Submitted by James Cryan, Founder
Note: The information in this profile represents SY2012-13 unless otherwise indicated. This profile has been updated. To view Rocky Mountain Prep’s profile from SY2o13-14, click here.
School Overview
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School Description
Rocky Mountain Prep is a tuition-free, public charter school located in southeast Denver. The school’s mission is to educate students in preK-5 with the rigorous academic preparation, character development and individualized support necessary to succeed in a four-year college and life. Rocky Mountain Prep is committed to changing statistics for its students by providing scholars with a transformational education that starts in preK and prepares them to graduate from high school and a four-year college.
Blended Learning Program
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Program Model
Program model: Station Rotation
Model description
For math and English language arts, students rotate on a fixed schedule between three stations, which include an individualized online-learning station, a teacher-led instruction station, and a group workstation.
Program Description
How much time do students spend on campus in this blended-learning program? How much of this time do students spend learning online or with educational software?
Students are required to be on campus for 100 percent of the school day. Students have two blended-learning periods during each school day and within each blended-learning period, students spend 30 minutes learning online or using educational software.
Briefly describe the offline components of this blended-learning program.
The blended-learning program consists of three learning stations for Math and English Language Arts. At two of these stations, students engage in offline learning activities. At one station, students receive face-to-face instruction from the teacher and participate in guided reading and math practice. At the other station, students work in small groups on projects and collaborative problem-solving.
How are the online and offline components of the program connected to provide an integrated learning experience for students? How do data from different learning modalities inform each other?
Administrators at Rocky Mountain Prep did a lot of offline data analysis but this school year, administrators and teachers only used online student data to ensure that students were not falling behind in the coursework. But administrators are actively looking for tools and resources that will provide a more integrated learning experience for students and also inform curriculum and class activities for next school year.
How does this blended-learning program fit into the rest of the students’ school day?
Students start each school day with breakfast and morning meetings in their classrooms. They then break out to either the English Language Arts blended-learning rotation or the Math blended-learning rotation depending on grade level. In the afternoon, students break into the blended-learning rotation they didn’t have in the morning. During the rest of the day, students engage in special science and dance learning periods, and writing periods. English Language Arts blended-learning rotations are usually 90 minutes long, while Math blended-learning rotations are only 70-75 minutes.
What are the teachers’ roles and responsibilities in both the online and offline components of this blended-learning program?
The Station Rotation Model allows teachers to focus less on teaching procedural skills and more on honing specific academic skills. In the online components of the blended-learning program, teachers are only responsible for helping students troubleshoot technical problems and monitoring student data to ensure students are staying on track. In the offline components of the program, teachers are responsible for facilitating and delivering all content, modifying curriculum to the meet the needs of the students, and administering and grading student assessments.
What other adults are involved in this blended-learning program (e.g., paraprofessionals, learning coaches, counselors) and what are their roles and responsibilities?
Rocky Mountain Prep employs five fellows who serve as associate teachers in the classroom and primarily facilitate the group-instruction stations. They are all college graduates interested in obtaining teaching licenses.
Briefly describe the set-up of physical space for this blended-learning program.
The classrooms at Rocky Mountain Prep look mostly traditional. The school is located in a renovated office park and shares a location with a traditional elementary school. Classrooms are furnished with tables and chairs and each classroom has a bank of 10 desktop computers that students use during the online-learning station.
How are students grouped within this blended-learning program?
Students are grouped based on ability determined by offline student data. The groups are constantly being re-assessed and adjusted as teachers gather more data.
Do students have some element of control over the pacing of their learning? Are students tied to a semester-based course schedule or can they complete courses at any time? Briefly describe any requirements or benchmarks in place to ensure student progress.
Students do have some element of control over the pacing of their learning, but the school does not yet use a true competency-based model. At the beginning of the school year, teachers set end-of-the-year goals and then backward map benchmarks based on those goals. Students mostly work on similar content across a specific grade level, but students can move along at a quicker pace if they demonstrate competency.
Describe the academic results of the program, using quantitative data where possible.
Rocky Mountain Prep administered NWEA MAP assessments at the beginning and end of this school year. Rocky Mountain Prep students started the school year, on average, in the 33rd percentile nationally in both Literacy and Math. Rocky Mountain Prep students finished the school year, on average, in the 69th percentile nationally in Literacy and the 71st percentile nationally in Math.
Describe any other distinctive characteristics of this blended learning program if they have not been captured above.
Forty percent of the students at Rocky Mountain Prep are English Language Learners.
What have been the biggest obstacles in implementing this blended-learning program? What has needed adjustment along the way?
Administrators at the school have been pleased with the early-age online math content but feel that the early-age online literacy content is of a lower quality. Administrators are also trying to find viable and workable learning management system that will allow them to integrate student data and perform more telling and in-depth data analyses.
Have you or are you planning to scale your program model to more/other schools?
Student enrollment will increase from 130 in SY2012-13 to 300 in SY2013-14 by adding a second-grade class. The school plans to continue adding one grade level until 5th grade. Administrators are planning to test out a flex model during the summer that will then be used for 45 minutes of each school day during SY2013-14. The school will also be adding Google Chromebooks and iPads for student instruction during SY2013-14.
Contact Information
Name: James Cryan
Title: Founder
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.rockymountainprep.org