Giving Compass' Take:

• The Learning Accelerator details the process of how to successfully implement the concept of flex time for students which means that students are able to develop agency and work effectively on independent projects. 

• How will the addition of education technology tools impact flex time for students? 

• Read about how blended and personal learning styles can strategically help cater to a diverse array of students. 


With all the interest in innovative school models, many schools are creating “flex time” periods during the day for students to increase student agency. We at Silicon Schools Fund and Relay Graduate School of Education set out to understand what makes flex time periods work best and started with a deep dive studying and writing about the topic.

The idea behind flex time is that students can build the skills to work effectively on their own and that by allowing more choice and freedom, students will be more engaged in their learning. In successful schools we did observe students exhibiting agency and working quite independently, which raised the question, “how did these classes reach this place of success?”

When talking to these schools, they suggested that it worked best to begin with more teacher-directed systems and structures and then gradually transfer responsibilities onto students as they demonstrate readiness. The school support structures begin in the foreground and gradually fade into the background.

Because the finished product is smooth and students and teachers know their roles, it can make flex time look easy. When others try to replicate, they mistakenly jump into a late-stage version of flex time, where students have lots of autonomy and forget to build up the systems that support such freedoms.

  • Stage I: Set the Classroom Culture:
    • Strong Whole Class Openings
    • Effective Monitoring
    • Purposeful Use of Pen and Paper
    • Strong Whole Class Closings
  • Stage II: Developing Good Habits
    • Goal Setting and Progress Monitoring
    • Modeling and Reinforcement
  • Stage III: Release and Catch
    • 1:1 Check-ins
    • Small Group Instruction
    • Destination: Student Drivers: In this final stage of student self-driven learning, students make most of the decisions. The teacher, however, still explicitly develops classroom culture and trusting relationships with whole class, small group, and individual activities.

Read the full article about flex time by Rob Schwartz and Jeffrey Starr at The Learning Accelerator