Our Path to Personalized Learning

This video, produced by Achieve Hartford!, on Our Piece of the Pie (O.P.P.)’s Path Academy in Windam, Connecticut gives the community an inside view of blended learning in action. Source Organization: Achieve Hartford!  

Students at the Center: TEDx Talk

This film, from Nellie Mae Education Foundation’s CEO Nick Donahue speech at TEDx Beacon Street, questions why our education system designed as if it’s 1915? Rather than a top-down, one-size-fits-all approach to education, schools need student-centered strategies to help learners reach their highest potential. Source Organization: Nellie Mae Education Foundation

Practical Learning Research for the Math Classroom

Join the Future of Education for a webinar on Thursday, December 3, from 7:00 – 8:00 pm US-EST, looking at the latest research in learning science and why it matters to math teachers. How can we take the research about teaching and learning and translate it into practice? What are: “framing,” the “growth mindset,” the “testing… Read More ›

Virtual Viewpoints: Roberto Gonzalez, STEAM Box

This episode is the fourth in our series documenting the Fuse Architect Project, a collaboration between the Nellie Mae Education Foundation, the Highlander Institute, and several other Rhode Island-based stakeholders endeavoring to design and pilot systems that promote student-centered learning. In this episode, we’re talking with Roberto Gonzalez of the Rhode Island-based nonprofit STEAM Box.… Read More ›

Casco Bay High School: The What and HOW of Learning

Originally posted on CompetencyWorks on November 23, 2015 This post is part of the series Road Trip to Maine. This is the third of a four-part look at Casco Bay High School. Read Part One for Tips and Takeaways and Part Two for Learning as Exploration. Check out Casco Bay on the Students at the Center… Read More ›

Continued Progress: Promising Evidence on Personalized Learning

This report examines achievement in 62 public charter and district schools that are pursuing a variety of personalized learning practices, and examines implementation details in 32 of those schools. Researchers obtained achievement data for personalized learning students and a matched comparison group of students attending other schools serving similar populations. They also collected and analyzed… Read More ›

Competency-Based Education in Three Pilot Programs

This research brief summarizes findings of the RAND evaluation of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Project Mastery grant program, which was created in 2011 to support competency-based education initiatives in large school systems that serve a high proportion of disadvantaged youth. Competency-based education meets students where they are academically, provides students with opportunities for choice,… Read More ›

The iNACOL State Policy Frameworks 2015: 5 Critical Issues to Transform K-12 Education

This policy brief from the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL) provides concrete, actionable recommendations for state policymakers seeking to build competency education based on new learning models that allow personalization of instruction for each student. The iNACOL State Policy Frameworks covers five main issues: create competency-based education systems, improve student access and equity,… Read More ›

Advancing Competency-Based Pathways to College and Career Readiness

This state policy framework, focused on graduation requirements, assessment, and accountability, is designed to assist states in building a policy structure that contributes to statewide adoption and implementation of competency-based pathways (CBP) that support all students in reaching college and career readiness, as defined by the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). CBP can help all… Read More ›

Performance Assessments: How State Policy Can Advance Assessments for 21st Century Learning

This report is intended to familiarize state boards of education with performance assessments and help state board members and other policymakers address some of the thorniest issues around these assessments: purpose, sustainability, reliability, accountability, policy alignment, equity, professional practice, and implementation. The report ends with a set of discussion questions so that each state can… Read More ›