Personalized Learning Pathways
While the idea of student-centered learning is not new, it has been challenging for schools to implement an educational model in which every student is continuously making choices about what, when, where, and how to learn. Successful implementation requires a new model for training and supporting teachers, sophisticated tools for helping students and staff track progress in real time, creative and flexible scheduling, and most critically, a new school culture.

One Diploma Plus school that is on this journey is Academic Performance Excellence Academy (APEX) in East Hollywood, CA.  Made up entirely of over-aged and under-credited students, APEX challenges its students to go aspire to college challenging careers by engaging their individual passions. This is where personalized learning pathways are so powerful.  Students are making solid academic gains by working with APEX staff to personalize their daily experience. The next step is to match each student with career explorations of his or her immediate interest. This is a departure from the more traditional academy or linked learning approach in which students are asked to choose from a small set of career themes.

APEX and Diploma Plus National are working together to explore expanding this model to multiple locations in Los Angeles and beyond.  Over the next several years we will be looking for like-minded people and organizations with whom to partner.