What is

EDGE Pilot FAQs

What is "traditional" EDGE?
In our current, "traditional" program students self-select into Edge courses. There is no different or distinct curriculum for English, science, social studies or language arts. Math is a grade-level advanced curriculum.

If traditional EDGE doesn’t have a separate curriculum is it any different then "regular"?
They key difference in our current EDGE program is tied to the abilities of the students self-selecting into these classes. Teachers adjust instruction based on their knowledge of these students. As in any class, there is wide variation in the abilities of students.

Why pilot something different?
We feel all students will benefit from purposefully being placed in a challenging curriculum. Along with these high expectations, we also feel high levels of support are necessary for all learners- regardless of ability. We feel a differentiated learning environment, using best teaching practices, can help all students find success.

What classes are involved?
We have seven houses at our school. One house in sixth grade (6C) and one house in seventh grade (7E) are participating. One house 6C English, science and social studies are part of this pilot. On house 7E English, science, social studies and language arts are part of this pilot.

We’ve had other kids in the Middle School EDGE program previously and/or Riverside’s Challenge program. They were successful in these environments- why should I consider this new approach?
Much of what we’ve studied is rooted in the research of Gifted and Talented instruction. Our current, "traditional" EDGE program serves a wide range of learners. Our plan for these pilot, "differentiated", classrooms is to purposefully identify the strengths and challenges of all students and respond accordingly. More frequent and various assessments are an important part of how we look to be more diagnostic in challenging students. This will occur more frequently (by topic, concept, unit). In the era of google, students often have amazing and deep knowledge on certain topics but limited exposure to other, often fundamental, concepts. The idea that a student can be highly knowledgeable in one topic of study and in the very next unit show a gap in their learning lends itself to the fluid support we have designed this pilot to provide. For a gifted student there is an advantage in the diagnostic certainty that pre-assessment data will provide.

Isn’t this going to "slow down" the high ability kids?
If we relied solely on "whole group instruction" (lecture, for example) this mix of abilities would certainly slow instruction. Best practices, however, are to engage students in their learning differently. Because ALL classrooms have variation, teaching to the "middle" because of perceived similarities in ability is a faulty assumption that serves few learners well. We are aware of no group of learners who are the "same" in their ability, interest or learning style. We need to know students’ individual needs in order to serve them best as individuals. This knowledge (based on timely and reliable data) is essential to challenging all students. For students that demonstrate a high-level of competence per these assessments we will purposefully be increasing the depth of challenge.

Will my child’s experience on a pilot house be different than the other houses?
Yes…and no. Students will be grouped differently and will benefit from teaching strategies we’ve been trained in over recent years. Curricular targets are identical in these different settings. We are confident, based on what we’ve studied and practiced, that students will make the same or better academic growth in a differentiated classroom. Some specific strategies we look to use are:
-"Differentiating" by content (based on background knowledge, adjusting for redundancy and gaps we may identify), process (how we deliver content),or product (how we ask students to demonstrate their understanding )
-More frequent pre-assessment (targeting the learning we know they need)
-Flexible grouping (fluid ability grouping based on timely, diagnostic assessment information)
-Anchor activities (rigorous, challenging experiences that are "anchored" in the essential understandings of our curriculum)
-Workshop model (using "mini-lessons" to introduce a concept and working in "conferences" with individual or small groups of students)
-Actively identifying advanced learners
-Focus on providing attention to individual needs- recognizing that all levels of learners need support to advance as quickly as they have the potential to.

How does this fit with the way other Everest secondary schools provide rigorous experiences to students?
The Middle School, Junior High and High School all employ self-selection. Certain prerequisite coursework may apply at higher levels. The Middle School is piloting this approach in an effort to increase readiness of all students as they look ahead to all that the Junior High, High School, and beyond offer them.

How will this affect my child’s class selection at the junior high?
Our rationale for this change is that we feel the potential exists to increase the readiness of all students for these rigorous opportunities. Participating in regular, EDGE, or Pilot EDGE are not prerequisites to self selecting into Junior High LEAP/AAP courses.

Will my child’s participation in this differentiation pilot be identified on their report card? How about their schedule?
No and no. Classes will be titled by the subject area they represent. For example, English will be "English". There will not be a distinct or different title. The same grading scale will be used.

If there is no different title or name for my child’s participation in advanced curriculum, how will future teachers know of their ability?
As a school we are actively investigating what a child knows and is able to do. We know the importance of not relying on any one, single piece of information…Future teachers will also use assessments to determine your son/daughter’s knowledge. As with anything dealing with people our conversations and collaboration will be essential.

Will I be able to remove my child from this house if I feel it isn’t working?
Our practice has always been to keep a student on the house they began with and work with parents, students, and teachers to resolve potential concerns. We will follow our typical procedures for this pilot, as well.

Can we take just one EDGE class and the rest regular or do we have to have all EDGE or all regular?
In traditional EDGE you can take any number of offered EDGE classes. In our pilot, all students are placed in EDGE English, science and social studies heterogeneously with math and language arts being separate choices that can be included, or not.

Will my child still be identified as an EDGE student in the house that provides edge instruction in diverse settings? How will my child be identified as "EDGE"?
Yes and no. If you select this pilot, the teacher will know this… it will not be indicated on the report card or schedule.

Which setting, traditional or pilot, is better for my (high ability, average ability, inconsistent ability, low ability) child?
It is challenging to make a judgment on which setting (traditional or pilot) would be "better" for a specific learner. We do have clear curricular targets for all students---the challenge is in judging one approach to delivering these objectives versus the other, hence the pilot. We are confident a learner will be challenged in the differentiated setting- but also know the perceived "sameness" of learners in the traditional model is often appealing to families.

I have one big question regarding the edge pilot: how will you assess students? Will you assess at the start of each unit as well as the end? If just at the end, how will you know where to begin with each student?

Assessment at the end of a series of learning experiences has long been standard practice…it is where we most often collect evidence of a student’s learning. This will still often be the case in our pilot houses, as well as other classrooms.

Pre-assessment is an essential part of this pilot.Without this, we are less informed about "where to begin" in meeting a students’ needs. With the strongest and most challenging curriculum laid out there will still be students who will have both extensive and limited knowledge on topics we will have as learning targets.A pre-assessment will allow us to identify these areas of great strength and provide experiences that expand a student's depth of knowledge while being tied to our "enduring understandings".

How can one classroom, teaching a wide range of student abilities, actually pull off the goal of supporting and challenging each students’ needs? What does this look like in action? Won’t you tend to "teach to the middle"?

One very specific example that parents have felt was helpful relates to the teaching of reading.Not so many years ago it was standard teaching practice for all students to read out of the same book (a basal reader).Most parents are very comfortable with our current practice (at the elementary level, as well as here at the MS) where we assess students, match them with a "just right" book (both interest and ability, ideally), group them with similar students (could be interest OR ability, depending on the main learning objective) and regularly re-assess.Guided practice and independent reading are both essential parts of becoming a good reader...or a learner in other content areas. This scenario (guided reading) would have seen pioneering years ago, but is trusted as best practice today.The key tenets of guided reading are very similar to the sort of instruction we are describing in a "differentiated" classroom that delivers other sorts of content.The idea of "teaching to the middle" does naturally happen in any environment where we teach to a large group.This pilot is looking to do the reverse of that.

Below are explanations from two of our pilot teachers about this concept in place in science and English classrooms:

Differentiation is evident in three main ways in any classroom. Students may access different content, use a different process to learn, or show their learning in different products. Advanced students tend to access all three of these ideas.

First, advanced students, by definition, more easily or have already reached the level of understanding of the content that is described in the Standards. This is the basic acceptable level. In a differentiated classroom, this is known by the use of frequent assessments. If a student understands the content quicker than most other students in the class, the assessments show that. As a teacher, I can find ways to allow students to explore the content in greater depth, usually in a way that uses the content outside of the normal classroom environment.

Next, a differentiated classroom allows for the process of learning to be different for different students. In my science class, I accomplish this best by using a modified form of the "Workshop Model." Students tend to work on a task in a small group. These groups are decided in different ways depending on the situation. As they work on the tasks, they may get it right away and move along quickly. As students struggle, I can easily assess where the struggle lies and explain and help in the small group setting. This approach removes most of the whole class instruction. The benefit for an advanced student is that they don’t have to wait for the group to catch up. The benefit for a struggling student is that they can get the one on one attention during the classroom time.

As we finish tasks and units, students need to show evidence that they understand the material. At a lesson level, this may be done through a short simple quiz where understanding is shown through answering a few questions or responding to a few prompts. I tend to make the prompts open ended, so students who understand the material at a high level have the freedom and chance to show that understanding. Throughout the unit, students are also working on a larger performance assessment that mimics what an actual scientists may be doing related to the topics at hand. If they are finishing early and are ahead of the rest of the class, they then get to use that additional time to investigate the on-going performance assessment. The product at the end of this is very open ended. I usually allow for a simple way for students to show understanding as a choice, but I really encourage students to get creative and show their understanding in a way that is interesting and challenging for them.

These three things can be explained also with an example. Early on during our wetlands unit, I give the students the assessment that they will be able to accomplish by the end of the unit. For the wetland unit the project is one where the students pretend to be a wildlife biologist who is searching for a type of duck that has been reported in a specific area. The students show how they would go about finding the duck, using concepts that we learn throughout the unit. Part of this will be attracting this duck to an area. They may apply learning from a lesson of courtship (mating) behaviors to this situation, as well as lessons learned from a variety of other lessons. By getting this assessment "assigned" early on in the unit, students get two main benefits. First, they will get to see directly why we are doing some of the lessons. It anchors those lessons in a product. Also, they get the chance to explore and work on this when they get ahead. This also helps me as a teacher because it acts as yet another pre-assessment. When students are assigned the task, I can easily see students who already have a lot of background knowledge. These students can be targeted for some compacting of the curriculum so they can move ahead even faster if they need to.

These three things can be explained also with an English example. Recently, I assessed my students on their understanding of conventions--specifically sentence types, punctuation rules, and parts of speech. It is my expectation that all students master the sixth grade standards within these topics of study. All students will use their recent assessment to complete a test analysis to identify their strengths and challenges. Those who do not have the concepts mastered will devise a learning plan. Those who have the skills/concepts mastered will work through a project in which they dig deeper. This project, at first, will be student directed, but I will use the student information to do direct instruction as needed. The product that they choose to demonstrate their deeper understanding will be based on the multiple intelligences. Through the workshop model, I will take time to work with those who need review and those who can dig deeper. Some students may fit both categories.