Youth Action Researchers at the Intersection – A Story Begins!
For most of us who work in education reform, we strive to pursue education equity and eliminate the opportunity gap so that all students can flourish. But predominant policies and approaches persistently fail to move the needle on student outcomes. Within all these efforts that aspire for equity and inclusive excellence, what role do students… Read More ›
Helping Students Track Their Learning
This article explores how to help students become “assessment capable” learners, monitoring their own content understanding. Assessment capable learners can assess both where they are and where they are going. This article outlines how one history teacher used a common technology tool, Google Docs, to improve formative assessment and build students’ ownership of their learning… Read More ›
Assessment Resources Bundle
Since the Students at the Center (SATC) research paper Assessing Learning was released, the literature on student-centered assessment practices has continued to grow. More and more, schools, districts, and states are using assessment as an opportunity for growth and learning, as well as a way to elevate student voice and leadership. This selection of resources… Read More ›
How Do We Teach Kids to Assess Themselves?
This article discusses the importance of student self assessment to build student agency over learning and help both teacher and student track progress over time. It describes several methods of self assessment including: Rubrics Portfolios Data notebooks Graphic organizers Tech tools to synthesize multiple ideas Any teacher can use the tips for implementation and links… Read More ›
Developing “Assessment Capable” Learners
This article in the Measuring What Matters issue of ASCD’s Educational Leadership magazine looks at the importance of including students deeply in the assessment process. The authors discuss the idea of “assessment-capable learners” who are aware of their own progress and can navigate their learning path. Teachers can foster “assessment-capable learners” by building student’s motivation,… Read More ›
Bringing Student Choice to Assessment in Science Classes
An experienced science teacher describes how he uses alternative assessments in this article. He explains the system he developed to let students choose how to show what they know with options ranging from written tests to journaling, oral reports, or artwork. Science teachers will find inspiration in the article, and appreciate this teacher’s discussion around… Read More ›
National Action Civics Collaborative
The National Action Civics Collaborative (NACC) brings together a group of diverse education and youth serving organizations committed to advancing action civics, a project-based authentic way to empower students to get engaged in their schools and communities. Designed for teachers and community-based educators, the NACC site provides an overview of the approach, powerful stories of… Read More ›
The Blogs You Loved from 2019
Throughout 2019, educators and researchers from across the country have shared blogs about their goals, passions, challenges and triumphs working towards building and sustaining equity-driven and student-centered practices in classrooms, schools and local communities. Here are some of your favorites: 1. The Mastery Collaborative Approach: Student Centered, Culturally Responsive, and Competency-Based “As a community, the… Read More ›
Civics Education and Student-Driven Civic Action
In this article a Washington DC government teacher shares her experience using action civics in her classroom. Action civics empowers students to become engaged around issues of relevance to them. In this school, students created an advocacy group to spark city-wide conversations around issues like violence, housing insecurity, and mental health. This story was written… Read More ›
Amplifying Student Voice
This website was designed to introduce educators to action civics. Action civics projects empower youth to become agents of change in their schools or communities. They learn to identify issues important to them and develop evidence-based arguments to influence public policy. This website is full of practical tools for school and community-based educators. Teachers can… Read More ›
Student Agency: Resource Collection
For learning environments to be truly student-centered, students must be the agents of their own learning. Educators can support this development by getting to know their students in order to choose the most relevant and engaging content and, whenever possible, giving students control over what they study and how they demonstrate mastery. Creating an engaging… Read More ›
Dear Educators, Stop Being Jerks and Amplify Student Voice
Sometimes educators can be jerks, particularly when youth are trying to teach decision-makers (school board members, school administrators, or lawmakers) about the lived experience of young people in schools. Decision-makers can be dismissive, calling youth “cute” or “cool.” They can also be downright rude and ignore student voice altogether. In fact, the more the voices… Read More ›