by Jim Rosso

The Kent School District, south of Seattle, is the fourth largest district in the state of Washington. It is a "minority majority" district with a diverse student population, over 120 languages spoken, and 45.79 percent of students qualifying for free or reduced lunch. Several years ago, the district set out to build a new program that would: (1) improve student achievement through a technology-rich environment; (2) significantly reduce the drop-out rate; (3) serve all segments of Kent's diverse student body; and (4) promote learning through real-world problem solving.

Launched in the fall of 2005 as a "proof of concept" school-within-a-school, the Kent Technology Academy (KTA), was a one-to-one pilot serving 7th graders at the Mill Creek Middle School. Ninety students, one administrator and three teachers were provided with laptop computers for use in school and at home. The goal was to engage students and energize teachers by creating an environment that encouraged creativity, responsibility and collaboration. Students were picked by lottery to ensure that they were representative of the Kent student body as a whole.

Devoted to "the transformation of education through thoughtful integration of technology with the most current knowledge of how students learn," the KTA curriculum was built around principles outlined in such publications as How People Learn (John Bransford), Classroom Instruction that Works (Robert Marzano), and Understanding by Design (Wiggins & McTighe). Key elements of the 21st century small learning community that resulted were: curriculum aligned to state standards, integration of technology tools throughout the curriculum, and a project-based and constructivist learning environment.

Assessing the Results

For the 2006-2007 school year, the rising 8th graders continued with the one-to-one program and another class of 7th graders was added. A research team headed by Dr. Karen Banks worked on an external evaluation of the academy. The evaluation report (Evaluation of the Kent Technology Academy, 2005-2007) points to eleven positive findings resulting from a combination of technology and pedagogy.

Commending the KTA pilot for successfully serving a student population that represented the demography of the Kent School District, Dr. Banks concluded that a number of key factors contributed to the success of the program. These include: the teachers and their thorough training and participation, the advantages of a small learning community, good technical support, a dedication to project-based learning, high expectations, and the power of the technology to keep students engaged and to personalize the instruction.

The students in the program excelled on Washington's performance test, the WASL (Washington Assessment of Student Learning). In fact the scores were so high that if the program were a self-contained school it would have been ranked as one of the highest-scoring schools in the county in every subject tested with the WASL, in both grades 7 and 8. It also would have scored at the top for the state's Technology Literacy Survey, a standardized self-report instrument. As anticipated, the students in the KTA program were highly engaged in their studies and excited about their projects and their relationships with their teachers.

The evaluation also noted three areas that were opportunities for growth: (1) being more prepared for hardware glitches, (2) being better prepared for orienting new students and new faculty members, and (3) dealing with students' concerns about working up to the level of the school's expectations.

Applying What was Learned

The positive research results and teacher and student enthusiasm helped convince district leaders that they were on the right track with one-to-one computing. As the original seventh grade class entered high school, a second pilot school—the Kent-Meridian Technology Academy (KMTA)—opened with a ninth grade class of 120 students. Since then, one-to-one has expanded to include all 7th and 8th graders in the district. As more classes are brought on board, best practices and lessons learned from the two proof-of-concept schools are being applied. Here are some examples of elements that are seen as key to the success of the Kent program:

* High expectations: The philosophy and expectations of the one-to-one program are that students are capable of doing excellent work. The belief—borne out by experience—is that if you challenge students, they will rise to the challenge.

* Cooperative and project-based learning: Kent students use a variety of technologies—including laptops, digital cameras, video cameras, interactive white boards, video production equipment, digital microscopes, and learning management software—as part of a program that emphasizes cooperative teaching and learning, personalized instruction, plentiful writing opportunities, and a project-based, constructivist approach in which students are challenged with projects that require innovative thinking, problem solving, and collaborative work.

* Self-direction: Much of the curriculum is built around problem solving techniques that challenge the students to utilize their skills to learn. The belief is that students are capable of choosing how and what to learn.

* Committed and Creative Teachers: According to the evaluation report, teachers who thrive in the program are the ones who are creative and flexible and work well within a small learning community. The KTA teachers collaborated with each other freely to found new ways to use the technology. They felt supported by the administration and empowered to be creative.

* Working with the Community: From the start, the planners of the Kent Technology Academy community included teachers, administrators, parents, students, and technicians. In addition to the teachers working well with each other and the students, the parents became more involved with the school, with positive results. This same approach continues as Kent moves beyond KTA to the wider district.

As the evaluation report concluded: "KTA is not really a technology program, although it uses technology extensively and can help us understand what technology-rich environments will require. Rather than a technology program, the heart of KTA is a group of creative, dedicated teachers with a knowledgeable leader who have developed integrated lessons that allow more student choice, and encourage students to look more deeply and systematically at topics in the curriculum. It works not only because of the teachers, but because KTA students also are expected to work harder than other students. Students are willing to do this because the learning is engaging; the technology allows differentiation and the ability for them to work more efficiently."

Scaling Up

The expansion of one-to-one from two pilot programs to a district-wide initiative offers some obvious challenges—including the need to maintain the small-community feel and the motivation that comes from being in a special program with unique expectations. Kent's director of school technology services, Danielle Pfeiffer, feels confident that it's working. "Our hope," she says, "is that the positive experiences that students, parents and teachers had in the academy can and will be duplicated in all of our middle schools with appropriate professional development for teachers which focuses on an increased understanding and application of project-based learning and integration of technology in all content areas as well as creating a more personalized learning environment for each student, meeting each student where they are academically, and harnessing the power of technology to differentiate instruction for each of our students."

Some key elements of the rollout to all students in grades 7 and 8 have been:

* Issuing computers to the teachers first: Teachers receive their laptops at least six months before the students.

* Staggering the rollout: To ensure a quality deployment, orientation and assignment of the computers happened gradually over the course of the school year, with small groups of students added at a time.

* Expecting students to demonstrate acceptable use before taking the computers home: Laptops remained at school until students earned their "Driver's License," showing that they understood acceptable use, troubleshooting, laptop care, and Internet safety.

* Tracking computers using technology: Kent uses Computrace for computer inventory control and computer insurance, allowing it to quickly identify the current location of any computer within or outside of the district.

Although not all grades have a one-to-one student-to-computer ratio, the Kent School District has delivered on promises made in a 2006 technology levy, which include a better than 4:1 ratio in all classes, a laptop for every teacher, and a presentation station consisting of a projector, electronic white board, document camera and DVD player in every classroom.

In the end, the success of the Kent one-to-one program will depend on those same factors that led to KTA's initial success: a "supportive, caring environment" in which students, teachers, parents and IT staff all feel motivated, engaged and responsible for a program that works.