Is Personalized Learning a Path to Reversing Enrollment Trends?

Day schools are a supercharged engine of American Jewish life. Research has long shown that they are the strongest generators of Jewish practice, communal life, and charitable giving to Jewish causes. Moreover, research in 2010 confirmed that day schools disproportionately produce leadership for Jewish organizations.

It should not be surprising that day schools have a unique impact. They socialize and educate young Jews when their minds and hearts are, in the words of Pirkei Avot, a clean parchment. They provide children with Jewish community, peers, and role models. Judaism seeps into their being as they gain Hebrew language skills, literacy in basic Jewish texts, the songs and rhythms of Shabbat and holidays, trips to Israel, and other backbones of a rich, multifaceted Jewish life.

In addition to being an engine of Jewish life, day schools reflect Jewish life in the sense that enrollments evolve with the changing demographics of American Jewry. The latest census by Dr. Marvin Schick (based on 2013/14 enrollment data) shows that while day school enrollment grew significantly over the prior 20 years, almost all of the growth had been in the Haredi sector. Modern and Centrist Orthodox enrollment has been fairly steady, while enrollment in non-Orthodox schools has been slipping in recent years, with the greatest decline in Solomon Schechter and Reform day schools. Some of the decline in the Schechter and Reform schools is due to below-replacement birthrate, leading to a smaller pool of children, and another factor is the post-denominational thrust of American Jewish life, which has led some schools to shift their affiliation from denominational to community/pluralistic.

Outside of the Haredi world, the question of how to maintain and increase enrollment is top of mind for day school and other communal leaders. The greatest challenge is for community, Schechter, and Reform day schools, where the declining pool of children means that schools will need to penetrate their markets more deeply simply to maintain a stable enrollment. Expanding enrollment will require even greater penetration.

How can day schools increase their market share?

There is, of course, no simple answer. Part of the solution lies in marketing at the national and local levels, changing the climate of opinion and helping parents to understand the value of day school education. Even communal leaders have wondered how day schools are cost-effective given the proven impact of Jewish summer camping, which costs less. We need to find language that resonates in the 21st century to explain why the outcomes of intensive and immersive Jewish education should not be passed up.

But marketing takes us only partway. Schools must actually succeed in their substantive goals. From a Jewish perspective, if a day school education offers no better Jewish educational outcomes than a summer camp, parents would have every reason to combine public or private school education with summer camping. From an academic perspective—general and Jewish studies—day schools also need a distinctive educational value proposition. In the balance of this article, I introduce the notion of personalized learning and argue that embracing this educational/pedagogic approach has the potential to improve educational effectiveness and give day schools a marketable value proposition: at the leading edge of the personalized learning movement.

PERSONALIZED LEARNING

Say “schools,” and most people picture teachers lecturing at the front of rooms to rows of children in desks. While this style remains common in American education generally, and in Jewish day schools as well, the nature of education is changing, and the pace of change is increasing. These changes are leading to more personalized, and I believe, effective and confidence-building education for students. The summary here is drawn from AVI CHAI’s experience and a forthcoming report on blended learning in 36 day schools by Dr. Leslie Santos Siskin of NYU.

One force driving change is the easy availability of technology. Not long ago, children used computers in labs during one period of the day. Today, more and more schools have the ability to provide a computer for each student as needed (through shared tablets or Chromebooks that are carted around the school). These computers and a slew of free software programs enable teachers to add resources—curricular material, videos, and games—to enrich general and Jewish studies classrooms. And students can access many technological resources to help with homework. For example, websites such as Sefaria enable students to quickly access most of the Jewish canon, with a growing number of texts in English. Khan Academy provides tutoring in math to students who need extra help. And technology enables new kinds of communication with parents, including electronic access to homework, attendance records, and progress reports/grades.

These new resources and communication tools are increasingly common in day schools. A smaller number of schools and teachers are taking the next step, which involves restructuring class time to enable a blended learning approach. Instead of all students learning the same material at the same pace, technology enables students to spend some of their time working independently, at their own pace, using software to learn new material and practice what they have learned. The computer work instantly generates assessment data for teachers who can (with training) tailor their teaching to the individualized educational needs of each child. Having a portion of the students working independently enables educators to teach smaller groups or even individuals as necessary.

The independent student work can be facilitated by software such as i-Ready for math and other subjects, and Lexia for reading On the Jewish studies side, existing curricula such as iTalam for primary-grade Jewish studies and Bishvil HaIvrit/NETA for middle and high school Hebrew language have been upgraded with multi-level games and robust learning management systems (LMS). These systems provide a wealth of data on class and individual performance that can support personalized learning. Some schools have integrated online courses in general and Jewish studies to supplement the course offerings available in school. The Lookstein Virtual Jewish Academy and the Online Judaic Studies Consortium offer different models for fully online Jewish studies courses that can enable schools to offer classes or approaches not otherwise available.

There is one additional, radical step that has thus far been implemented by a small number of schools and teachers. These teachers have not only added resources and restructured class time but have used blended learning to allow for a different kind of relationship between students and teachers. Students gain greater control over the content, pace, and modality of learning, helped by the availability of software and websites that expand the range of ways for students to learn, practice, and produce. Teachers manage the learning process, helping students plan, learn, and then master content and skills. Students demonstrate their mastery at least in part through projects that generate products that are useful to people outside the school community. In the process, students gain increased enjoyment and greater skill.

Such change in instructional role and practices requires high teacher motivation and intensive professional development. What is significant in Dr. Siskin’s research is the shared vision across the 36 schools she studied of a changing role for teachers. Teachers will continue to play a critically important role in support of students and their learning, but frontal teaching will no longer be the norm.

LOOKING FORWARD

As noted above, almost all day schools today offer technology-enhanced education, but the move away from frontal teaching toward student-owned, personalized learning is happening slowly. Many schools prefer slow evolution, especially since personalized learning is still at the cutting edge, meaning that the educational outcomes of the new approaches are not yet proven. Furthermore, a successful change in instructional role and practice requires a massive commitment in which the school’s professional and lay leadership are all explaining and advocating the change to the parent body and larger community. Especially in long-established schools, it is very hard to generate broad-based support for an as yet unproven and thus risky change.

However, I believe that in communities where enrollment stability/growth depends on greater market penetration, the risk of not changing may be greater: a decline in enrollment in schools perceived to be “tired” or of uneven quality. Boldly embracing and then effectively implementing personalized learning offers a change in the equilibrium that holds the potential to rejuvenate or jumpstart the reputation of local schools. More than that, the new pedagogy holds the possibility of enabling each child to maximize his/her own general and Jewish potential. Isn’t that what schools are for?

In addressing the day school recruitment challenges, we can help each other develop the right language to explain why the Jewish outcomes justify the tuition. The actual education is more of a school-by-school decision, based on the educational context and beliefs. Schools seeking to emphasize the distinctiveness of their personalized learning will find support among a still small but growing number of leaders and teachers who are bringing a revolution to their classrooms.

Yossi Prager is North American executive director of The AVI CHAI Foundation. A graduate of Yeshiva College and Yale Law School, Yossi has served on the boards of a variety of non-profit organizations. Yossi lectures and writes on Judaism, Jewish education, and Jewish philanthropy. He is the editor of Toward a Renewed Ethic of Jewish Philanthropy.