East Troy School leading the way with individualized learning
By Tracy Ouellette
SLN Staff
Classrooms are not what they were 30 years ago. In an ever-changing world of interactive technology, kids need to learn at a different level than their parents and grandparents did. They also need to learn different skills.
What once was the standard of “sit and get” doesn’t translate well in today’s world or with the students behind the desks.
The East Troy Community School District acknowledges this and has created policy and learning environments to give the learners more tools and skills to enhance what they take from the classroom.
“Personalized learning is about doing things differently for students with instruction through means other than just text books,” Director of Curriculum and Instruction Daphne Kohnke said. “It really goes beyond just content and provides different avenues for the students to learn.”
Technology is a part of that, Kohnke said, but not the only part. It’s just one of the many ways students can “personalize” their lessons to help them learn in the best way possible.
“It might be a power point, or a demonstration – it could be visual, spoken or performance based – it’s a different way of learning the same content,” she said.
Kohnke said one of the best tools used to tailor a particular lesson for a child is the teacher-student conferencing that goes into the lesson.
“The teachers learn about the student’s learning style and they work on the goals together and what they need to get out of the assignment. That’s such a huge piece of it, where teachers are really helping guide their individual learning.”
She said that the goal setting in the conferencing helps hold the kids accountable for the outcome of the lesson, which is another lesson in itself.
“By setting a goal they know where they need to go by the end of the lesson,” Kohnke said. “Before, that wasn’t really the case. They just showed up at school and did the lessons without much input or understanding of why they had to learn something. Now they are much more self aware of what they are supposed to get done and how to go about it.”
Kohnke said that while district officials and teachers still feel they are in the “infancy stage” of implementing personalized learning, they have been told by experts, they are doing far better at it than many other schools in the state and the nation.
She said when Ryan Krohn, of the Institute of Personal Learning, toured the schools recently he told them he was so impressed with the School Board’s policy (No. 112) that he shows it to other school districts when he visits them and teaches about personalized learning.
Kohnke said while the district looks for ways to implement the techniques into every classroom, they weren’t there quite yet.
“There’s still the question as to how you manage all the subjects and all the students, and we ask they (staff) are doing this, but are they doing it in every class? No, not yet, but we are seeing growth in staff and students and that’s what we’re looking for.”
Kohnke said personalized learning didn’t mean that each and every kid had their own plan for every lesson. She said that’s where the student-teacher conferencing really works to identify which students learn in similar ways and helps them to group the different learners together so they can collaborate on projects and lessons. That collaboration is another learning component the district is committed to as evidenced with its project- and problem-based learning initiatives and community partnerships, which bring authenticity to the classroom for the students.
“It’s real-world learning,” Kohnke said. “It’s a much more interactive way of learning when students are actively involved in their learning process. They also remember more of it than if they just “sit and get” that information.
Kohnke said the district works to promote personalized learning with everything from furniture to technology to give the kids a comfortable atmosphere in which to explore.
“I think this is probably the way we would have loved to learn, but didn’t get the opportunity to,” she said. “We live in an interactive world and we have to teach that way.”
Kohnke encouraged parents to visit the classrooms and see for themselves how the kids are learning.
“Don’t just wait for parent-teacher conferences, see how learning looks different first hand.”
