Lighthouse Schools serve as exemplars for other schools and districts in the state to look to as models of what works, what doesn’t, and what’s possible when it comes to implementing personalized instruction. We invite others to read more about how the Office of Innovation tracked these schools’ success, as well as what school teams themselves have to say about diving into their PL journey.
At the start of the Lighthouse Schools Challenge the Office of Innovation set forth common goals for each school. They also worked with teams to set school-specific goals given their needs, contexts, and capacity, all coalescing around similar broad themes.
Implement personalized learning school-wide
Serve as exemplars of PL for other schools and districts
Push thinking around what education can and should be for students in Rhode Island
Support schools in becoming open-access models for this work
Broaden and strengthen the network of trusted and trusting schools willing to lean in together
Increase academic achievement/proficiency
Increase student engagement
Increase teacher efficacy
Learn more about each Lighthouse School and their progress towards school-specific goals here.
In total, Lighthouse Schools hosted over 30 site visits, opening their doors to more than 100 visitors, including 50+ educators and seven elected and appointed state officials. Teams were forthcoming in sharing their successes with others, but also their challenges. This enabled others to learn from and adopt/adapt efforts of our Lighthouse schools in their own areas. At present and by our count, over 80% of schools in Rhode Island are now engaged in some work toward personalization.
To scale personalized learning school-wide Lighthouse schools needed to train staff and procure resources. The grant allowed for comprehensive and rigorous teacher training opportunities that would not have been available to as many staff within the same timeframe without the grant funds. The grant also allowed for the purchase of training materials and additional technology equipment. At one school the new equipment motivated and inspired staff and students because they felt as though they were truly part of a 21st century school.
All Lighthouse schools’ teachers observed increases in student engagement in the classroom and two schools saw increases in students’ discussions of their learning with their families over the course of the grant period. Teachers also observed increases in students’ problem-solving skills, presentation skills, perseverance, and reflective practices.
Lighthouse schools engaged with students’ families in various ways to showcase students’ learning related to the schools’ personalization efforts. Schools offered open houses that showed increased attendance by parents (90% of families attended at one school), student showcases, and one school offered a series of math, literacy, and science instructional nights. Teachers observed that students are sharing more with their families about their school activities and are excited to discuss their learning with their families.
For a full evaluation report on Lighthouse Schools, click here.
Personalized learning implementation varied in its intensity between schools and over the course of the grant, but by the end of the grant period, all three Lighthouse schools met all or nearly all of their school-specific goals, including school-wide implementation of PL. Additionally, the schools showed strong results in the state’s new accountability system. Learn more about each Lighthouse School and their progress towards school-specific goals here.
“I wouldn’t make the claim that we have 100% implementation for personalized learning, nor do I ever think we’ll be at that place, because I think as you learn more, you get more sophisticated, and then you drill down in a different place.”
Over the course of the grant the teacher culture in Lighthouse schools evolved from one that was siloed to one that was extremely collaborative. Lighthouse school teachers sought one another out for interdisciplinary projects, for example, and to discuss personalized learning practices. Structural shifts in the schools supported more collaboration, such as scheduling shifts to allow common planning time, and partnering teachers with confidence in implementing personalized learning with teachers who were less confident. One Lighthouse school noticed increases in teacher collaboration on the school’s SurveyWorks teacher data (frequency of collaboration between teachers increased seven percentage points from 2017-2018 to 2018-2019).
Additionally, five of the finalist schools supported through the design process have moved toward deeper implementation of personalized learning.
Lack of time for teacher collaboration
Limited educator capacity to implement personalized learning strategies
Strategic integration and training for use of technology
Identifying valid assessments and metrics for measuring outcomes
LEA-based grant management (e.g., reporting, finances, equipment procurement)
Evaluation of Lighthouse Schools was supported by the Education Development Center (EDC). The evaluation took place during the school years 2017-18 and 2018-19. This mixed-methods evaluation consisted of three rounds of focus groups at each school and analyses of schools’ annual teacher and student survey outcomes and student achievement results.
EDC served in an advisory role for RIOI conducting quantitative analyses needed to address the following evaluation questions:
Does the Lighthouse Schools grant affect student outcomes (i.e. achievement and engagement)?
Does the Lighthouse Schools grant affect teacher outcomes (i.e., efficacy)?
For Question 1, student achievement is given by performance on local math and reading assessments, analyzing growth within the academic year, as well as effect size across academic years using a cohort comparison. Student engagement is measured by attendance, looking at both daily attendance rates and chronic absenteeism rates, as well as classroom observation data, and student responses to a state-administered culture and climate survey.
For Question 2, teacher efficacy is measured by classroom observation data and teacher responses to a state-administered culture and climate survey.
EDC conducted three rounds of focus groups with administrators and educators directly involved in Lighthouse School implementation, including a superintendent, an assistant superintendent, three principals, and several teachers. In addition to collecting information about each school’s progress, successes, and challenges, the focus groups provided findings around the support and role of the Office of Innovation from 2017-2018 through 2018-2019.
Focus group findings were most helpful in identifying lessons learned for each phase of personalized learning implementation: planning, early implementation, and on-going/future work. Given their experiences, Lighthouse School teams offered advice for other schools beginning to implement personalized learning. Advice spanned topics ranging from emphasizing a shared vision to fostering collaboration to being your own public relations agent. All three schools agree they could do this work without Lighthouse Challenge funding, but financial support allowed them to go further, faster.
