Think Forward #10: Views from learning guides

First impressions from visits to Prenda microschools

Over the past few weeks, my colleague Steven Weiner and I have been interviewing adults who lead Prenda microschools (known as learning guides) as part of a larger study of educator experiences in unconventional learning environments. 

Guides lead groups of up to ten students, typically for four or five hours per day, four days per week, often in their homes or churches and community centers that offer space.

Prenda operates an online learning platform, screens and trains the guides (many of whom do not have traditional teaching credentials), and helps families enroll.

The model has gained footholds in several states, including New Hampshire and Louisiana, but it has flourished in Arizona, where it originated.

The Grand Canyon State has two different mechanisms for microschools to access public funding. They can contract with public schools, including online charter schools, which share per-pupil funding and take responsibility for some overhead, including special education. Or they can market their services directly to families who pay tuition using the state’s universal education savings accounts. 

Here are some early impressions from our interviews plus recent visits I made to Prenda microschools in the Phoenix area. Early impressions are just that, and might change as we learn more.

1. Learning guides blur the lines between two roles: parent and teacher.

Learning guides typically receive a flat payment for each student who enrolls. For a full slate of 10 students, this can add up to about $40,000. That’s less than a full-time teacher would earn, without benefits.

But in exchange, they work fewer work hours and gain other perks — like the chance to work in a learning environment with their own children. 

That bargain appeals to some public-school educators who have young children, as well as some parents who hadn’t previously considered teaching. 

We spoke to one learning guide who left a public-school job and teamed up with a fellow mom to support a group of 18 students. She said she didn’t do it for the money. “I think my own kids were a huge part of the motivation,” she said. “I think if I didn't have my own kids … I probably would've walked away from education altogether and done something different.”

A learning guide, in other words, sits somewhere on the continuum between a traditional classroom educator and a homeschool parent.

Guides with children who were too young for Prenda’s K-8 model could also bring their little ones to work—something we saw in pandemic learning pods. 

One such learning guide said this helped her find work-life balance that had not been possible in traditional teaching jobs. 

“I could be a mom, I could be a wife, I could be a teacher, all of that within the week,” she said. “And it was a game-changer for me. I didn't have to choose.”

2. Some students may need more academic instruction than Prenda offers.

Prenda’s schedule creates flexibility for the learning guides. But it might not be an ideal fit for students who need more time to help fill gaps in their learning, or families who need a full work week's worth of child care.

The evidence is clear that all else being equal, instructional time matters — and students with greater academic needs are better off getting more of it. The Black Mothers Forum launched its network of Phoenix-area microschools in partnership with Prenda, but has since moved on to other platforms, in part because leaders felt their students needed more direct instruction in core academic subjects.

Advocates of Prenda’s approach say that students use self-paced programs like Zearn in math and Lexia in reading, as well as Prenda’s own game-like phonics program. As a result, they can make more efficient use of each student’s time because the work is always right on their level. Students aren’t sitting through lessons delivered to 20 or 30 peers who all have different learning needs.

As is often the case in education, both things can be true. But to what extent? Evaluating the trade-offs around instructional time and how it is used should be high on any research agenda that sets out to understand unconventional learning environments. 

3.  Learning guides loved the self-directed learning model. What’s the impact on students?

One learning guide who had worked in traditional schools marveled at her fourth-through-sixth-grade students’ ability to take charge of their own learning.

A lot of days in the morning, I'll put up the whiteboard and I say, ‘Okay, here's what we need to get done today. You need to do some Zearn, you need to do some Lexia. And then this is a project, this is what I want to see. Go.’ And they just … pick what they're going to do first. They decide when they're gonna take recess and snack. And they can do it! It's amazing.

Developing this student agency is central to Prenda’s mission. A couple guides we spoke to were considering leaving the platform behind and launching microschools on their own. But even they agreed Prenda had transformed their pedagogy.

Drawing on the famous quote from Plutarch, Prenda’s model assumes education is not about filling students’ minds with knowledge, but igniting their desires to learn. Other microschool platforms, like Acton Academies, embrace a similar worldview. 

As student-directed pedagogies get more attention, they raise empirical questions. 

Which students do well in these models—and who may get left behind? How well do they work for different age groups? (Prenda does not currently offer high school.) How do they shift the skill sets required of educators?

Can self-directed learning help all students develop a foundation of general knowledge, which research shows can be vital for future learning? Can it equip students with skills and habits (like self-efficacy) that help them thrive as adults?

4. These learning environments may work best in a broader system where students have diverse options and support.

I visited a Prenda microschool housed at a public elementary school in Mesa, AZ. The six students described a “family-like” classroom that also gave them the chance to interact with peers on the rest of the campus during lunch, recess, and specials. 

The principal described an ideal “Prenda kid” as an introvert or would-be class clown who excelled academically and needed an opportunity to work at their own pace in a smaller environment.

The students described joyful experiences creating art projects, designing their own video games, and vaulting multiple grade levels ahead of their peers in math.

This made me think about other ways to capitalize on the flexibility of microschools and hybrid homeschools while limiting some of their downsides.

Families want opportunities for their students to socialize with larger peer groups. This desire drove many to leave pandemic pods once schools reopened. Some students need more instructional time, or access to tutors who can supplement their learning. Some families need a full work week's worth of child care. The inherent flexibility of small, self-directed learning communities could be a boon for students who need special education services, but coordinating these services remains a challenge. And no single model is going to work best for every student, so families will need access to diverse options and support navigating them.

Our work on microschools is aimed at understanding what it will take to make that possible—and to help existing schools be more responsive to families.

Think Fast

• How typical is Prenda’s model? A new survey from the National Microschooling Center offers some clues. It finds most microschools operate out of commercial business space or houses of worship, and 13.9 percent are home-based. And 70 percent are run by current or formerly licensed educators.

• Funding and facilities are among the most oft-cited barriers for education entrepreneurs, according to this new survey from EdChoice.

• A look at the tensions, as well as opportunities, that microschooling offers students with disabilities.

• New studies find AI chatbots can be more creative and more empathetic than humans. So what are they?

Final Thought

"We have to run as fast as we can to put the right guardrails in place, to put the safety measures in place, to harness the positives of the AI to accelerate the lives of as many learners and teachers as possible."

- Sal Khan, capping a keynote at last month’s ASU+GSV Summit in which he not only argued, but demonstrated, a case for how AI-powered learning tools could be meaningfully different from MOOCs and other technologies that failed to transform education. More on how public education systems must adapt.