1. with Dr. Mike Ruyle & Tami O’Neill
A Cutting Edge System to Personalize Education in the Bridger Alternative Program
with Dr. Mike Ruyle & Tami O’Neill

2. Today’s Objectives…
The Bridger Story
Cash Crisis – Time of Scarcity
Administrative & Staff Reduction
Move Programs to Save $
Current Situation
Moving Forward

3. Bridger Alternative Program
Leading Indicators
Culture Was One of Enabling, Low Achievement, and Not Collaborative
Effective Teaching in Every Classroom - Not Reality
Curriculum Not Guaranteed or Viable
Lagging Indicators
Implemented a Competency-Based System
Used Affinity Charts and Community Meetings
More Classroom Observations, Move People
Use Common Core and Establish Priority Standards

4. Marzano Research Lab: Percentile Gain for Specific Instructional Strategies
T: Professional Literature and Research supports this model of classroom instruction-the 3 specific strategies that provide the most gains are at the heart of the performance based learning.

5. John Hattie, Visible Learning, Effect Size on Student Learning
Our innovations and decisions have been based on research-based practices. Home environment and socioeconomic status come in at only .57 effect size. We can have an impact on all students, regardless of background. Piagetian programs (meeting students where they are in the learning); acceleration, and comprehensive interventions.

7. Balanced Leadership McRel, 2004 21 Leadership Practices
2nd Order Change
Characteristics
Lindsay High School

8. The Issue
There are “forces at work now for which there are no precedents…New technologies are revolutionizing the nature of work everywhere… What is certain is that in the next 50 to 100 years, our children will need to confront challenges that are unique in human history”
Ken Robinson

9. Inevitable: Mass Customized Learning in the Age of Empowerment
“The world is changing… No, excuse us, it’s not changing, it’s already changed! We have left the Industrial Age and mass production, and seen our way into, and maybe past, the Information Age and mass customization”

10. “Except for education, of course… which remains stuck in the assembly line approach to education which presupposes that all eight-year olds are ready to learn the same thing, the same way, in the same amount of time…Everybody is mass customizing. Everybody. Pandora allows me to customize my radio station; Yahoo allows me to customize my news page; Starbucks allows me to have a venti decaf with a little room; my iPad and Google allow me to go anywhere in the world while sipping that venti decaf.”

11. Charles Schwan & Beatrice McGarvey
“Education cannot sit in this customized world as an island, embracing the Industrial Age, and expect to survive.”
Charles Schwan & Beatrice McGarvey
(2012, p. xii)

12. “Students have been locked down by the concept of seat-time and locked out of the technological revolution that has transformed nearly every sector of American society,
except for education.”
Jim Shelton, Assistant Deputy,
Secretary of Education
Current trends in technology are making innovations in every sector possible. Transformational change will occur if we utilize technology in our solutions.

13. Attempts at Reform…
“Major efforts with serious additional dollars have difficulty penetrating classroom practice…systems in Seattle, Chicago, and Milwaukee focused on many of the seemingly right things such as literacy and math, used obvious choice strategies such as concentration on assessment for learning data, invested heavily in professional development, and focused on larger change…We see “standards- based” systemwide reform that sounds as if it should work.

14. But…
In Chicago, teachers did focus on standards and coverage, but in interviews they “did not articulate any deep changes in teaching practice that may have been underway… “
“…the conversations district leaders had about standards were rarely connected to changes in instruction…At the school level, finding teachers who understood the implications of standards for their teaching was difficult” (Fullan, p )

15. Studied Standards-Based Systems
Rich DeLorenzo
Lindsay High School
$10 Million

16. Where We’ve Been
“It is a moral imperative that we do a better job of preparing kids… Allowing students to “D” their way through school is simply not good enough
-November 2010
Performance-Based Instruction, Assessment, and Reporting is our Focus
2010 – Researched PMM
2011 – Implement PMM
2012 – Year 2
2013 – Year 3

17. What PBS Looks Like
Students Earn Credit Based On Proficiency To Standards
“This approach to schooling requires much more of students—both in terms of academic performance and their ownership of the learning process…”
Low-level, just-get-by achievement is no longer sufficient for advancement.
Proficiency is the new bar for every student.

18. Performance Based: Focus less on teachers and more on learners.
What is a Performance Based
learning environment?
What is a traditional
Learners are partners in their own learning
Learners learn at their own pace
Learners track their own progress
Learners learn from one another and
the teacher
Learners develop a shared vision and
leadership with their teacher
Learners are always looking for ways
to improve
Movement is based on performance
Classrooms are teacher directed
All students learn everything all together
Only the teachers know the students grades
Students only learn from the teacher
The teacher makes the rules and tells the students how the classroom will run
The teacher tells the student how to improve
Movement is based on time
Mike-discuss the highlights here, explaining the longterm goals.

19. 2008-09 134 Students Accessed 33 Graduates (25%)
46 Returned The Following Year (34%)
48 Dropped Out (36%)
7 Transferred To Another School (5%)
64% of students who enrolled in the Bridger Program either graduated or stayed in school

20. 2009-10 104 Students Accessed 32 Graduates (31%)
33 Returned the Following Year (32%)
39 Drops (37%)
10 Dropped Out And Earned a GED (10%)
11 Dropouts
63% of students who enrolled in the Bridger Program either graduated or stayed in school

21. 2012-13 229 Students Accessed Bridger Services Drops 59 Drops
13 - Transferred to other schools/records requested
1 – Returned FT to BHS
3 – Treatment
(1 returned to BAP)
1 - Youth Challenge
4 - Online School/Homeschool
28 – GED
Earned - 21 (3 GEDs Earned from MYC)
Actively Attending - 7
9 – Drop Outs (4%)
(3 Attending GED Currently)
96% of BAP students graduate, remain in school, or are actively pursuing educational goals. 
1 student from 2012 graduating class earned diploma in summer of 2012.
3 students from previous graduating classes earned GED in 2013.

22. CRT Data 07/08 08/09 09/10 10-11 11-12 12-13 # Students 12 15 21 14
07/ / /
# Students
Reading % % % % % %
Math % % % % % %
Science % % % % % %
Writing NA % % % % NA

23. ACT Data 17.1 avg for 16 students in 2012 Year 1 of implementation

24. Analysis of the fall disciplinary logs shows that while BHS has seen a 55% increase in suspensions and expulsions this fall compared to last fall, Bridger has witnessed a 59% decrease in suspensions or expulsions in the same comparison.

25. “As educators, we have a choice:
Do what’s easy or do what’s right.”
-Rich DeLorenzo, RISC Cofounder

26. Critical Piece Innovation Rubber Hits The Road
Rarely Impacts Students In The Classroom
Rubber Hits The Road
Flywheel Made All The Difference

27. Results So Far Increase in: Student Engagement Academic Optimism
Transformational Leadership

28. What the Students Are Saying
I think teachers in the regular classes like traditional school better because it’s easier for them to have kids just follow them and do what they say, but that doesn’t push kids to be better. They don’t have to connect with kids and work with them individually as much. They just have to teach something once and then give homework. But here, they teach in a way that fits me better. This is awesome!
In the regular high school, I was just in the middle of a big herd of people, and we were moved along like cows. In performance-based, I get to choose my own path and move that way. It’s so much more interesting and motivating, and I want to be done early so I can move on with life. And now I will be done early with a higher skill level.

29. Instead of busy work, worksheets, and assignments, in performance-based you get to show you are capable of doing skills, and after you show that you have it down, you can move on. Then all the other things get better because you know it more. I’m doing so much better, and that just makes me try harder. I LOVE being successful at school!
This is not as easy as people think. It’s actually harder, but I’m doing better in school now than I ever have. It all makes more sense to me, and I feel good when I see myself moving and getting things done. We are getting a better education here. All the other kids are getting cheated. Too bad for them!

31. Practical Issues of Innovation
Tami-discuss some of the problems teachers had in implementing these ideas.

32. Clearly defined learning targets
25 %tile GAIN for setting goals. Further 20%tile gain for vocabulary (Marzano’s Lab). .75 Effect Size=teacher clarity; .69 Effect Size=metacognitive strategies. Show Flywheel Learning Targets: English and Algebra I-Test Student.

33. Feedback and Performance Scales
Tracking Student Progress-34%tile gain (Marzano); formative evaluation -.9 effect size; feedback .73 effect size; teacher/student relationships .72 effect size (Hattie). Show demonstrations of learning & automatic feedback. Personalized feedback as well.

34. Skill-based Instruction & Relevant Content
Metacognition .69 effect size, building academic vocabulary 20%tile growth. Focus on skills. Student choice in content. Marzano: engagement-2 key components are relevance and efficacy. Students who see the learning as relevant to their own goals and who develop efficacy in their skills will have more engagement in their learning and by extension, more achievement.

35. Flexible Assessments/Demonstrations of Learning
Flywheel allows for any size grouping on demonstrations of learning-

36. Continuous Improvement
Mike-Discuss what continuous improvement has been like in the BAP system.

37. The FLYWHEEL Effect
Tami-Explain the FW Effect from Good to Great and how it impacts innovation in education. picture a huge, heavy flywheel. It’s a massive, metal disk mounted horizontally on an axle. It's about 100 feet in diameter, 10 feet thick, and it weighs about 25 tons. That flywheel is your company. Your job is to get that flywheel to move as fast as possible, because momentum—mass times velocity—is what will generate superior economic results over time.
Right now, the flywheel is at a standstill. To get it moving, you make a tremendous effort. You push with all your might, and finally you get the flywheel to inch forward. After two or three days of sustained effort, you get the flywheel to complete one entire turn. You keep pushing, and the flywheel begins to move a bit faster. It takes a lot of work, but at last the flywheel makes a second rotation. You keep pushing steadily. It makes three turns, four turns, five, six. With each turn, it moves faster, and then—at some point, you can’'t say exactly when—you break through. The momentum of the heavy wheel kicks in your favor. It spins faster and faster, with its own weight propelling it. You aren't pushing any harder, but the flywheel is accelerating, its momentum building, its speed increasing.
Explain iterative design & how Flywheel Learning is responding to the needs of schools as they are making the change from good to great.

38. Picture a huge, heavy flywheel
Picture a huge, heavy flywheel. It’s a massive, metal disk mounted horizontally on an axle. It's about 100 feet in diameter, 10 feet thick, and it weighs about 25 tons. That flywheel is your company [SCHOOL]. Your job is to get that flywheel to move as fast as possible, because momentum—mass times velocity—is what will generate superior results over time.
Right now, the flywheel is at a standstill. To get it moving, you make a tremendous effort. You push with all your might, and finally you get the flywheel to inch forward. After...sustained effort, you get the flywheel to complete one entire turn. You keep pushing, and the flywheel begins to move a bit faster. It takes a lot of work, but at last the flywheel makes a second rotation. You keep pushing steadily. It makes three turns, four turns, five, six. With each turn, it moves faster, and then—at some point, you can’t say exactly when—you break through. The momentum of the heavy wheel kicks in your favor. It spins faster and faster, with its own weight propelling it. You aren't pushing any harder, but the flywheel is accelerating, its momentum building, its speed increasing. (Jim Collins)

39. Questions
Our Contact Information:
Dr. Mike Ruyle
Tami O’Neill