Badger High School is a large public school, serving grades 9-12 in Lake Geneva, WI. There are roughly 1400 students on campus--23% and 40% of which come from minority and/or low-income backgrounds, respectively.
Academically, Badger is highly focused on pathways to raise student achievement. They employ over 90 instructional staff to maintain a 15:1 student ratio--over 72% of which have masters degrees in the field. They also maintain a district-wide focus on personalized learning (PL), including 1:1 technology and a full spectrum of academic programs to meet every learner’s needs (i.e. special education, ELL, AP, gifted and talented etc.).
It is this vision for ALL students and the power of technology that first drew Badger to Albert.
Principal Russ Tronsen was attending the National Principals Conference (NPC) in Chicago when he discovered Albert.
At the booth, he explored Albert’s data dashboard and library of scaffolded content. This looked like something that could really support Badger’s own PL goals and practices--quickly turning his curiosity into real interest.
As good luck would have it, Russ didn’t have wait long to get that ball rolling. He drew the grand prize scratch-off that day, winning Badger a spot in the Albert Pilot Program (APP)--an opportunity for his entire campus to trial Albert in real-time.
Russ and the Albert Team then spent the next month working together to set Badger up for success. They looped in all teachers and hosted a pre-pilot demo to properly invest the team. They also established a set of specific points to guide their Albert-evaluation:
In addition to these goals, Russ also set expectations to ensure the viability of Badger’s pilot. He considered what sample size, data-range, and portfolio of feedback his team would need to confidently determine a future fit. The following parameters were set:
During Badger’s pilot, teachers used Albert to support instruction across the entire 9-12 spectrum. In all teachers and students used over 28 different subjects, including:
Many additional teachers jumped on the opportunity to give Albert a go, surpassing Russ’ baseline sample size. In total, 45 Albert classrooms were created in the 4 week trial. Over 53% of these teachers used Albert in more than one of their classes--nearly 50% of which created 4-6 active classes each.
In these classrooms, teachers were excited to discover how Albert stretches beyond the bounds of a “plug-and-play” system. They found it easy to build their classrooms and scaffold learning using all content across the platform. They also enjoyed having a reliable flow of feedback running to both themselves and their students. With this information, two things started to take initial shape:
These outstanding efforts paid off as Badger’s pilot ended. They now had 1000 students actively engaged on Albert and 35,400 practice questions completed. On average, that left each student with at least 35 different points of practice and instructional feedback. It also left each teacher with an average of nearly 800 data points to drive their classroom instruction.
Moving forward, Russ and teachers are excited to keep this momentum going holistically as a school. They’re working with the Albert Team to maintain access for all students and continue building their data-driven practices with teachers. They’re also excited to cut costs in 20/21 now that they’re fully consolidated on Albert’s one platform to meet many of their instructional goals.
