Owning His Learning and His Future: Taliq Tillman’s Student-Owned Learning Experience
Originally posted on October 18, 2017 for Youth Today I met Arthur 10 years ago at a principals’ convening. That night, Arthur and I talked about how to make students’ learning memorable and meaningful. Today, Arthur is one of our inaugural Students at the Center Distinguished Fellows. He is now a veteran school leader at… Read More ›
Visible Thinking Resources
This article, When Kids Have Structure for Thinking, Better Learning Emerges, looks deeply at how to best teach students about metacognition. It underscores the importance of thinking structures which, with continued use, provide concrete strategies to build thinking skills while deepening content learning. The article discusses work done by the Harvard Graduate School of Education Project Zero, which conducts… Read More ›
Francis Pina Interview
This podcast features an interview with Francis Pina, a Boston native and math teacher at Charlestown High school. He shares his experiences in the Boston Public Schools (BPS) and his journey to become a teacher. He discusses how he implements a creative, engaging, and student-centered math curriculum for a diverse student population. He also looks… Read More ›
Multiple Intelligences: A New Look at an Old Theory
In this webinar, author Thomas Armstrong will discuss how multiple intelligence theory can be used in today’s classrooms. He will examine how multiple intelligences theory has declined in popularity because of the accountability movement in the 2000s and why he feels that now it is important to counter the standardization that prevails in many schools.… Read More ›
Research Collaborative Seminar: Reducing Inequities Through Competency-Based Education
JFF’s very own Stephanie Krauss discusses her recent paper for Lumina Foundation on how competency-based education may help reduce our nation’s toughest inequities. Check out the discussion over how competency-based education is working—or not working—for our underserved learners in college. This webinar is part of a series hosted by the Student-Centered Learning Research Collaborative which works to investigate, evaluate, and curate… Read More ›
Up Close and Personal: Chronicling Learning Practices Across the Nation
This website from EdSurge showcases stories illustrating what personalized learning looks like in practice in schools across the country. The site houses a collection of hundreds of stories, profiles, and lessons learned. This research enables insights into how schools and districts across the country think about personalized learning, from visualizing change to opening pathways to… Read More ›
Creating a Peer Coaching Program to Grow Student-Centered Learning (Part 2)
In part I of this three-part series, I wrote about how Maine’s Biddeford School District created a peer coaching program to support our teachers as they spread a student-centered learning model across the district. Part II shares three of the most important lessons from the experience. Develop a plan that is closely aligned to your… Read More ›
The Science of Learning
This report summarizes existing research from cognitive science on how students learn and shows its practical implications for teaching and learning. The report identifies six key questions about learning that should be relevant to all educators: How do students understand new ideas? How do students learn and retain new information? How do students solve problems? How… Read More ›
The Art of Reflection
Student portfolios can provide an alternative way to assess student work. Yet, they can become simply a catalog of things students have learned or an add-on at the end of a unit. In this blog post, Beth Holland, Johns Hopkins University doctoral candidate and EdTechTeacher instructor, offers ideas to ensure portfolios truly support student centered… Read More ›
How to Build Community Leaders of Today—and Tomorrow—Through Student Genius Hours
This article describes how a middle school Language Arts teacher in Omaha, Nebraska has used genius hours to extend student learning and build agency, all while strengthening community. Jen Schneider introduced Genius Hour by allowing students 1 hour a week to work on a self-selected project. Students must set out to answer a question and… Read More ›
Waukesha STEM Academy Series
This four-part series featuring Waukesha STEM Academy (WSA) is part of a series on personalized, proficiency-based education in Wisconsin. This blog post gives an introduction to what’s happening state-wide. WSA is a competency-based school with personalized learning for all 300 students it serves. It spans grades 6-8, but students move at their own pace and… Read More ›
Want to Set Students Up for Success? Make Room for Vulnerability
This article, written by a student, describes the culture at One Stone school in Boise, Idaho. One Stone is a student-led and directed nonprofit committed to making students better leaders and the world a better place. The school is free and open to any student. Much of the work at One Stone occurs through Design… Read More ›