Personalized Learning as Students Set Their Own Pace

Personalized learning as students set their own pace challenges students to continually learn and improve.

At Woodland Park Middle School, all 550 students are consistently above state average on standardized tests. Still administrators were concerned that they were at a plateau.

“We’re doing OK,” said Principal Yvonne Goings, “but we wanted to be better. We were flat-lining.”

The school tried a new program, the Summit Learning Platform, making use of a grant. The platform “allows students to be in charge of their own learning,” said program mentor Jared Fries. “Students can work at their own pace through content, develop skills applicable to their future and meet with their teacher one-on-one every week to build habits of success,” he said.

Summit Learning Platform was developed by a network of public charter schools in California. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan fund it through their philanthropic foundation.

“It really fit into who we are as a school,” Goings said. “But it felt really different from what we were doing.”