School of One

One of my cousins works with a nonprofit education company in New York called School of One that recently won a Robin Hood Heroes award. A Robin Hood Heroes award is given to a few groups or individuals in New York who "have overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles and shown us the resiliency of the human spirit." I thought it was particularly interesting as it relates to my internship because it focuses on a lot of the other education themes I have been posting this semester.

The concept is relatively simple- technological diversification of learning. Instead of trying to teach students in a classroom full of other students their age group, they are able to work independently through a variety of mediums to ensure they are meeting standards as they go along. 150 children are put into one room with 5 teachers, 3 student teachers, and access to private tutors around the country via the internet. An algorithm evaluates the progress of students, both what they are learning, how they are learning, and ways to improve the learning trends that help them learn best. Students rotate around in stations working with teachers in a traditional classroom setting, independently on laptops with the ability to contact a personal tutor via the internet, work in collaborative groups, or have one on one sessions with teachers face to face. At the end of each session they are given a 5 question test where they are immediately evaluated, and the algorithm is able to understand if the student is ready to move on, or if they need to change the medium by which they are trying to learn a concept. In essence is it individualized, hence the name, "School of One".

There are a few questions I have though. How will this compare in the long run, compared to just the short 5 question tests given every day, will standardized tests show improvement as well? How can we afford to hire all of these private instructors and afford to supply all of this technological equipment, especially with continuous budget cuts to education? How might this education format translate to other classes where there may not always be a "right" answer, and evaluation must be more nuanced than a daily 5 question quiz? Can an algorithm really be trusted 100% of the time, or are there ways of analyzing the progress of the algorithm to ensure that it is doing its job?

At CC we are trying to implement a completely online curriculum in the near future. This way teachers and students can access all aspects of our curriculum online, keeping our personal costs down, and allowing for the ability to gather specific data about the ways that our program works in the classroom itself. Certainly we wouldn't need to have a mathematical algorithm to encourage daily growth from students in our curriculum, but technology is a rising trend in education. ASU even has an entire program for studying the technological advancements in education, and students may earn a masters or doctorate in this area specifically. But this was developed back in the 1960's. So why has it taken so long to adapt technology to the classroom, and why does it seem that even when we do diversify schools, the large majority of public institutions are slow to follow?