Meaningful Student Involvement: Guide to Students as Partners in School Change
This guide outlines how student involvement can be truly meaningful. SoundOut believes by engaging students as education planners, researchers, teachers, evaluators, decision-makers and advocates, they can become partners in the change process in the school and district. This guide begins by introducing the elements of meaningful involvement and key characteristics of schools with this authentic… Read More ›
First Ask, Then Listen: How to Get Your Students to Help You Teach Them Better, A Teachers Guide
This short guide, compiled by What Kids Can Do researchers, features advice on how teachers can listen to students to enhance their teaching. It includes tips on structuring conversations with students, as well as the question prompts and exercises (usually questionnaires), used to gather research for the popular book Fires in the Bathroom: Advice for… Read More ›
Youth Involvement in Evaluation Research in Issues and Opportunities in Out-of-School Time Evaluations
This article examines what current youth as researchers projects really look like. It describes the findings from focus groups and interviews with the youth and adults at 14 youth serving organizations working to involve youth in research and evaluation projects. It details who and how youth are involved. It also describes five key elements needed… Read More ›
Turn Up the Volume: The Students Speak Toolkit
This toolkit is designed to help any school or district conduct focus group research with students to learn their opinions about school and learning experiences. It provides detailed steps of the process to select a working team made up of adults and students, choose your research topic, plan the logistics, facilitate the focus groups, and… Read More ›
Student Voice Twitter Conversations
This Twitter feed created by a group of students in 2012: Student Voice (#stuvoice) hosts weekly conversations for students, teachers, policymakers, and key stakeholders to discuss current topics in conversation. Archives of selected Monday night twitter chats and video chats are available on the Student Voice website. The group and in-person education summits in dozens of countries… Read More ›
Youth Adult Partnership Rubric
This detailed rubric assesses the implementation level of several aspects of effective youth-adult partnerships. It can be used as a peer/self assessment, formative, or summative evaluation tool to assess and strengthen practice. It was designed for use in any setting that involves high school or older middle school students and adults working together towards a… Read More ›
Education Change and Youth Engagement: Strategies for Success
This clear, concise guide provides an overview of five strategies for engaging youth in education reform. It makes the case for involving youth as decision-makers and partners in problem solving, seeing youth engagement as a strategy rather than an outcome. It highlights the Youth Leadership Institute’s theory of change including, strategies, stake-holder actions, and the… Read More ›
Why Change Schools: Section One, Module B
This module was designed to promote discussion and build support for student-centered education reform. It explores topics that can help move the participants from an individualistic view of education to a mental model which treats education as a common endeavor. It strives to leave participants with several important takeaways including the common purpose of education,… Read More ›
Implementing Competency Education in K-12 Systems: Insights from Local Leaders
This report describes effective district implementation strategies to convert traditional, one-size-fits-all models of education into more personalized, competency-based learning environments to meet students’ needs. It highlights strategies to engage, motivate, and teach all students to proficiency and mastery, depicts shifts in instruction toward deeper learning and meaningful assessments for learning, while exploring models of distributed leadership and… Read More ›
Student-Centered Learning: Functional Requirements for Integrated Systems to Optimize Learning
This paper illustrates the technical requirements and functionalities that learning management systems need to shift toward student-centered instructional models. This comprehensive framework will help districts and schools determine what systems to use as they begin their journey toward student-centered learning, as well as how systems integration aligns with their organizational vision, educational goals and strategic plans.… Read More ›
The Brainwaves Video Anthology
This video anthology is produced and filmed by Bob Greenberg. The Brainwaves series contains short videos (5-10 minutes long) on ideas and topics of education relevant to student-centered learning in the 21st century. Source Organization: Brainwaves Video Anthology Visit the Resource
Students are Not Asking Questions: A Working Conference to Address a Fundamental Problem in Education
Boston: July 13-14, 2015 Conference Description: What is one ancient, profoundly important, inexpensive, but hardly used technology that could improve education for all students? We just used it. A question. The ability to ask questions is, however, a technology that most students rarely learn to use. Students passively waiting for instructions on what to do… Read More ›