A Learning Lab in a Hybrid School (John Fensterwald)
Journalist John Fensterwald visited a Rocketship charter school where “blended learning,” a combination of 1:1 online learning and classroom teaching, took place. This article appeared in the Spring 2012 issue of Administrator. I wrote about a regular classroom at the same school.
The Learning Lab at Los Sueños Academy, in downtown San Jose, is not unlike the computer labs you’d find at many elementary schools-it’s just much bigger. Tightly packed computer cubicles, 100 in all, form long rows along the 2,000-square-foot open-plan room.
The size of the lab reflects the outsize ambitions of Rocketship Education, the Palo Alto-based nonprofit organization that runs Los Sueños and four other charter schools in San Jose. In fact, the lab is the financial and academic key to Rocketship’s ambitious mission. Cofounder John Danner aims to expand rapidly by using fewer teachers and paying them better-all while transforming how they teach.
The 100 minutes a day that Los Sueños students spend in the Learning Lab supplement the five hours of classroom instruction required by California law. But the time spent in the Learning Lab also replaces one out of
The Learning Lab at Los Sueños Academy, in downtown San Jose, is not unlike the computer labs you’d find at many elementary schools-it’s just much bigger. Tightly packed computer cubicles, 100 in all, form long rows along the 2,000-square-foot open-plan room.
The size of the lab reflects the outsize ambitions of Rocketship Education, the Palo Alto-based nonprofit organization that runs Los Sueños and four other charter schools in San Jose. In fact, the lab is the financial and academic key to Rocketship’s ambitious mission. Cofounder John Danner aims to expand rapidly by using fewer teachers and paying them better-all while transforming how they teach.
The 100 minutes a day that Los Sueños students spend in the Learning Lab supplement the five hours of classroom instruction required by California law. But the time spent in the Learning Lab also replaces one out of