children, determine success, and assess students. In his argument, he discusses the importance of putting the child at the heart of the matter and asking ourselves: what is best for this child? Not every child is the same, learns the same, or has the same dreams. By that standard, not every child should be educated the same.

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In this TED Talk, Jacobs makes the argument that our education system has been grouping students by age largely since the advent of public school systems and it may be to the detriment of the students. She challenges the audience to think about why we group students by age and not ability. If we have students that are thriving in mathematics, why are they forced to stay in a class with peers of the same age and development? This is a subject that can understandably spark debate amongst those in education, but I believe that her primary point is to cause those of us in education to question it at all. She is making the argument that if we cannot articulate why we do something (other than that we've simply always done it this way), that isn't a good enough reason to continue doing it that particular way.

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TEDxNYED - Heidi Hayes Jacobs - 03/05/2011

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In chapter four of this text, Jacobs introduces the four structures which work in conjunction with one another, yet which must be altered in order to achieve a new school form. These four structures are: scheduling, grouping of students, grouping of personnel, and use of space. When discussing scheduling, she aptly points out that our current "modern" school calendar is based off of a agrarian calendar. She poses the challenging question: Why do students need to attend school for 13 years? In fact, she challenges the whole notion of how schools spend their time, and suggests that we start to view time as currency. Instead of telling students that they must arbitrarily attend school from 8-3 every day, why not consider how long a specific task or lesson should take? Why not base our learning on how much time each task requires? Do students really need to attend school daily, 180 days out of the year? Is this system truly benefiting the students who experience it, or is this simply just how things have always been done?

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This article follows the efforts of Lincoln Elementary school in experimenting with mixed-aged groupings. The school started out small by simply combining kindergarten and 1st grade classes. One of the positive effects of this movement was that it required the school personnel to think critically and creatively at their teaching practices in the classroom. Teachers were now being required to think about student groupings, scheduling, classroom organization, content, etc. The article also points out that this approach is hardly a new one. One room school houses functioned like this (out of necessity), and the Montessori model includes mixed aged grouping as well. It is too soon in the experiment to definitively state that this experiment has markedly improved student performance, however it was, in and of itself, a success. They will be shifting to combining 2nd and 3rd grade classes in the future, hopeful of seeing achievement improve across the board.

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Lincoln Elementary decided to take its personalized-learning approach to what the Belvidere, Ill. school saw as the next logical step: creating multi-age classrooms, initially by combining kindergarten and 1st grade, for the 2018-19 school year.

The benefits, as Principal Beth Marchini and her teachers saw it, were obvious.

The school's youngest struggling learners could get extra time to master kindergarten material. More advanced "lowers" (the new term for kindergartners) could jump into 1st-grade-level math or reading as soon as they were ready. And high-flying "uppers" (formerly known as 1st graders) could serve as mentors and role models for the lowers, who were brand-new to school.

The multi-age-grouping approach should be a key feature of personalized-learning initiatives, some personalized-learning advocates say. But the jury is still out on the impact it actually has on student learning.

A year in, Marchini sees promise in the approach, which is now also being tried with combined 2nd and 3rd grades.

"While it's not perfect, it's definitely a step in the right direction," she said. "Structurally, we needed to make a change so that we could set up a system where we could begin to remove some of that time element" for mastering material for our kids."

The process has required the school to rethink not just curriculum but scheduling, classroom organization, data, and teaching methods, Marchini and her staff say. "This is messy, and it's not comfortable," she said. "We're really teaching in beta."

For now, there's little to support the idea as having either a positive or negative impact on student achievement. That is the case even though some personalized-learning experts see multi-age grouping as a necessary step for ensuring that instruction is tailored to each student.

"It is more difficult to do effective personalized learning without multi-age. Multi-age creates a structure that's aligned with the strategy," said Jim Rickabaugh, who previously served as director of the Institute for Personalized Learning, a nonprofit based in Pewaukee, Wis., that helps districts navigate personalized learning.

But, he added, a shift in teaching and learning has to accompany the changes in grouping.

"We really think of school as instruction, how we're going to organize for instruction, not how we are going to organize for learning." That challenges the "underlying assumptions of how schools work," he said.

'It's a Lot of Work'

The organizational hurdles associated with moving away from a school system that's centered around grades may be a big part of the reason why the strategy isn't used widely. Nearly 60 percent of K-12 teachers said their school doesn't group students of different ages together, according to a nationally representative survey of nearly 600 educators conducted by the Education Week Research Center this year. Just 30 percent said their school tries the approach "sometimes," and only 12 percent reported consistently using multi-age groups.

Indeed, even teachers that are fans of a more individualized approach to instruction say that putting children of different ages in the same classroom would be a tough logistical lift.

Michele Kitanov, who teaches 6th grade in the Triton Regional school district in Massachusetts, said that years ago, she was at a school that considered multi-age grouping but ultimately decided it wasn't a good fit.

"It's a lot of work, it's a whole different mindset," she said. Nowadays, it might be worth reconsidering that decision, given the growing expectations for a more personalized approach to learning, she said. But pulling off multi-age classrooms would be very difficult, given that "standards are so directed at the grade level," Kitanov said.

To be sure, multi-age classrooms aren't new to the era of personalized and competency-based education. The one-room schoolhouse, a staple of the early American education system, used a multi-age model by necessity. It's also been a hallmark of the Montessori movement, which started more than a century ago, and emphasizes a more personalized approach to learning.

In the 1990s, Kentucky, a pioneer in education redesign, called for schools to group elementary students by ability rather than grade level. But the state moved away from that policy, in part because teachers complained that it was difficult to figure out how to appropriately group students.

"It's an old idea, but it's an old idea that's becoming more relevant because of the personalization push," in K-12 education,said Jonathan Plucker, a professor of talent development at the Johns Hopkins University School of Education in Baltimore.

'Surprisingly Thin' Research

The research on whether multi-age grouping actually contributes to improved student achievement is "surprisingly thin," Plucker said. There isn't much data investigating its impact on schools, either positive or negative, he added. "This is a great example of something that's becoming hot, but because it is so understudied, we can't give good advice to districts."

But Plucker suggests there is a good reason why schools might at least want to give multi-age grouping a shot: Classrooms typically have students whose abilities are at a range of grade levels, even if they are all the same age.

"Our model now is to have a classroom where they are all roughly the same age, but ability and achievement is all over the place," Plucker said. "How do we move to a system where we have a much tighter range of ability and achievement and the students ages' are all over the place? That's the key question with personalization."

Trying to group students by ability, rather than age, isn't easy. But the Kettle Moraine district near Milwaukee has been at it for more than half a dozen years. Schools in the district may combine kindergarten with 1st grade, 2nd with 3rd, and so on, or they may combine 1st grade with 2nd, or 3rd with 4th. Middle schools have classes that span three grade levels. Teachers typically "loop" with their students, meaning that children will stay with them for both grades and get new classmates after the first year.

It was a bumpy adjustment at first-including for families-but it's been worthwhile, said Laura Dahm, who taught in multi-age classrooms in the district for nearly a decade and is now its director of instructional coaches.

"We always say elementary school and youth sports are the only places that are grouped by age," she said. "We work with people of different ages, we sit around the dinner table with people of different ages. We have kids who will walk when they are ready to walk, be potty trained when they are ready to be potty trained. But in kindergarten, they all have to be ready to read on the same day."

The multi-age structure gives students more time to master grade-level content, Dahm said. Older students in the classrooms can serve as mentors, teaching younger students routines like how to line up and store materials in a cubby, so that the teacher doesn't have to do it. And it's easier-and carries less of a stigma-to customize instruction for individual students.

"It started to be less about what does every 2nd grader need and more about what does this child need," Dahm said. "We have really grown to a point where there was no value associated with what grade level you were on."

Older students bullying younger students has not been an issue, she added. In fact, because the teacher spends so much time building up the learning environment in these multi-age classrooms, students tend to "stand up in new ways to 'protect' the climate of the classroom," and are more likely to self-regulate their behavior, she said.

Curriculum Misalignment

The Waukesha STEM Academy, a charter school also near Milwaukee, has gone beyond combining a grade or two. The school has what Principal James Murray describes as a "full-blown competency-based" system for its K-8 students. Students move on in the school's continuum as soon as they are ready.

But it took a lot of work, including enlisting a coder and developer to create the online platforms and adaptive systems needed to track student progress.

"Kids needed the resources to move forward when they were ready," he said. "We built a lot of that from the ground up because we couldn't find anything that was already built at that time. We drew it out on napkins and we started building spreadsheets and wrote codes with it."

The sheer logistical challenges of carefully tracking each student's achievement data to make sure that he or she is in the right spot based on ability is something teachers at Lincoln Elementary in Illinois have grappled with. In fact, even just making sure teachers' schedules line up in a way that makes multi-age grouping possible has been tough.

Morgan Peterson, who teaches a 1st grade of both English and Spanish speakers, said that she was paired last year with the kindergarten teacher next door. By the end of the year, she said, a handful of kindergartners were meeting regularly with her students for reading group. And some of her 1st grade students went down to the kindergarten for extra help.

The arrangement seemed to benefit those students, but there were still plenty of bumps. "There's some misalignment of the curriculum," Peterson said. "In 1st grade, we are working on writing words and writing sentences. And kindergarten is working on writing letters. It's a huge difference; there's a big gap."

This year, the exchanges aren't as easy to facilitate, in part because Peterson's schedule doesn't neatly align with the kindergarten teachers she's paired with. But overall, she thinks the shift has forced her and her colleagues to look more closely at student data and use it to personalize learning.

"This model truly allows us to be more responsive to individual student's needs," Peterson said, "We can get where we want to be, but there's a lot of growing pains and some hurdles along the way."

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Should Older and Younger Kids Be Grouped Together?

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Lincoln Elementary decided to take its personalized-learning approach to what the Belvidere, Ill. school saw as the next logical step: creating multi-age classrooms, initially by combining kindergarten and 1st grade, for the 2018-19 school year. The benefits, as Principal Beth Marchini and her teachers saw it, were obvious.

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This article focuses on intentional data collection as a tool to effectively change and improve schools. It starts by pointing out that there are a lot of different data points, and that data cannot simply be boiled down to numbers, statistics, and percentages. There are many different indicators of student performance, such as test scores, graduation rates, attendance rates, rigor levels, and community service participation rates. It accurately points out that there isn't a "one size fits all" data collection model that can be used across all districts, because each district has its own set of unique needs. The Inquiry Cycle has been developed as a way to be intentional and focused as to what students are asked to do, organize data collected in an effective way, and reflect and act on the results to produce student growth. Data collection for the sake of data collection isn't what is going to produce authentic academic growth. Educators must ask themselves what they hope students will be able to achieve. These goals need to be specific and measured, and the assessment task needs to be directly aligned with the instructional goals, or the data is irrelevant. Once the data is collected, what is done with it is what matters. Educators should not merely be in the business of data collection for the sake of checking a box. The data collected needs to be utilized effectively and systematically to help students bridge academic gaps in achievement.

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Discover the power of data for promoting school improvement.