Grade-Level and Personalized Supports with OER

Overview

Washington Leadership Academy (WLA) determined its students were arriving to high school with skills ranging from 2nd to 11th grade. To address this challenge, WLA sought OER that felt relevant and accessible to students and then developed its math and ELA model using these resources. The school's main goals for leveraging OER were:

• to provide grade-level instruction to all students
• to offer student choice (e.g., different ELA text options for cultural relevance)
• to offer personalized supports for students depending on their level of content mastery

In WLA’s innovative model, students take two math and ELA courses, alternating daily.

• Grade-Level Instruction:
• Math: Students take grade-level content using Achievement First's open curriculum.
• ELA: Grade-level instruction is built utilizing Odell’s open curriculum and Common-Lit. While this model is working well, WLA and Common-Lit are now developing a high school ELA course which they hope will better meet the needs of all students.
• Math/Literacy Studio:
• Math and Literacy Studio are adaptive studio models which use assessment data to provide personalized supports and help to fill gaps for those students who came in below grade level.
• Educators in Math Studio use data from MAP tests and tools such as Think Through Math to fill learning gaps or provide advanced instruction for students at or above grade level. This model is proving successful, with students showing consistent growth in math across the grade level.
• WLA provided an example of their Algebra Studio Course Map.
• In terms of assessment, WLA’s academic leads are currently partnering with Center Point Solutions to curate open assessment items that can work with the Achievement First curriculum and which, more generally, can fill the gap in high-quality high school math assessments.
• Literacy Studio offers readings at different levels, often utilizing Common-Lit. WLA finds Common-Lit useful because it offers students multiple text sets for cultural relevance with a diversity of topics and authors. It also provides PARCC-aligned reading comprehension constructed response assessments which personalize based on reading levels and provide accommodations including chunking text, reading aloud, and changing fonts.

At WLA, school leaders and educators embrace a philosophy that encourages the open sharing of their Open School Development and Operations Resources, including their curricular resources, broadly to the education community.