IndY (Individualized Learning at the school centre Ybbs)

In the school year 2015/16 the Schulzentrum Ybbs (a school center consisting of three vocational upper secondary schools) introduced a concept called IndY, which involves that 20% of the teaching time is intended for individualized learning. IndY aims at improving students’ expertise, motivation, self-responsibility, self-management, collaborative skills, emotional intelligence and learning methods.

To enable this, the first six lessons per day have been shortened by 10 minutes (40 minutes instead of 50 minutes). These 240 minutes are used for individualized learning. This means that each Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday the students have 80 minutes (two lessons), where they can choose which subject they want to learn, with which teacher they want to study and also if they want to study alone or with their colleagues. This makes it also possible to learn together with students from other classes and grades.
Individualization is based on 4 elements: culture of asking questions, self-responsibility of students, student self-motivation, and methodological competences of students. Moreover, every student is assigned to a counsellor, i.e. one of the two form teachers. Once a month each student and his/her counsellor discuss the student’s development.
For administration purposes the so-called IndYLog has been introduced in the school year 2016/17. This online tool gives an overview of all IndY-lessons (i.e. time, classroom, teacher, subject) and also on attendance because the students have to register online for the courses they want to attend in the next week.
With regard to stakeholder involvement, IndY is inspired by the Evangelische Schule Berlin Zentrum and it is part of the network Schulen der Zukunft (Schools of the Future). Furthermore, IndY is scientifically monitored by the School of Education at Johannes Kepler University Linz under the responsibility of Prof. Dr. Herbert Altrichter. In 2016/17 the school received the Starke Schulen Award from the Initiative für starke Schulen, which is initiated by VERITAS publishing.