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 ›
Using Sketchnotes and Doodles in ELA Lessons
In this blog, a veteran ELA teacher shares ideas for incorporating art into ELA lessons to improve learning. She describes her efforts to incorporate more art in her classroom after reading a study that showed drawing is one of the best ways to retain new information. Her activities included “sketchnoting” in which small doodles are… 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 ›
The State Education Agency’s Role in Supporting Equitable Student-Centered Learning
This guide was designed to help state education agencies empower local districts to create student-centered learning environments. State agencies have a large role to play in the transformation process and this tool provides guidance and relevant examples, highlighting ways to gather support for a state-wide vision, align curriculum, assessment and funding policies with practice; and… Read More ›
Exploring the Impact of Personalized Learning on Student Outcomes
We believe in the power of personalized, competency-based learning because we want each and every student to learn and be challenged as individuals. We believe it is the path toward equitable outcomes for ALL students. We intuitively understand that having clear learning targets, meaningful and flexible assessments, personalized student supports, and student ownership of their own… 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 ›
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 ›
Distinguished Fellow’s Leadership Produces Results
One of the Student-Centered Learning Research Collaborative’s six Distinguished Fellows, Arria Coburn, was recently featured on WBUR’s On Point program. Coburn is the Principal of the Springfield Renaissance School in Springfield, MA, which WBUR notes has “attracted national recognition for raising the achievement of students from low-income families and students of color.” Principal Coburn has led multiple efforts that have helped produce these amazing… Read More ›
We’re Thankful for our Educators, Researchers and Funders
The end of November is always crunch time. Between finishing projects, producing research, educating students, fighting for social justice and planning for the holidays, it’s never quiet. Recognizing this reality makes the team at KnowledgeWorks’ Student-Centered Learning Research Collaborative especially grateful for our inspiring Distinguished Fellows, researchers and funders who came out to New York City to ask and answer some of the biggest questions about student-centered learning. We were lucky… Read More ›
Thank You for Your Feedback on Educator Competencies for Personalized, Learner-Centered Teaching
Please take this short survey by October 25th to help us understand the current use of the competencies in the field and recommendations to increase use.