Saturday School Personalization

Saturday School Personalization

Client: Western School of Science and Technology

Date: Spring, 2018

Role: Project manager

Goal: The overarching goal was to create an effective, sustainable and personalized Saturday School program for students who most needed an extra boost.

Constraints & path forward:

There was no current system in place to effectively invite students to Saturday School and notify their families. In addition, there was no documentation previous Saturday School systems, nor any current at-scale personalization models occurring in the school.

After getting feedback from stakeholders such as teachers, administrators, and students, I was able to identify what improvements needed to be made. In addition, I analyzed what resources that were currently in place (such as the NWEA Map assessment) that could be used to support the Saturday School efforts.

Steps in the process:

  1. Identify the criteria for Saturday School participants
  2. Create systems to notify students and families
  3. Build an easy-to-replicate, personalized Saturday School curriculum that uses data, teacher expertise, and student choice.
  4. Invite and invest teachers and other staff, and get their input on the system
  5. Execute and iterate on the system
  6. Document the system for future users

Indicators of success:

Our average student Saturday School attendance increased by 25%. Student satisfaction in the Saturday School program was extremely positive, and veteran staff felt that their time was being better utilized during Saturday School. Minutes of students’ productive work (vs. waiting, moving to classrooms, or loitering) increased by 20% compared to the previous year.

In addition, after this project was completed teachers had a documented successful example of at-scale personalization within their building. Personalization efforts expanded outside of Saturday School and moved into intervention and mainstream classroom settings.

What’s more, in 2019, the same model was utilized, with a 50% reduction in start-up cost due to excellent documentation and systemization.

Links:

Example math playlist