The leaders of a school or school district play a big role in setting the culture and work environment for teachers. And when it comes to trying new things, the attitude of principals and superintendents can sometimes make or break a teacher’s willingness and ability to weave new ideas and methods into the teaching practice. In most schools, strong, effective leaders can make all the difference.

LEADING FROM THE TOP

In addition to setting the tone for nimble and progressive teaching that’s geared towards what students need most, school leaders can also find ways to integrate technology in smart ways that work on the same goals. And they can help to remove roadblocks when necessary.

“A key leadership role is to try to build a shared vision for blended learning,” said Eric Williams, Superintendent York County School Division in Virginia. One way he does that is by celebrating effective practices publicly. Principals are encouraged to share what’s working at their schools with their district colleagues. Williams also likes to highlight good teaching at school board meetings, all with the goal of building a shared idea of what everyone is working towards.

Williams also tries to model blended learning for his staff, to help them get acclimated to an idea that didn’t exist throughout most of their careers. “We have professional development activities that could be categorized as blended learning,” Williams said. In addition to face-to-face time, every week teachers can participate in an optional professional development session through Collaborize Classroom. Similarly, when Williams needed to give principals an update on the budget, he didn’t call a meeting that would require each principal to spend half a day getting to and from the central office — he held a video conference.

But the most important thing Williams does as a forward-thinking superintendent is to support principal and teacher innovation. Rather than saying no when an idea conflicts with district policy, he works to change the policy. He’s found that working that way removes most of the barriers people cite as obstacles to fully integrating technology into classrooms.

Williams has worked to set policies that allow for new approaches. Websites like YouTube, Facebook and other social media are no longer blocked in the district and the middle and high schools have been had a Bring Your Own Device policy for years.

“It’s a student-driven prospective,” Williams said. “We put students behind the wheel with our guidance, recognizing they will make mistakes, but we’ll be there to get them back on track.” Letting students direct their own learning is at the heart of many policies Williams endorses. He knows that some kids will use their devices for non-academic purposes, or will check Facebook, but the benefits of allowing those tools in the classroom outweigh the few bad actors.

[RELATED: Parents Want Kids to Use Mobile Devices in Schools]

That’s his approach to everything in the technology space. If there are permission issues with sharing student work online, he works to change the policy, believing that a global audience for student work is engaging. And he’s been strategic about how to spend limited public funds. The York County Schools Division has decided it doesn’t have enough money to invest in devices for each student; it invests in infrastructure, like adequate bandwidth, and in-school devices instead.

York County schools didn’t implement these changes all at once; they moved slowly and ushered teachers, parents, and students along with them. Some teachers had concerns about the relaxed rules.

“It’s very practical legitimate concerns that come from the classroom level,” Williams said. “A teacher may say that if we let students bring cell phones to school they going to use it to cheat or bully one another.” Williams’ response? Kids are going to bring devices whether they are allowed to or not, and if it’s allowed teachers can guide them. Classroom management problems are always going to exist, so let’s not blame that on the devices, he said.

Williams has also been sure to provide a lot of professional development around technology so that teachers feel comfortable using the unfamiliar tools. The district also created a private cloud-based network for staff and students to access from both home and school. “This is huge because it really is an example of breaking down barriers of space and time to access learning,” Williams said.

STUCK IN THE MIDDLE

The most influential leader in any single school is the principal, but that person often gets caught between higher level policies and the needs of his or her school. To be a strong supporter of blended learning practices in the classroom, a strong principal has to be willing to take criticism from superiors.

“I get why people wouldn’t do it,” said Chrystina Russell, principal of Global Tech Preparatory a New York City iZone school. “You have to take a lot of heat.” New York’s iZone is a part of the Department of Education that supports innovative teaching practices. The iZone helps fund some initiatives and provides a space for teachers throughout the city to share best practices and lessons learned. It would be easy to assume that iZone schools are free to innovate — after all, that’s why the office exists.

“Being an iZone principal is like living in two different worlds,” Russell said. On the one hand she and her staff are trying different strategies to reach their high needs students. One the other hand, she grapples with district rules requiring high-stakes testing and annual reviews based on strict criteria that don’t take into account what it’s like to be a school experimenting with new practices.

“The most challenging, but sometimes most empowering part of [being] principal is really that mezzo-level where all the higher up stuff is going to collide on the ground,” Russell said. She’s trying to create an environment where teachers feel they can try new things and even fail, as long as they report out what worked and what didn’t. She doesn’t let money stand in the way of good ideas; she organizes fundraising instead. Keeping the pressure she feels away from the teachers is where she feels squeezed.

“I try not to transfer that top down test-intensive energy to the teachers, and instead make the teachers feel like they can take risks and offer them support,” Russell said. But that doesn’t help her when New York’s Department of Education sends a reviewer to the school. That person has a checklist of things that the school is supposed to be doing well, but he may or may not have any understanding of the iZone or that innovation can take time to implement well.

[RELATED: New York City Schools' Experiment in Blended Learning]

Russell is clearly frustrated with the rigidity of the review process. “You can’t do everything traditionally well and innovate well at the same time,” she said. “The quality review can penalize schools for not having traditional indicators.” For example, Global Tech Prep worked with a consultant from Teaching Matters to try out and vet English Language Arts software and teaching approaches. In their annual review, they were criticized for not having enough in-house expertise. Russell believes her school is on the cutting edge of figuring out what works and what doesn’t, an on-going, iterative process that is necessarily collaborative since it’s so new. In one instance, she said, her reviewer said the DOE gave explicit instructions not to give value to iZone innovations on the evaluations.

“There’s an office of innovation, but that doesn’t mean that the rest of the system is aware of it, nor does it mean that they honor it,” Russell said. She feels that ultimately the disjointed approach hurts teachers and students. “When you are doing this work with teachers, for everything you put on their plate you need to take something off.”

Russell says it’s her job to bring the fun back to teaching for her staff, not to pile on more responsibilities.

“Giving teachers more control over what they do makes them want to come to work,” she said. And she’s found that the middle school students she works with respond to working with tech, although she’s clear that the technology is one more tool, not a substitute for good teaching.

[RELATED READING: What's Worth Investing In? How to Decide What Technology You Need]

Ultimately, Russell is clear that her school needs time to see which innovations really work. She’s skeptical of fad initiatives that never have time to take root. “We don’t know if innovation works, but we know that the traditional ways of schooling are not working for our kids,” Russell said. “If we know that doesn’t work, then there’s really no other option if we are really thinking about the kids.”

Her job as principal, she says, is to be the connector. She provides cover to her teachers so they can practice their craft most of the year, then six weeks before the standardized tests they start prepping. Russell said she has to make sure the school meets traditional standards of measurement so it can stay open, while ensuring that real learning is also taking place. “You have to embrace being the rebel for the sake of kids and know that if you get push back you are doing something that makes change,” she said.

IN THE CLASSROOM

Teachers are often the first adopters of technology and the most eager innovators. Most teachers are looking for ways to connect students with content, anything to help them “get it.” But without support from school and district leaders it can be hard for a creative teacher to find resources or share what he’s learned.

Ananth Pai was at the cutting edge of using technology and especially games for learning in his classroom. “There wasn’t even the word gamification, yet,” Pai said. “I was just doing stuff that worked.” Pai raised money to buy computers and hand held games for his classroom after his principal refused to let him use funds meant for a smartboard that he didn’t want. “All of a sudden the engagement was just night and day, so I thought, there’s something here,” Pai said. He found he had more time to focus on conceptual ideas and he could clear up misperceptions in the moment as he moved around the classroom checking on his student’s work. And his student’s test scores improved.

Instead of leveraging Pai’s success, his superiors tried to ignore him and occasionally reprimanded him by reminding him to stick to school board approved curriculum. “As it is our job is a lonely one, but if my professional practice is so different from my colleagues there isn’t that much that I can share with them,” Pai said. “I miss having colleagues who are practicing this because I don’t have anyone to bounce ideas off. My practice would get better if I had more people to collaborate with.”

[RELATED READING: Money, Time and Tactics: Can Games Be Effective in Schools?]

While his district hasn’t shut him down, they haven’t been supportive with resources or support. And that has embittered Pai. “This business is so stuck with calcified brains,” Pai said. Before becoming a teacher Pai worked in the corporate world of desktop publishing. He’s used to either innovating or getting passed over. “I come from having survived the business world in India, Singapore and the U.S. and if you didn’t do stuff that advances the company, you are fired,” he said.

Now, Pai has washed his hands of the system. He doesn’t try to get money for instructional technology anymore and he’s upset there’s no way for him to give feedback to his superiors. Pai is an example of what can happen to innovative teachers struggling alone in the classroom without institutional support. Rather than applauding his initiative, his results and his commitment to his students, his superiors ignored him and they may soon lose him altogether.

iZone

New York City is experimenting with new tools and tactics with its Innovation Zone, a devoted unit for trying out new approaches to learning and sharing best practices with like-minded educators. The iZone, as it’s commonly called, started in the 2010-11 school year with 81 schools, and since then, they’ve more than doubled that number and hope to reach 400 participating schools by 2014.

Schools across the system are trying out different learning approaches, including blended learning, online courses and project-based teaching. As with the most lofty aspirations of educators, the iZone’s goals are to personalize learning, provide real-world experience, change the ways staff and students view their roles and take advantage of the vast number of tools available to students and teachers.

The iZone serves as a hub for innovation taking place at school sites. Staff support schools with funding for equipment, connecting teachers to resources and one another, as well as serving as the repository for the growing body of knowledge about progressive approaches. Though the project is still young, this program has made a dent in differentiating learning, according to Deputy Chancellor for Talent, Labor and Innovation, David Weiner.

For example, in participating high schools, the 35-40 percent of students who are taking an online English Language Arts class are passing the state’s Regents test at the same rate as students in traditional classrooms.

Another example is the Global Technology Preparatory, which has been part of the iZone from the beginning. Founded in 2009, the middle school is universal title one, meaning that most kids get free or reduced lunch. About 40 percent of their students are special-ed and many are behind grade level. In this school, every child has a laptop and students have access to many outside resources to help supplement their school day.

[RELATED READING: New York City Schools’ Blended Learning Experiment]

All this tech equipment and professional development takes money, of course, and most of the funding has come from networking and fundraising by the school’s principal Chrystina Russell, who has courted high-tech companies for funds and computers, has partnered with community-based organizations, and supported her teachers through the sometimes rough process of experimenting with new teaching techniques.

“Our students have a ton of potential and also a lot of need,” Russell said. “So in my mind it’s the only way to go.” Global Tech Prep’s school day runs until 6:30 p.m. because of a partnership with Citizen Schools, an after school enrichment program in which eighth-grade students learn about networking and visit workplaces through a partnership with the Council of Urban Professionals; and all students take college trips to help build a college-going culture with support from College For Every Student.

Still, in the classroom teachers face the same challenges of bringing under-prepared kids up to grade level.

Jhonary Bridgemohan, who teaches sixth-grade Language Arts at Global Tech Prep, has been experimenting with various software programs and web tools. She uses Achieve3000, partly because she finds it helps create a culture of reading to assign an article everyday, and it gets kids accustomed to non-fiction, a big part of the common core standards.

iZone

“You do have these moments when they’re checked out, but then you have these articles that spur that ‘Wow, I want to know more’ moments,” Bridgemohan said. She thinks Achieve3000 is benefiting her students, though it is far from perfect.

Bridgemohan also uses simpler tools that she finds very effective – like Google docs. Most of the students write in Google docs, so she can easily keep track of assignments and give real-time feedback on their writing.

“Once they write something out it’s really hard to get them to go back and edit, but if they can see their work as a work-in-progress they see it more as a process,” Bridgemohan said. “And I’m part of that process with them.” The online tool also gives students a chance to innovate in their own right, something their teacher loves to watch. “Seeing them interact and be creative with the tools they have access to is really cool,” she said.

[RELATED: What Online Tools Work for Teaching Language Arts?]

Like many teachers experimenting with blended learning methods, Bridgemohan doesn’t have it all figured out yet. She’s still refining her approach, trying new software, and ditching the things that don’t work. She’s found some success with Study Island for skill review because she can give them a lesson that they go back and review as they do the work. She finds it especially useful for grammar skills like comma usage and for sentence structure and organization tips.

Global Tech Prep also has new grading software called Jupiter Grades, which has been branching into online testing. Bridgemohan has experimented with the software to give online tests, hoping to save herself some grading time. Still, her advice to any teacher dabbling in classroom technology is to take it slow.

“I think it’s important to not do it all together,” she said. “There are a lot of options and it can get overwhelming.” Various platforms have their own logins and passwords, which can be a headache. It’s a lot to get used to and Bridgemohan still uses traditional classroom techniques, like journal writing, reading out loud, and in-class discussion. She tries to use the technology when it saves time or helps a student focus, but doesn’t stress over incorporating it into everything.

SUPPORT FROM THE TOP

Russell is supportive of teachers like Bridgemohan who are trying new things, even within a cutthroat evaluation system that judges the school and its educators by limited metrics. “It can be really hard for the leader to shield the teacher from those traditional measures so that they can feel free to innovate,” Russell said. The spirit of innovation is not system-wide and thus teachers and principals still fear for their jobs if they can’t show improvement on tests.

Luckily, Russell and Bridgemohan have the support and guidance of other educators in New York. Many teachers across the country feel alone as they try to take advantage of new tools to improve their teaching, and their learning never gets shared with local peers. Perhaps one of the iZone’s biggest strengths is providing that type of community to its most forward-thinking educators.

TB

Rocketship's Learning Lab.

Rocketship Education, a network of charter schools based in California, is changing the way students will use computers in its Learning Labs. Rather than spending chunks of time in computer labs with divided computer stations, students will be using computers in their classrooms, with the help of teachers and aids.

“The integration between the classroom and the Learning Lab was an area that could improve. That’s part of the reason that we made this shift,” said Charlie Bufalino, National Development Associate and former Online Learning Specialist at Rocketship. By moving computers back into the classroom, Rocketship is hoping to form a better connection to what students are doing on computers to what they’re learning in class.

In a PBS Newshour special last month, several teachers said that Learning Lab practice isn’t linked closely enough to what happens in class. Bufalino says that teachers have always been encouraged to use data from online learning to inform their teaching; that said, at its most basic level, the function of the Learning Lab was for skills practice, while teachers focused teaching on what they call higher order thinking skills in class. Now, Rocketship is hoping teachers will have more control over both.

“The idea is that in this more flexible model, there will be more time for teachers to diagnose and look at the data,” Bufalino said.

The data, however, can be overwhelming for teachers to analyze. Rocketship uses six different online programs, all with separate mechanisms and criteria for feedback. Rocketship’s national office has been working on building proprietary systems that unify all the data, so teachers look at one screen that compares apples to apples at a glance. Their integration system is aligned to the Common Core and teachers can see if students have mastered a skill, what method they used, whether they tried and failed, even how hard they’ve been working on it. Rocketship also invests money into academic deans who visit classrooms, help teachers analyze data and use it to shape their lessons, and generally coach teachers on how they can improve.

“The data drives how we want to group students,” Bufalino said. “It shouldn’t be acceptable that we have these different learning modalities and then still have them moving together in class.” And that’s what was happening to some extent when the Learning Lab was separate from classroom instruction. Teachers taught essentially the same lesson to all students. With the new approach, Rocketship is hoping they can effectively group kids according to their skill sets.

Bufalino was quick to point out that the move away from Learning Labs doesn’t mean the model wasn’t working – Rocketship has consistently posted good math and literacy test scores. They even boast that their students, 90% of whom are low-income and 70% of whom are English Language Learners, have math scores that rival the wealthiest school districts in California.

But Rocketship’s model has been criticized as using “drill and kill” computer games to keep students busy and to save money. But Bufalino says the computer software has helped learners who have fallen behind to catch up and high achievers to steam ahead. “The key is to see the program as a component to a larger academic plan,” he said. “It doesn’t work if it’s the only thing, but when a teacher scaffolds learning on top of that practice and uses it to influence content, it can be very effective.”

Rocketship doesn’t have all the logistics worked out yet, but they are imagining that the change will mean combining classrooms so that teachers are working in teams with the Learning Lab mentors, directing some kids to work on computers, some to do small group work and others to receive tutoring or direct instruction.

Rocketship also hopes that by having their mentors in the same classroom with teachers they can begin to build a teacher pipeline.

Erin Scott

Starting the year off with ideas on the best ways to use technology to support learning, Larry Ferlazzo collected an invaluable list of criteria last year from educators, to which he added more resources in his recent blog post for EdWeek.Other posts in the series include Using Ed Tech to Create Deep and Meaningful Experiences and Effective Ways of Using Tech in the Classroom. Here is MindShift’s contribution to the collection of ideas.

1.  GAMES AND GROUP WORK.

For those wondering what a game-based classroom looks like in a traditional school, take a peek into Ananth Pai’s third-grade class in Parkview/Center Point Elementary school in Maplewood, Minnesota. Using his own money and grants that he applied for, Pai has managed to round up seven laptops, two desktops 11 Nintendo DS’s, 18 games for math, reading, vocabulary, geography, and 21 digital voice recorders. Students’ reading and math scores went from below average for third grade to mid-fourth-grade level. Students compete in games with other kids across the world, learn about fractions and decimals by riding a virtual ghost train, for instance, work on their reading skills on sites like Razkids, figure out whether they can make a living by growing flowers, learn about their constitutional rights with the Go to Court Game, and so on.

2.  LEARNING LATIN.

Teacher Kevin Ballestrini turned his introductory Latin class at Connecticut’s Norwich Free Academy into an alternate reality with an online video game. The students’ job: to save the world by joining a shadowy organization on a quest to find the Lapis Saeculōrum that was part of an Ancient Roman society. “It’s a mix of a role-playing game and an alternate reality game,” Ballestrini says. Students play the role of Romans in a reconstruction of ancient Pompeii (or ancient Rome) and have to learn to think, act, create and write like a Roman in order to win the game. And those are the same goals of any introductory Latin course.

3.  REACHING STUDENTS.

In Ramsey Musallam’s A.P. Chemistry class at Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory in San Francisco, cell phones are a natural extension of the way he communicates with his students. As soon as kids walk in, Musallam sends out a text blast through Remind101, asking them a challenge question that’s related to the day’s lesson. “First person to tell me the units on K for a second order reaction gets chocolate,” he types and sends off. His students know he does this regularly, so they’re constantly anticipating the question during the day, in and out of class.

“Sure, that’s kind of cute,” he says, admitting that it can be seen as gimmicky. “But more importantly, in my mind that’s saying, ‘You’re carrying around something that I can contact you with.’ It’s a fun ways to stay motivated in our day, which can be pretty dry sometimes. It’s a chance to think about what we’re learning outside the context of state testing.”

4.  CREATIVE PLAY.

The online game Minecraft allows players to build their own digital world, brick by digital brick. Players must scavenge for resources to build things — mining for stone to build buildings, mining for coal to build fire. Teachers like to use Minecraft because it’s a “sandbox” game — it provides players nearly limitless freedom to build within it. As a player’s skill develops, the game’s complexity increases. Players can collaborate on building complex structures, use programming features to build contraptions, games, or compose music. Earlier this year, two teachers, Santeri Koivisto and Joel Levin, decided to make the online game Minecraft more accessible and to teachers and their classrooms. They joined forces to found MinecraftEdu, which now offers a plug-in that enables teachers to tailor the software to individual curriculum.

Erin Scott

When it comes to language arts, the jury’s still out on the quality and effectiveness of the available software. Some schools are investing and experimenting with different products, with mixed results, while others are working with free available web 2.0 tools. Here are two case studies examining each approach.

THE SOFTWARE APPROACH

Firstline Schools, a public charter school company in New Orleans operating five schools, has aggressively pursued blended learning with hopes to help students who have fallen behind — especially after the devastating effects on schooling after Hurricane Katrina.

“We can’t imagine going back to a traditional model,” said Chris Liang-Vergara, director of instructional technology for personalized learning at Firstline. “It seems crazy with the amount of differentiation we need.”

Firstline uses Achieve3000 in some schools, a program that allows students to read a nonfiction

article everyday and answer questions related to it. But the program is dry, according to Liang-Vergara, and it can seem random and disconnected to the rest of what students are doing in class. He says he’s seen it used well, but usually by experienced teachers who are empowered to use it for the best kind of differentiation. If the teacher takes the time to search the Achieve300 database for nonfiction articles that are relevant to other class work, discusses them, and wraps them into the curriculum that works best. And the software does provide differentiation, increasing the difficulty of vocabulary and sentence structure as a reader progresses.

“When you show it to any experienced teacher, they get very excited because they think about how much time they’ll save and how much information can be at their fingertips,” said Liang-Vergara. It’s easier for the teacher to see what the student has learned and whether their reading comprehension skills are improving, while saving her grading time.

Overall, Liang-Vergara hasn’t seen the success in language arts blended learning that he’d hoped for and Firstline schools have scaled back the amount of time they use digital tools in English class. Liang-Vergara admitted that some schools have stopped using Achieve3000 partly because kids were quickly bored by it.

[RELATED: To Make Blended Learning Work, Teacher Try Different Tactics]

“The biggest issue I still see is that people are still trying to break it down when
it needs to be combined,” Liang-Vergara said. Learning to read and write requires many complimentary skills working in unison and offering a program that addresses just one skill doesn’t work as well to promote literacy as whole. Vocabulary in a text contributes to understanding meaning, literary structures give it depth, and non-fiction works about the subject matter help deepen understanding. These things can’t be parsed and require frequent back and forth with the teacher.

Still, Liang-Vergara says some software has proven more successful – like Vocab Journey, which puts words in context and uses pictures and gamification to make learning new words fun. Even putting a small portion of assessment online saves teachers time, a big factor in English classes where teachers have to grade writing. “English teachers spend so much time on assessment that it causes them not to assign much work because they know they’ll have to correct all of it,” said Liang-Vergara. Removing some of that burden with programs like Achieve3000 or Vocab Journey allows them more time for one-on-one instruction.

Liang-Vergara says software developers he’s spoken to at conferences aren’t as interested in working on innovations in language arts software as they are in math. He believes the whole market has a lot of growing to do.

THE WEB 2.0 APPROACH

For Catlin Tucker, a high school teacher in Winsor, Calif., her school has not focused on blended learning the way Firstline has, partly because the cost of software and infrastructure has been a barrier. Even if she had the choice, though, she would not use what she refers to as “canned content.” Instead, she started integrating technology naturally into her classroom on an experimental basis using free web tools.

Tucker started off by trying to improve her students’ communication skills both online and in-person by using the free online platform Collaborize Classroom, which offers more tools than an average discussion board. The online discussion, debate, and collaboration replaced homework, with assignments like posting a response to the discussion topic and responding to three peers. “It was interesting to see students who don’t engage verbally with their peers be super engaged in the online space,” Tucker said. Once those students found an online voice, she said they participated more in class discussions too.

She also realized that just because students have been exposed to technology at young ages and use it often doesn’t mean they know how to have an appropriate online discussion, a skill Tucker knows they need.

With the success of Collaborize Classroom, Tucker began to slowly integrate her classroom time with online spaces, making the transitions fluid with a clear focus on the learning goal, not the technology. She might start a discussion in class, extend it online, require collaboration through Google docs, deepen an understanding of the topic through a TED-Ed video, then pull it back into the classroom with extension activities.

For example, her vocabulary lessons — one of the few areas where she still found herself lecturing, and a necessary part of any English class — have been transformed. She now starts out by having students look at words in context and predict what they mean. Then they go home and watch Tucker’s video lecture. When they come back to class, they use mobile devices to find synonyms and antonyms, then go home and incorporate them into poems or stories. They share their work online, the class votes and the winner gets to read aloud in class. Suddenly vocabulary, a traditionally dull aspect of English class has some spice and students find a personal connection to the words they’re using.

[RELATED: How Teachers Mix Online Math With Classroom Instruction]

Tucker doesn’t teach in a wealthy school district where every student has access to a smartphone and a home computer. But if there’s one phone for every three to four students, the activity can still work. And, she doesn’t allow home computer access to become an excuse not to participate – instead she connects her students to free online resources in town.

This blended teaching style has completely changed Tucker’s classroom. “So much of my creative energy was being drained by managing the paper load,” Tucker said. “Now I read their online discussions, I see how they’re engaging in that space, but I’m not the only one giving feedback; they’re getting it from their peers too.” And while teaching this way doesn’t make her job easier, she’s more engaged too. “This is so much more creative, inventive and exciting,” she said. “As a teacher I am so much more energized.”

And she’s assigning more work than ever before. “Everything that happens online requires that they’re reading and writing as well as thinking critically, so all these different skills are being developed,” said Tucker. For her, blended learning is a good way to get away from collecting and disseminating information, instead helping students discover it on their own.

Rocketship Schools in the Bay Area have been one of the trailblazers in the ever-changing landscape of blended learning. Located in low-income neighborhoods, the schools’ Learning Labs — where students spend up to 90 minutes a day on computers working on math and literacy software — has been one of its defining characteristics.

But this model isn’t working, some Rocketship teachers say, and because it’s a charter school network with evolving systems, it may soon be changing, according to this PBS Newshour story.

“There’s definitely an aspect of us kind of not knowing enough about what’s going on in learning lab to be able to use that in our classrooms,” said teacher Judy Lavi.

“We don’t yet get data that says, OK, teach this differently tomorrow because of what happened here. And that is — that is a frustration point,” said teacher Andrew Elliott-Chandler.

Adam Nadeau, principal of Rocketship Mosaic Elementary, says he doesn’t think the Learning Lab model will continue next year. And Elliott-Chandler sees a different function for the computers.

“Next year, we’re thinking of bringing the computers back to the classrooms and the kids back to the classrooms,” he said.

But what will that mean for the cost-savings the Learning Labs have so far brought the charter school network?

Rocketship is being closely watched by those both inside and outside education circles. The network’s laser focus and success in achieving high scores by its low-income students, and its resistance to teacher unions, has caught the attention of states across the country.

So far, New Orleans, Nashville, Indianapolis, and Memphis have all approved charters for Rocketship schools to be built and CEO John Danner hopes to open 46 schools in the next five years, and eventually having a million students.