New Classrooms' Interactive Math Learning Model Expands To 10 States

NEW YORK, Aug. 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- New Classrooms, a national nonprofit on a mission to personalize education by redesigning how a classroom works, is announcing its first school-based learning model, Teach to One: Math (TTO), will be used by approximately 13,000 students in 40 schools in 10 states and Washington D.C. this fall – an over 40 percent annual growth. For the first time, the middle school math learning model will be used in both public and private high schools to help students who are behind get ready for algebra.

"More schools are seeing the value of personalized learning as key to student acceleration," said New Classrooms CEO Joel Rose. "We're privileged to be working with and learning alongside our partner schools to best support their unique school communities."

TTO modernizes the predominant century-old model of one teacher to 25 or more students teaching from one textbook to a personalized learning experience for every student. In a TTO center, students and teachers receive customized daily schedules that ensure each student is learning the right math lesson, at the right time, and in the right way. The model provides teachers with a curated bank of high-quality learning resources that match students' skill levels and address knowledge gaps. It assigns each student to one of nine instructional approaches, called modalities, daily based on the previous day's assessment.

This new model of personalization helps solve an important problem: almost two-thirds of U.S. eighth graders are off track in math when they enter high school. These students have a less than 20 percent chance of graduating high school ready for college.

In the 2015-16 school year, 24 out of the 25 schools using TTO saw academic gains above the national average. When students were asked about TTO:

• 80 percent said having the opportunity to try things multiple times in different ways helped them learn;
• 72 percent said TTO helped them learn better on their own; and
• 66 percent said they would like to learn another subject using the TTO model.

After one year of using TTO, students at Bennie Dover Jackson Middle School in New London, Connecticut grew 1.68 times the national average on NWEA's Measures of Academic Progress, a nationally normed growth assessment which New Classrooms administers in each partner school. The learning model also had a large impact on the culture at Bennie Dover, which had been working vigorously to decrease discipline incidents and increase academic rigor. The collaborative component of TTO, which groups students based on their needs and skill levels daily, helped students interact with peers from different social circles, and view their classmates as teammates. Since starting TTO, discipline referrals have gone down by 84 percent.

"TTO has played an integral role in accelerating change and success at Bennie Dover. Now we see students fostering academic friendships. When they know another student is struggling, they keep an eye on them, and when students do well, they all feel proud together, which encourages them to continue working as a team," said principal Dr. Alison Burdick. "TTO is about using this whole new way of learning to change a school community, to impact its culture, and to give kids a whole new level of ownership over their own learning."

About New Classrooms
Founded in 2011, New Classrooms is a national nonprofit on a mission to personalize education by redesigning how a classroom works – from the use of technology, time, and physical space to the instruction and content that engages each student.  The founders of New Classrooms were the leaders of an initiative within NYC Public Schools called School of One, which TIME named as one of the Best Inventions of 2009. New Classrooms' first learning model, Teach to One: Math, ensures each student is learning the right math lesson, at the right time, and in the right way that best meets their strengths and needs. It is used in 40 schools, serving about 13,000 students, nationwide. To learn more about New Classrooms, visit www.newclassrooms.org.

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SOURCE New Classrooms

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