A Day in the Life

Students in School of One typically experience two periods of math and an online assessment every day. The School of One model is currently servicing mathematics, so students follow their standard routine for other subjects.

9:10 am Arrive for School of One math

Eddie leaves his English class and heads to the School of One math center.

9:11 am Station check

As soon as they enter the School of One math center, Eddie and his peers look up at the large monitor to see where they're scheduled to learn. Eddie will begin at the "Bridges" station today, learning skill 7.G.10 -- Graph the solution set of an inequality on a number line.

9:12 am Math homeroom

Eddie hands the previous night's homework to his math homeroom teacher, Ms. Totten, who is responsible for monitoring Eddie's math experience. Although he will regularly interact with several other math teachers, Eddie spends the first ten minutes of every day with Ms. Totten to discuss his progress and ask general questions.

9:24 am First modality: Small group collaboration

In the "Bridges" station, Eddie works on a collaborative activity with two peers who are also assigned to skill 7.G.10 today.

9:58 am Second modality: Virtual instruction

For the second period of School of One, Eddie moves to the "Governor's Island" station, where students are engaged in independent learning with software and Mr. Calle is available to help answer questions. He continues to learn skill 7.G.10, but the computer allows him to view simulations and to receive immediate feedback on his graphs.

10:30 am Quiz

Eddie logs back into the portal to take his daily online quiz. The quiz is an opportunity to practice the day's skill and for Eddie and his teachers to learn how well he understands it.

10:40 am Quiz results

Eddie submits his quiz. Perfect score! He'll work on a new skill tomorrow.

10:41 am Receive homework

On his way out the door, Ms. Totten hands him the evening's homework sheet. It is customized to match skill 7.G.10.

10:42 am Go to next class

Eddie leaves the School of One space. The rest of today's classes will be taught in traditional classroom spaces.

Read about a typical day in the life of Mr. Calle, a School of One math teacher, below. School of One works with the existing mathematics staff and school schedules—exact timelines vary from school to school. In general, teachers will lead or facilitate multiple modalities in multiple locations every day.

7:40 am Review today's schedule and student data

Mr. Calle reviews today's schedule, which was published yesterday afternoon. He also glances at yesterday's quiz data, noting which students did well and which will need extra help to move forward to the next skill. Throughout the day, he will be teaching five periods. He will be delivering live instruction in three periods and supporting online learning in two.

8:02 am Prep: Refine lessons and identify target students

Mr. Calle observes that he's scheduled to teach skill 6.N.23, "Represent repeated multiplication in exponential form," during second period. This is a skill he hasn't yet taught this year, so he spends some time reviewing his lesson plan from the previous year and looking at the list of students he is scheduled to teach during that period. They have all mastered the appropriate precursor skills, but one student took an especially long time to do so. Mr. Calle will need to pay close attention to her in class to ensure that she grasps the material.

8:24 am Math homeroom

Math homeroom begins at the start of first period. This is a chance for Mr. Calle to collect homework and talk to his students. Though students receive instruction from many other teachers, Mr. Calle serves as their primary teacher and monitors their overall development. Math homeroom occurs during the first ten minutes of every double-period, or during the first four minutes for students with a single period of math.

8:35 am Support live remote tutoring

During first period, Mr. Calle facilitates live remote tutoring. Students work independently with live tutors online, and Mr. Calle helps when the students have questions or need extra explanation. He has an iPad available so he can enter student attendance and behavior data and easily access students' previous quiz data.

9:11 am Lead small group instruction

Mr. Calle leads a small group instruction activity on skill 6.N.23 with a group of six students. He receives a lesson recommendation in PDF format from the School of One portal and makes a few modifications: he reduces the instructional time for the lesson to leave more time for students to ask questions, and he replaces one worksheet with a short activity on an interactive whiteboard. Mr. Calle's lesson explains that exponent notation is a more convenient way to express repeated multiplication. Students practice making the conversion from multiplication to exponents on the whiteboard.

9:59 am Independent learning zone

While students work independently on computers and with worksheets, Mr. Calle answers questions, helps with instruction, and steps in to tutor students when he notices they have misconceptions. Students are working with different software programs and worksheets, so Mr. Calle draws upon his broad mathematics background to provide support for different students working on different skills. He works with Eddie to clarify instructions and help him understand when Eddie answers problems incorrectly.

10:45 am Common Planning

Every day during fourth period, the School of One staff has a common planning session. Today, they discuss their feedback on the content vendors that provide lessons for School of One's lesson bank. The teachers agree that the lessons of two of the digital content providers are excellent for instruction of new material, and the lesson of another works better for reinforcement of material once it has already been taught. They communicate this feedback to the School of One central office so that it can be incorporated into the learning algorithm. Later, they look at data reports and discuss five students who appear to be moving slowly. They develop strategies for helping those students stay focused and advance to new skills.

12:19 pm Small group collaboration

During sixth period, Mr. Calle splits his students into groups and gives them instructions for a collaborative activity that he has planned. In the activity, students work together with geometry manipulatives to visually represent fractions. The groups have a competition: the first to complete a set of 10 problems correctly wins. Mr. Calle rotates between the groups to answer questions and keep them on task.

1:06 pm Large group instruction

Seventh period instruction begins. Mr. Calle uses a tried-and-true lesson on exponents that he developed as a student teacher and that he has refined over the past three years. He uses a flu virus example to show exponential growth and asks students to chart the growth on graph paper. At the end of the lesson, he introduces a formula for exponent multiplication. Students then spend the final minutes with worksheets as Mr. Calle answers lingering questions.

1:53 pm Prep session

Mr. Calle uses a prep session to look ahead to skills that he will be teaching in coming days. Even though his schedule is generated every day, School of One's "five-day forecast" gives him a preview of the skills he is most likely to teach given students' current rate of progress.

4:30 pm Receive tomorrow's schedule and begin preparation

The following day's schedules are published for teachers by School of One's algorithm every day between 4:30pm and 5:30pm. Mr. Calle reviews his schedule and sends feedback where he would like to see changes.