by Gary Kaplan
JFY’s next round of innovation
Change and Challenge
JFYNetWorks was founded in 1976, the bicentennial year, to help out-of-school youth find jobs. As the economy changed through the 80s and 90s, the skills required to succeed in our labor market escalated. Work was shifting from physical to mental: more thinking and communicating, more data analysis. Computers were spreading. Language and math skills were becoming more essential. Our program adapted to focus on foundational literacy. We introduced software to provide individualized instruction to our diverse enrollment. We named the evolving program JFYNet, a nod to the computer networks it used.
We’re now on the threshold of yet another sweeping change driven by artificial intelligence.
JFY has met each change with innovation. Our JFYNet academic support program works from 6th grade through high school to build the skills needed for college and career readiness—the standard formula for success in our skill-intensive economy. JFYNet is a blended model, combining online and teacher-led instruction. In practice it is a collaboration between teachers and JFY staff.
JFYNet fills many needs:
• Curriculum support aligned to the state standards.
• One-on-one or group tutoring conducted by teachers or support staff, providing scaffolded interventions to address group or individual student needs, with specialized adaptations for EL students and students with disabilities.
• Teacher Backup. Structured, supported online curriculum to supplement the efforts of teachers and aides and fill substitute gaps.
• Early College: State-approved Enhanced Student Support, a required component of early college programs.
• AI—artificial intelligence. We see AI as a tool for teachers to save time and free them for creative activities like planning and personal interaction with students. In collaboration with teachers we’ve developed two AI tools: writing assessment and math assessment. Reviewing and grading papers consumes large blocks of teacher time. Our AI tools give that time back to the teachers. More AI tools will follow.
JFYNet can fill all these needs because they all derive from the same set of basic academic skills.
JFYNet curriculum can be structured for generalized group support or individualized tutoring. Blended instruction can be included in regular classes or study periods, or after school. Students can access their assignments any time, any place. All activities in schools are supported by JFY staff in person and online.
Building student skills helps schools meet the many performance benchmarks for which they are accountable. Grade-level proficiency is the overarching standard, but there’s also the competency determination; learning loss or credit recovery; MCAS, MAP, SAT, AP and Accuplacer testing; early college, and general college and career readiness. Schools have many requirements; they receive many scores. But all the scores depend on the skills of the students.
Skills and Scores: The AIMS Methodology
We call our methodology AIMS: Assess, Instruct, Measure, Support. It’s a common-sense approach to teaching: Assess students’ skills according to the state curriculum standards; provide instruction at the level they need; measure their progress day by day and week by week; support them and their teachers with real-time progress reports and timely recommendations for needed adjustments.
Assessing is the first step. This analytical process identifies exactly what skills a student needs to strengthen. It is the key to differentiation and tutoring. To provide individualized instruction a teacher needs to know what the individual needs. Formative assessments are built into our software. It’s not about test scores: it’s about skills. If we build the skills, the scores will follow.
Through our partnership with the state since the early 2000s we have worked with dozens of schools and more than 100,000 students. This year, our enrollments already exceed 7000. The results speak for themselves: as students master the standards the school’s performance rises. Coming out of Covid, our two largest partner schools—East Boston High and Northeast Metro Tech– recovered all their losses and regained their 2019 pre-pandemic levels.
Change and Innovation
The overall trend accelerates toward higher cognitive and communication skills. As jobs change and disappear and new jobs are created, the most important survival skill will be the ability to learn new skills. Language and math literacy will be critical.
The knowledge and skills of our young people—not petroleum or iron ore or silicon wafers– are the raw materials of our future. For half a century JFY has been dedicated to the development of these most precious and most strategic natural resources. In the New Year that dedication will drive our next round of innovation as we collaborate with teachers to create new applications incorporating artificial Intelligence to augment teaching and accelerate learning.
As always, we look forward to meeting the challenges of change with innovation.
Gary Kaplan is the executive director of JFYNetWorks.
Other posts authored by Gary can be found here.
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