Personalizing the High School Experience for Each Student

by Joseph Dimartino

Why is it that so many students see high school as a prison sentence to be endured rather than a time to learn and grow? According to DiMartino and Clark, many high school students feel invisible and isolated. They don t see the relevance of what they are being taught, and they don t see how their classes are preparing them for success as adults. This book offers a new vision for high schools--a vision that puts students at the center of their learning. Personalized high schools engage students by allowing them to plan and develop their own pathways through school based on their talents, interests, and aspirations.

The book describes six promising practices that are emerging in high
--Guided Personalized Learning. Teachers act as advisors to small groups of students over two to six years to review personal learning plans, assist in course selection, and discover opportunities in the community.
--Personal Learning Plans. Students meet regularly with parents, advisors, mentors, and peers to review progress and plan next steps.
--Personalized Teaching. Teachers differentiate instruction to allow students to explore different aspects of the subject and produce authentic work that shows their understanding.
--Community-Based Learning. Active involvement in the community helps clarify a student s purpose and defines the steps necessary to achieve successful adult roles.
--Personalized Assessment. Rather than grades and tests scores, the work itself--portfolios, exhibitions, and student-led conferences--shows what the students have learned.
--Personalizing school systems. Some schools are moving past the Carnegie unit and focusing instead on helping each student achieve specified competencies, often through learning experiences that the students themselves have helped design.

These six practices can improve learning for all students by engaging them in shaping their own high school experience and discovering how the academic skills they learn in school can have meaning in the world they will negotiate as adults.

Genres: Education

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

DiMartino and Clarke demystify the concept of "personalization" for the high school level, while maintaining their focus on rigorous learning. Research, case studies, and practical tools and structures make the book eminently practical and useful.

[Steve Tla · Rating 5 out of 5]

John Clarke and Joseph Dimartino have compliled a book that will help teachers and parents see what it means to "personalize" a school. In the first chapter you can read Dimartino's observation about the challenges that railroads faced around 1910. No matter how many improvements you make to a train, it won't travel as fast or as far as an airplane.

In the same way, Dimartino argues that schools are obsolete the way railroads were obsolete. When we put students at the center of the school, then the structure, procedures and curriculum change. Go ahead, look for the first chapter and see if you want to learn about Big Picture Learning and High Tech High and New Tech High schools. You can download free materials from hightechhigh.org and newtechhigh.org/portfolio. Go ahead, read the first chapter on Amazon.

You can find similar free ebooks at TINYURL.com/personalizeYourSchool and TinyURL.com/exampleDP (to see what a digital portfolio looks like) and TINYURL.com/FWPstart and TINYURL.com/FWPfreesites to see how to make a free website.


You can get the first free chapter of Dennis Littky's book THE BIG PICTURE at TINYURL.com/LittkyChapter1 and hear Littky on NPR radio TINYURL.com/LittkyRadio… and these are examples of what Dimartino and Clarke discuss in the Personalization of High School. Go ahead, get this book.


chapter 1 https://tinyurl.com/persoanlizechapter1
c hapter 2 https://tinyurl.com/persoanlizechapter2

the study guide https://tinyurl.com/persoanlizestudyg... Thank you for reading this far!

[Kristen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Personalized education is a new buzzword - all the sudden I'm hearing it everywhere. In abstract it seems totally impossible: how am I supposed to manage 90 different lesson plans a day. This book gives much more concrete examples, but unfortunately from schools designed to use a personalized education approach, not any schools that have transitioned to it from a traditional structure. I feel like I know more and find some of the elements convincing, but I would need to know way more specifics as well as what a math classroom looks like in these situations to be really convinced.

Read for continuing ed.

[Colin Kemmis]

Some good, proven techniques. But also includes a lot of bias and hate speech against tons of good, research-based techniques.