Systems and Supports for Personalized Learning: Daily Flex Time

Our school has made huge strides in continuous improvement. When we reflect on how that growth occurred it has to do with two things: systems and supports. Systems that back effective and responsive teaching must be adopted and supports that remove barriers for professional growth (i.e. time, resources, strategies) must be in place. At South View Middle School in Edina, MN, one system we designed in order personalizing the learning process was initiating a school wide “daily flex” time.

Implementing a daily flex involved a three year evolution of rethinking instructional time for efficiency. The first stage of daily flex was replacing two days of advisory time weekly. Every other Wednesday and Thursday, learners would sign up to see a teacher of their choice. A follow up survey for learners about this change informed us that not only did learners value the time, they wanted more flexible time. Stage two involved creating space in the schedule for a daily “core content” flex time paired with a flex called “WIN (what I need) Time”. WIN involved all teachers and was at the same time every other week (in place of advisory). Daily core flex was a different time for each grade level and was offered every day, every week. Our leadership team determined they would restructure time in order to have a core flex by moving ten minutes of core classes to be a part of a daily flex time. This repurposing of time allowed learners to see core teachers daily, and select time with specialists, as needed, (during WIN) on an every other week basis. Stage two was a step in the right direction, but it created a different schedule for each grade level and the number of teachers available to run a flex was limited. The first two stages led us to where we are today with a daily flex at our middle school.

Current System for Personalized Learning: School Wide Daily Flex

After three years of trying out some variation of flexible time, we feel we have landed on a schedule that maximizes student learning. Each day begins with advisory followed by a 35 min daily flex time for all grade levels right after advisory. This forward thinking schedule encourages teachers to rethink how they use their instructional time, and invites learners to have ownership in identifying and meeting their individual learning needs.

Now, all teachers (core and specialists) offer a flex session that is a continuation of their class every day. Some learners need additional support, some need more time to process or work, and some are ready for rigor and enrichments. A teacher may offer all three pathways (support, extension, and enrichment) in one daily flex or one pathway per day. Teachers offer an instructional response based on daily formative work in order to determine what to offer. The result is relevant learning experiences that meet needs in real time. The key is the LEARNERS CHOOSE how they are going to use their flex time and sign up using our flex schedule. In order to help guide the learners in the process, our teachers all follow the same naming conventions and write a description for a flex offering.

Grade, Pathway, Teacher Name, Title

6, Support, Gardner, Close Reading Strategies

7, Extension, Dahl, Build It Project Work Time  

8, Enrichment, Pettis, Advertisement Tactics

Pathways:

Support - direct instruction on concepts previously taught in class

Extension - process time, next steps, additional application

Enrichment - expanding upon learning on a deeper level

Student view of the flex scheduler

All decisions around flex time are data informed. Teachers guide learners in knowing how to use their daily flex time by providing them with feedback. Formative work serves as FAST (fair, accurate, specific and timely) feedback, and teachers prompt learners to reflect on how the formative work informs them of the next steps needed in the learning process. Learners gather this feedback from their classroom teachers and merge that with the support offered by their advisor. Advisors oversee their advisees’ academic progress and help them navigate how they are using daily flex time.

Again, daily flex time is a system that allows for teachers and learners to be responsive to the learning in order to provide the supports, extensions, or enrichments learners need. After unit summatives or during the formative process, teachers no longer have to navigate finding time to meet learner needs before or after school. Rethinking the organization of time in a school day has allowed teachers to meet needs much more efficiently during the school day.


Benefits of Daily Flex Time

Research says, if a learner’s core instruction focuses below grade level outcomes, then the learner will learn well below grade level. Daily flex allows learners to receive targeted interventions without being pulled out of their grade level classes or electives. Additionally, daily flex provides further enrichment opportunities that invite inquiry and project based learning. For example, South View STREAM, is a daily enrichment option for 6^th, 7^th, and 8^th graders offered during daily FLEX. Learners engage in a learning process where they can continue working on an enrichment for a specific class, or they can design a project based on exploring something of their own passion. Learners have taken advantage of STREAM to conduct a science fair project, continue delving into a History Day project or again, originate and enage in their own passion project.

                                            Another perk of daily flex is the built in opportunity to invite different guest speakers related to various careers and other learner interest areas. Recently, South View has welcomed a Minnehaha Creek expert, a documentary filmmaker, a sports journalist, a clothing designer/business owner, and chemical health counselor. The guest speakers have been well received, and there are plans for future guests. Other ways teachers use daily flex advantageously have been for music ensembles and combined rehearsals, grade level registrations, grade wide learner profile work, interdisciplinary units, student leadership groups and even swimming lessons. Our incredible student support staff also capitalize on daily flex time in order to run small groups around topics such as, stress and worry, new student experiences, high school 101, and organizational skills practice.  

FAQs

We have had over 20 schools come to see personalized learning and daily flex in action. The most common questions about daily flex are outlined below. 

Question: What about the learners who need help in all their classes?

Answer: A teacher may “lock” (schedule in) a student into their flex and other teachers can see that on the flex scheduler. If a teacher sees a learner is 'locked' they know not to pull him or her. Due to the fact that flex is offered daily, learners have multiple opportunities to access time with a variety of different teachers. 

Question: What about the learners who don’t make good choices?

Answer: Teachers guide learners in the process, whether that is locking/scheduling them in or conferencing with them in class and or advisory.  All teachers have an advisory, and as advisors we oversee academic progress for our advisees. When an advisor notices that a learner is struggling, he or she helps the learner determine how to strategically plan out their use of the daily flex time.  

Question: What about learners who just sign up with their friends?

Answer: Learning is social and we don’t necessarily see working with friends as a negative. Still, if a teacher notices learners struggling to self-regulate and be productive in flex time, they intervene just like they do in their classrooms. For many learners it is an advantage to work with others during this time, and it fulfills the social needs and academic needs of learners.

Question: What about learners who don’t sign up at all or who sign up for the ‘wrong’ 
                  class?

Answer: For the first month of the school year, we have a gradual release in order to train the learners how to sign up for daily flex. 6th grade has the slowest release, because they are new to it, and 8th grade has a faster release because they have been using the schedule in previous years. Grade levels use the first week of daily flex to schedule learners in to talk about the purpose of daily flex, as well as how to navigate the time and figure out the logistics of the scheduler.

As additional support, at the start of the year, we have a flex ‘intervention’ in place for teachers to send learners who sign up for the wrong class, show up without being on the roster, or are having any other complication with the system/process. For example, if a 6th grader signs up for an 8th grade basketball flex, the teacher of the 8th grade flex will send the learner to flex intervention. Once there, the learner can meet with a teacher to help him/her understand what happened and how to fix it moving forward. Flex intervention is for any teacher who has an issue with a learner in flex, therefore teachers don’t have to waste flex time helping a learner problem solve and find a new flex to go to. After a month, flex intervention becomes flex ‘detention’. The shift to detention is for learners to have a place to go when they are misusing flex time, not signing up, going to the wrong place, or using flex time to game or distract others. Flex detention is a device free zone and the learners lose a choice in where they want to go. Learners quickly understand that they are being held accountable for how they use daily flex and the teachers want them to take full advantage of this time.  

Data Collection          

In a recent survey, learners and staff were asked if they find daily flex to be beneficial. 50.7% of learners reported daily flex “always” beneficial, 29.5% said often, 14.3% said sometimes, and only 5.6% said rarely or never. The staff feedback around daily flex was also positive. 51.2% of staff reported they “strongly agree” that daily flex has had a significant positive impact on student learning, 41.5% said “agree”, and only 7.3% said “disagree”. Almost all grade levels saw improvements in MAP scores in reading and Math from December 2017 to December 2018. All grade levels saw growth against NWEA grade level targets. 
We believe the improvement in scores is in large part due to learners having the time to relearn, spend more time, or extend their learning during daily flex time. The system of daily flex has teachers thinking about how to give FAST feedback, what learning pathways are needed both in class and for flex time, how to use learner reflection (or learner profile) to guide instruction, and how to better support creating opportunities for rigor and enrichment. Daily flex time plays a vital role in forging multiple pathways and personalizing learning for all.

Feedback Speaks Louder than Points

Strategies for Giving Accurate, Specific and Timely Feedback.

Educators know how important feedback is for ensuring learning. The problem lies in how to actually make that happen when you teach hundreds of students. After repurposing formative work, being more intentional about teaching learners how to get feedback, and using single point rubrics, our feedback to all learners is more accurate, specific and timely.

This graphic from the Jim Smith @MrDataGuy illustrates how we have shifted our mindset around assessment. In the past our feedback consisted of points/grades on formative (daily) work with more thorough comments on a summative (final) test or project. We have reversed that order and now give more comments on the formative work and only a final score on a summative. Everything we ask learners to engage with for formative work is a lead up to a summative test or project. We call this formative work ‘feedback’, as it is used to inform learners what they know, as well as offer direction for an appropriate pathway to continue learning.

Before we begin a unit of study we create the final summative assessment (test, paper, or project). Then we create a single point rubric that lists the criteria that will be assessed.  The criteria for success is based on identified standards/competencies. A single point rubric is used to provide a final summative score. Also, the rubric is referenced and used to give feedback on the learning process throughout daily lessons. In other words, the same rubric is used for both formative practice and the summative assessment (test or project).

Rubric used for FORMATIVE assignment, learners then focus on growth areas as they proceed to the summative

Rubric for the SUMMATIVE, this rubric now includes points that will be added to the gradebook

We keep three things in mind when designing formative assessments.

1.) Formative work is always connected to the intended learning goal.

Because we begin by planning the summative assessment, we can link all formative assignment to the end goal. Also, in addition to feedback on understanding of content or task related goals, there are many times we give learners feedback on the process and the ability to self-regulate.

2.) Formative work must inform the learner of what they know and don’t know.

We no longer put points for a grade on formative assignments, we provide comments on a single point rubric. This gives learners specific feedback on what their next steps should be. The feedback helps a learner identify areas where more support is needed, areas for which they need just to have more processing time, and finally, areas where they are ready to go deeper and take advantage of an enrichment opportunity.  We no longer collect and comment on every class assignment. For example, when learners take Cornell Notes to learn new information, we do not collect and score these notes. If a learner asks, “Do we need to turn this in?” our response is, “Is it something you need feedback on?” This approach also allows learners to make mistakes without being docked points and focus on the learning rather than their compliance. In turn they can learn from mistakes without being penalized in the formative process.

3.) All formative work has the potential to elicit an instructional response.

Just as the formative work informs the learner of what their next steps should be, it also informs our plans for instruction. For example, when working on an essay, each learner turns in one body paragraph of a draft for feedback. The submission allows us to plan and offer targeted flex groups based on needs that the formative work presented. Some learners may need instruction on topic sentences, some on supporting evidence, and others revising their thesis. We plan accordingly and design multiple pathways for the next class, based on the learner needs the formative work presented.

Repurposing formative work with those the above criteria in mind, has made learning more purposeful and reporting against the standards in the form of a grade much more manageable. Timely feedback is critical. Knowing many teachers are responsible for hundreds of learners, this can feel overwhelming. It’s important to note that teacher feedback is just one way to keep learners informed of where they’re at in the learning. In our classes, we also teach learners how to use and give feedback from peers as well as themselves. Again, a single point rubric allows learners to give specific and accurate feedback to peers or becomes a self-reflection tool where one assesses her own understanding against the standard(s). Other strategies for peer feedback could be, turn and talk, coaching circles or interactive notebooks. 
Teachers can have learners assess themselves against an exemplary example of a final expression of learning. Consider the study of rhetoric. After engaging in understanding ethos appeal, learners are given a formative assignment to identify the ethos appeal. Once learners have done the formative work, the teacher shares the answers with the class. At this time learners check their own work and then reflect on what their next learning steps/pathways. Feedback to self is a critical skill. We end every class with reflection. We require learners to use what we have done in class as feedback. Reflection prompts might include, How does the study of ethos appeal connect to what we have already learned? How is it similar or different? What are the natural relationships and patterns? Whose point of view does it represent?  

In all of our work with personalized learning we are making the learning process more visible and accessible for all learners. We do this by establishing common language, being flexible, and engaging the learners. When learners understand formative work as feedback they are empowered and able to make data informed decisions for learning pathways. This ensures learning for all.