Hello Family Leaders
Thank you for taking the time to learn about the fantastic program we have adopted here at Aspen Public Schools. All students from 4th to 8th grades will receive instruction and manage their learning through the Gradient Learning Platform. Gradient Learning gives students the opportunity to reach their full potential and teachers the tools they need to meet each student's needs and interests. There are four components to Gradient Learning, as outlined below.
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Goal Setting/ Mentoring
Students plan their academic, college, and career goals, coached by a teacher who understands their aspirations.
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Cognitive Skills
Teachers facilitate collaborative projects where students can build and demonstrate cognitive skills.
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Content Knowledge
Student works through content and assessments at their own pace. Teachers individualize instruction using real-time data.
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Habits of Success
Students work with teacher mentors to develop a growth mindset, emotional intelligence, and self-directed learning skills.
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ABOUT SUMMIT LEARNING
The Summit Learning Program was developed by teachers, for teachers, in partnership with nationally acclaimed learning scientists, researchers, and academics.
Through Summit Learning, more than 380 schools across the country are bringing this model to more than 72,000 students. The program has grown as teachers have recommended Summit Learning to their peers.
The Summit Learning experience has three components:
A focus on teaching through projects
A mentoring program for every student
A drive to equip students with the skills and habits associated with lifelong learning, such as self-direction.
In addition to what is taught by teachers, students are also able to access additional learning resources, set goals, and track their progress via an online platform.
Summit Learning does not replace teachers with technology. Educators design the Platform as a tool to support great teaching and learning, enabling teachers to see exactly where students are in their learning in order to provide the right support.
TECHNOLOGY COMPONENT
Summit Learning does not call for students to be working on a screen all day.
Summit’s technology is not a replacement for the work of teachers but helps them build stronger relationships with their students.
The Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education found that technology can be helpful in advancing learning for high school students who are placed at greatest risk when it’s interactive, used to support discussions and projects with peers and teachers, and a place for creation rather than passive consumption.
When used actively, learning technology has been shown to produce gains in achievement and boost engagement. (The Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education)
In 2016, The American Academy of Pediatrics revised their screen time recommendations to emphasize quality rather than focusing solely on the amount of screen time. The AAP now recommends “parents and caregivers develop a family media plan that takes into account the health, education, and entertainment needs of each child as well as the whole family.”
SUMMIT’S APPROACH TO PRIVACY
Summit is extremely committed to protecting student personal information.
Summit’s transparent student privacy practices are publicly available and are updated to stay at the leading edge of best practices as defined by external industry watch organizations.
Summit has gone above what is currently required by federal law by voluntarily signing on to the Software and Information Industry and Future of Privacy Forum's Student Privacy Pledge.
Summit only uses student personal information for educational purposes. There are no exceptions to this.
Summit will never sell the personal information of any student or any user.
Schools, parents/guardians, teachers and/or students own and control their personal information. Summit does not own the student personal information used in the Summit Learning Program.
Best practices in privacy and security evolve just as technology evolves. Summit is committed to working with parents/guardians, schools, vendors, industry leaders, and partners who help us keep learning and evolving in these areas in order to help protect student personal information.
You can read more about Summit’s commitment to safeguarding data in the Summit Learning Privacy Center.
SUMMIT’S RELATIONSHIP WITH THE CHAN ZUCKERBERG INITIATIVE (CZI)
Summit Learning and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative have a strong partnership that pairs the expertise of both organizations, including instructional design, engineering, learning science and student development, to help more teachers customize instruction and meet students' individual needs and interests.
Educators at Summit Learning run the Program. The team, largely made up of former teachers, school leaders, and coaches, brings deep expertise, including curriculum writing, educator coaching, and professional development.
CZI’s role in the partnership is threefold:
Experts in learning science and human development at CZI work daily with staff at Summit Learning to integrate the science of learning and development into the program.
CZI’s technology team leads the development and improvement of the Summit Learning Platform, working at the direction of Summit Learning Program staff and the Program Schools to ensure the Platform experience supports classroom needs.
CZI also makes grants to Summit Learning to enable them to provide curriculum, professional development, and an online tool free to schools across America through the program.
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What is Mentoring in a Summit Learning Classroom?
In addition to their classroom teacher, each student has a mentor — a teacher who dedicates time weekly to talk one-on-one with the student. These sessions give students a deeper connection with a teacher and provide a safe space for students to go for support, academic or otherwise. Mentors help students find motivation after a setback, refine their goals, and connect their experiences at school with opportunities beyond graduation.
How Mentor Check-ins Work
Students meet weekly with their teacher-mentors to discuss their progress at school. Each mentoring session has a discussion guide that students use to prepare for the conversation. By building a deep connection and foundation of trust, mentors have honest discussions about struggles and successes with students. During each meeting, students reflect on what went well — and what didn't — during the previous week, and mentors share useful feedback and suggestions for refining an existing goal or setting a new one based on recent experiences. As a student becomes more familiar with goal-setting and planning, they also learn which tasks they should focus on every week.
Mentors also provide support to students while they practice important learning skills. They do this by helping students deal with stress in positive ways, exploring post-graduation options, coaching students on the Habits of Success — social and emotional skills that enable students to be successful at both academic and non-academic pursuits — and more. Mentors are a key part of Summit Learning because they help students learn to succeed on their own.
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Please follow this link for information and sample videos of Summit Learning.
2016-2017 Aspen Valley Prep School Selected to Participate in Elite National Personalized Learning Program
Aspen Public Schools has a new tool to deliver a personalized learning experience.
Aspen Public Schools has been selected to be one of more than 100 school districts across the country (and one of only three from the Central Valley) to partner with Summit Learning, a free program that provides teachers and schools with the resources they need to bring personalized learning into their classroom.
School leaders applied for the program because the school shares a common vision with Summit Learning: students should be at the center of learning.
The backbone of Summit’s approach is the online Personalized Learning Platform (PLP). Developed by teachers from Summit Public Schools in the San Francisco Bay area with technical assistance from Facebook engineers, the Summit SLP helps students set both short and long-term goals (while tracking progress towards these goals), prioritize their work, learn content at their own pace, complete deeper learning projects that apply real-world situations, and reflect on their learning. Teachers are able to better customize instruction to meet individual students’ needs and interests, including utilizing a variety of tools, many hands-on. This approach is supported by technology that allows both students and teachers to create and carry out individual learning plans and track progress toward goals.
The school will begin implementing the program and the digital platform this school year for students in sixth through eighth grades. Parents of students in those grades will soon receive more information.
This partnership aligns perfectly with the school's strategic plan, a framework for student success that empowers students to create, innovate, investigate, collaborate, communicate, solve problems, lead, reflect, and serve.
This tool will help educators deliver personalized learning and its component goals of Learning, Readiness, Resources, and Engagement through participation in the Summit Learning program and will be empowered to able to adopt this Personalized Learning Platform as a digital vehicle to fit the needs of their students.
“It is very exciting to be a part of this national community of practice,” said Director of Summit Learning-Hilary Downs. “The opportunity to access this tool at no cost to the district is incredible. There have been millions of dollars invested in design and development in this platform and APS is very fortunate to be able to be a leader in implementing this program in our schools and our community.”
This platform not only provides the ways and means for students to be intensively focused in their education initiatives, but involves parents as well. Parents will be able to see the entire curriculum, feedback from teachers, and their child’s progress.
Aspen Public Schools educators and school leaders recently convened with other partner schools from around the country at Summit's headquarters in the San Francisco Bay area for two weeks of free professional development and training to ensure that schools are set up for success for the school year. The same group will attend regional meetings of schools throughout the year, giving teachers access to ongoing professional development.
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"I am very happy with Summit. My son has special needs and is getting great grades. He has been attending AVPA since kindergarten and the school team has been excellent. My daughter also attended since kindergarten and is now a freshman at Central West. I was nervous and wondering if and how she was going to adapt to "regular' classes and homework, and she has a 4.0 now. She adapted very well, and teachers even said she was ahead of her classmates. For example, freshman are barely learning MLA format and she had been doing it for a couple of years at AVPA. I completely recommend Summit and AVPA schools."
— Sonia S. 6th-8th parent