News Photo by Julie Goldberg Thunder Bay Junior High School seventh-grader Andrew Bebout works Dec. 12 on Assessment and Learning in Knowledge Spaces, a program that allows him and other students to work on math at their own pace.

ALPENA — To help students learn math better, Alpena Public Schools has rolled out new personalized learning programs that customize how each student is presented information based on his or her own strengths and needs.

Two math programs were implemented this school year: Imagine Math, and Assessment and Learning in Knowledge Spaces (ALEKS). Students use the programs on school-provided Chromebooks daily to move through math instruction at their own pace.

The change has helped students learn on their own, which teachers and administrators say has helped students keep working on a concept until they master it. Students can move beyond their grade levels if they pass the required tests and teachers can help students one-on-one if they’re struggling.

“For kids who are struggling, we’re working to close the gap,” Meaghan Gauthier, Alpena assistant superintendent for instruction, said. “And, for kids who are excelling, we want to just let them go.”

The district’s personalized learning effort is focused on math this school year, but Gauthier said the district is trying Imagine Language and Literacy as a tool to improve reading standards.

“That’s really in the pilot phase,” Gauthier said.

A 2018 Education Week survey of educators found that the three biggest arguments against personalized learning are too much screen time for students, students working alone too often, and the technology industry gaining too much influence.

Gauthier said students aren’t in front of a computer all day. In the Math Pathways course at Thunder Bay Junior High School, for example, students are in front of the computer between two and two-and-a-half hours each week. That can be fulfilled inside or outside the classroom.

Gauthier said the recommended time in Imagine Math is 45 minutes a week.

“We’re not just putting students in front of a computer.” Gauthier said. “They’re also spending time learning in small groups and doing class activities.”

The survey of U.S. school principals did find, though, that principals view personalized learning as a transformative way to improve education.

HOW THE PROGRAMS ARE IMPLEMENTED

The programs were incorporated this school year to help match strengths and needs in math.

Imagine Math is used in every K-5 classroom and in the math courses at TBJH.

“Imagine Math is set up for a pretest, and, if you get a certain score on the pretest, then you can do a game and then you do a lesson, and then you demonstrate your knowledge, and then you do a post-test,” Gauthier said. “It follows a predictable sequence, and, if you don’t pass your post-test with 80%, then you have to continue working in that area.”

ALEKS is part of the Math Pathways course at the junior high. The class is for seventh- and eighth-graders who want to take their time learning math.

“We have around 45 students in one classroom, and the teachers are working together, and every student is at a different spot in their math learning,” Gauthier said. “They take an initial test with ALEKS and that initial test will tell them how many topics they have to learn in order to be successfully completed.”

THE IMPACT ON STUDENTS

Administrators and teachers say they’ve already noticed the impact on students.

With students learning at their own pace, the district is predicting some seventh-graders could finish Geometry — a 10th-grade math course — before they’re done with this school year.

“That means our junior high students have two high school credits without leaving the building,” Gauthier said.

TBJH seventh-grader Clark Sexton said learning at his own pace has been fun, because students don’t have to be at the same level as their classmates.

“I moved grade levels a few weeks ago, and I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to do that if I was in a regular classroom,” Sexton said.

Eighth-grader Gillian Merrill said she likes that she gets to choose what she learns and work at the pace she wants.

If a student is ready to move on to the next grade level, teacher Julie Kieliszewski said, ALEKS lets them know, so the student can take a knowledge test to make sure they’re ready.

“We check in with the students regularly to make sure they’re hitting their two-week goals,” teacher Alissa Miller said.

Miller said students in personalized learning programs take initiative and responsibility and tell her and Kieliszewski if they’re struggling.

In a traditional classroom, it’s “more difficult to help those kids who are struggling, because you have the whole class that you need to be thinking of at the same time,” Miller said. “Whereas, when they are independently working, they have that tool in front of them, we can pull those kids that are struggling and help them better understand.”

CHANGE FROM OLD LEARNING STYLES

Personalized learning has changed the way teachers teach and the way students learn.

It can make it difficult for teachers when their 20 to 30 students are all at different phases.

“It’s really challenging what traditional math instruction is like, because we now have the hard evidence and the hard truth of really what each of our students need,” Gauthier said.

A big difference, Gauthier said, is that teachers are able to address each student’s needs, instead of teaching the same skill to every student and hoping they all understand it.

“The kids that want to move on don’t have to wait, and the kids who just need that extra time can have it — within reason,” Kieliszewski said.

Julie Goldberg can be reached at 989-358-5688 or jgoldberg@thealpenanews.com. Follow her on Twitter @jkgoldberg12.