Diocese to transform curriculum instruction

Catholic schools to launch Personalized Learning Initiative

In years past, everyone learned about butterflies together in Melinda Gremse’s first-grade class at Assumption Catholic School in Fairfield.

Now her 14 students rotate in groups of three and four through stations.

While one group builds symmetrical butterflies out of colorful wood chips, another draws them.

A third group puts on headphones and uses laptops to research metamorphosis, while a fourth sits with the teacher to compare the development of monarch butterflies to frogs — the creatures tackled by the class the week before.

“It’s a great way to teach,” said Gremse, allowing students to move at their own pace. “It’s no longer one size fits all.”

Gremse has been teaching like this for a while. In the fall, all other teachers at her school and five others in the Bridgeport Diocese will adopt the approach as standard practice.

With the help of a $5 million grant from a private donor, the diocese has launched what is calling a Personalized Learning Initiative. Support is coming from Apple computers, Fairfield University, Christian Brothers/ Catholic School Management and Catapult Learning.

The new model will include some longer class periods, more technology and instruction geared toward individual students.

It is a three-year initiative that will start in September at Assumption, Trinity Catholic in Stamford, St. Gregory the Great in Danbury, Holy Trinity Catholic Academy in Shelton, Our Lady of Fatima in Wilton, and at St. Joseph Catholic Academy in Brookfield.

“While many teachers in the diocese already personalize learning and differentiate instruction, this initiative gives them the tools to bring it to the next level,” Diocesan Schools Superintendent Steven F. Cheeseman said.

Students will spend a portion of each school day rotating through stations designed to teach a concept in different ways. There will be online resources to help teachers adapt to various student abilities. Often, teacher-led instruction will take a back seat to group discussions and assignments that require student collaboration to solve real problems.

Each school will also get an Innovation Lab designed to reinforce science, technology, religion, engineering, arts and math — or STREAM. The lab will include coding, robotics, 3-D Printers and more.

Cheeseman said the transformation will make Catholic schools look different. Instead of desks in rows there will be more tables and chances for collaboration.

“It will improve the work they do,” Cheeseman said. “We always want to attract more students but the whole idea is do the best we can to educate the students in our classrooms.”

Teachers got to sample “station rotations” and hear from speakers like Greg Dhuyvetter, a former superintendent of the diocese of Orange, Calif., and now a Catholic School Management consultant.

He told participants their job was no longer to provide information but teach students what to do with it.

Students will still be taught the basics but with more access to technology and more one on one time with their teacher.

“This is part of the fulfillment of our Catholic mission,” Cheeseman said. “The real personalization happens between the teacher and the child. The technology is the tool to help the teacher do that.”

The Personalized Learning Initiative will be the latest in a series of changes to Trinity Catholic to further personalize education at the school.

In July, Trinity is planning to launch The Learning Academy, which will provide academic support for students with learning disabilities. The Learning Academy will offer core academic courses such as English, math, science and social studies in a smaller classroom setting with support from a certified special education teacher.

The diocese is considering the launch of Cardinal Kung Academy, a division of Trinity Catholic that will use a classical Catholic education curriculum that encourages students to read original texts and discuss them in seminar-style classes. Cardinal Kung Academy would be the only classical high school program in Fairfield County.