What Happens When Students Work at Their Own Pace

Schools wanting to adopt competency-based learning may have a challenging time doing so due to inconsistent policies nationwide and very few models to follow. Jason Tomassini, communications director at Digital Promise, follows a rural school district in Piedmont, Alabama to learn about their victories and lessons learned from their first year of implementing self-paced learning.

“Piedmont’s 1,200 students, 68 percent of whom are from low-income households, aren’t exposed to many opportunities or career paths outside of the classroom. Success is more than just developing a strategy for an initiative. It’s changing expectations so that students who may have never considered college a possibility can not only attend but thrive.

Piedmont is emerging as a national model for the future of rural education because it relentlessly works to provide its students with an education and a skillset that rivals a wealthier district. Every student receives a laptop for school and home. Through local partnerships, all families have access to free and low-cost Internet. Students take computer programming, robotics, and foreign language courses that, until recently, weren’t offered.”

By Jason Tomassini

Interested in finding out more? Read the full article at Digital Promise.