Episode 12: Pushing the Envelope with Personalized learning

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Personalized Learning

A small town in Idaho is allowing their students to learn at their own pace.  If a student walks into a class and wants to study math, they pull out their iPad and begin a math lesson. No lectures from teachers, just mentoring and guidance.

Meanwhile, another student may not be interested in doing math at the moment. That student may have been inspired them to write because they saw something on the way to school. So the student walks through the door and begins writing.

This new form of education is known as personalized learning and Superintendent Jeff Dillon in Wilder, Idaho says it’s the result of the best year in education of his life.

While it may sound like the students are in control of their learning, they are, at least partially.  Students still have goals and if they don’t keep up, they can fall behind and have to work extra hard to make-up for lost time.  It’s what Dillon calls “failing foward”.

We talk with Dillon about the challenges and benefits of rolling out a personalized education program in his public schools.

Pushing back the start of the school day?

A report in U.S. News and World Reports says that schools in at least 19 states are planning to start the school day later this year.   The report cites some schools shifting their start time from  7:10 am to 9:30 am

The push for the later start time is related to the changing sleep pattern of children when they hit puberty.

We discuss if this is a needed change or are we bending over backwards to accommodate today’s students.

Google Scanned 25 Million Books. So where are they?

In 2002 Google started the ambitious project of scanning millions of books into a database. So what happened to all that information?  We’ll give you an update.

Transforming a Mall into a department store

School officials in Montgomery Alabama needed a new facility for a Magnet High School and rather then build a new structure, they renovated and old department store.

WSFA News reports that the 82,000 sq. foot school houses 30 classrooms, 5 labs, and a gymnasium.

The mall was reportedly built in the 1960s and was vacated in 2008.

During the podcast we inadvertently say the school was located in Birmingham, AL.  That is incorrect.  The school is located in Montgomery, AL.

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