Dive Brief:

• At Innovations Early College High School in Salt Lake City, instruction depends on blended learning to help students with personalized learning that is entirely self-paced and directed.
• A flexible model and the individualized online instruction offered by the school are trends slowly gaining popularity in the U.S., though this kind of student-centered learning is still typically found in charter schools like Silicon Valley's Rocketship or Summit Public Schools. 
• Students at Innovations can take college-level courses and engage in real-world job experiences while still earning their high school diplomas, and the high school has had one graduate who received both a high school diploma and an associate's degree simultaneously.

Dive Insight:

The ongoing move toward "School 2.0" and digitalization continues, and includes a strong push for more innovative approaches to learning like Big Picture Learning, a similar program that has spread to over 50 U.S. schools and encourages students to obtain internships, seek out mentors, design their own curriculum plans and set their own goals and pace of learning. 

Although the exact description of School 2.0 is still open to interpretation, administrators and policymakers can position themselves to look forward by considering what's working in a variety of K-12 classrooms around the country. Education Dive previously reported that Alexandria Country Day School, a K-8 co-educational private school in Northern Virginia, focused on social-emotional learning, play and communication skills.

The school's innovative "Festival of Learning" celebrates a year-long in-depth study of new topics for students, who are empowered to delve into the subjects by having them weaved into daily classroom instruction.