The Modern Classroom model is based on academic research about how students learn, and supported by rigorous program evaluation. Learn about both kinds of research below.
Background Academic Research
In 2020, we commissioned researchers at Johns Hopkins University to conduct a comprehensive literature review on blended, self-paced, mastery-based learning.
Because we work with practicing teachers, not academics, we've distilled that literature down to key points for our teachers:
The feedback which we provide to the teachers we train, through our Virtual Mentorship Programs, are also based on best practices from the academic literature.
Program Evaluation
Since our founding, we have worked with researchers at Johns Hopkins University to measure the impacts of our model on both teachers and students.
In their most recent study, which surveyed teachers and students at three schools in the Washington, DC area, these researchers found "overwhelming positive support for The Modern Classrooms Project from the perspective of both students and teachers...who participated in the program…with the strongest effects on teachers’ abilities to differentiate instruction to individual students and students’ abilities to engage in self-directed learning.”
Among other statistically significant effects (p < 0.001), and compared to their peers in non-Modern classrooms:
Students in Modern Classrooms were 19 percentage points (p.p.) more likely to learn technology use in class, 7 p.p. more likely to feel capable of teaching themselves new content and skills, and 11 p.p. more likely to enjoy learning.
Modern Classroom teachers were more than twice as likely to feel able to serve students at all levels of understanding, more than four times as likely to work closely with each student during class, and more than nine times as likely to help students who missed class catch up.
We will continue to work with academic researchers from Johns Hopkins and other universities to study our impacts as our pool of teachers and students grows.