Creating Small Learning Communities: Lessons From the Project on High-Performing Learning Communities About “What Works” in Creating Productive, Developmentally Enhancing, Learning Contexts

Abstract

Personalizing the school environment is a central goal of efforts to transform America's schools. Three decades of work by the Project on High Performance Learning Communities are considered that demonstrate the potential impact and importance of the creation of “small learning environments” on student motivation, adjustment, and well-being. Findings about how to effectively create such small learning environments in middle and secondary school are presented. Of particular focus are the ways in which ecological changes that create smaller schools within large ones, teacher and student teams, and other personalization strategies may engage diverse, socially, and economically disadvantaged students, in middle and high schools, to improve academic performance, reduce dropout rates, enhance developmental outcomes, and close equity gaps.