Cabot, Twinfield and Harwood only Vermont schools awarded the Personalized Learning Initiative
“Twenty New England public schools in the League of Innovative Schools were selected to participate in a new initiative that will help them develop personalized learning experiences that address the distinct learning needs, interests, and aspirations of individual students. The initiative’s goal is to help the schools remodel their academic programs to ensure that every graduate is prepared to succeed in postsecondary education, modern workplaces, and adult life.” This was a very sought after award that looked at schools’ plans and progress in implementing a proficiency-based and personalized learning model. The League of Innovative Schools is a regional professional learning community for schools consisting of 86 schools from across New England including 22 in Vermont. Cabot, Twinfield and Harwood were the only Vermont schools to be awarded acceptance into the Personalized Learning Initiative and all three have been working with TASS (Teaching All Secondary Schools).
TASS is the VT-HEC program that provides support to middle and high schools in their efforts to improve outcomes for all students by utilizing education neuroscience in a proficiency-based context. TASS has been working for ten years to provide middle and high schools with an array of coherent learning and coaching supports that are tailored to the needs and goals of each school. All three of these schools, for instance, attended TASS offerings that introduced the principles of brain-based learning that would form the foundation for much of their work moving forward.
Following that introduction the schools took advantage of a variety of TASS offerings and supports:
- TASS staff provided embedded professional learning opportunities and coaching throughout the year to teachers to implement a proficiency-based learning model in their classrooms
- TASS leadership staff supported various school leadership teams and administrators in their efforts to address systems issues and ensure school –wide progress in spite of the many competing demands they faced.
- Staff from these schools participated in the annual TASS series of WORKshops and graduate courses that focus on practical aspects of identifying learning targets, developing performance tasks, using standardized-based grading and reporting, and utilizing management tools to hold it all together.
- Twinfield and Harwood have staff participating in the TASS Teacher Leader Certificate program in which staff are being prepared to take a leadership role in supporting their colleagues in expanding and sustaining the progress they have made.
- The leadership team of Washington NE (Twinfield & Cabot) participated in both the 2014 & 2015 VPA leadership strand offered by the VT-HEC/TASS on how to utilize brain-based learning with their staff and students, and took advantage of the option to extend that learning by planning together with TASS staff for the start of the new year. Those administrators have reported that the result of these planning efforts got them off to” their best start ever”.
- Staff from all three schools worked together at a TASS 2015 Summer Institute to further the work of their individual schools and prepare for the coming year.
These are three very different schools in size and organization but each has made impressive gains and each has utilized TASS resources, in addition to others, to make significant progress and maintain coherence, while charting their own course. The VT-HEC is very pleased to be a part of this effort and congratulates the staff and leadership of these schools for their impressive achievement.
In the coming year TASS will again be offering the sequence of WORKshops, Using Neuroscience to Make Standards Work for ALL Students, which will be open to all and may be taken as a series, a three credit course or as individual WORKshops.
See more about these WORKshops here: https://www.vthec.org/documents/2015/08/neuroscience.pdf
