Expertise: Practice

Boston STEM Week

Boston STEM Week is an innovative, hands-on STEM learning experience that will be run in Boston middle schools during the week of October 3 – 7, 2016. During this week, classrooms will be transformed into learning labs where regularly scheduled classes will be replaced by hands-on STEM curriculum developed by MIT and a number of… Read More ›

College, Career & Technology Academy Toolkit

This toolkit was designed as a resource for practitioners seeking to prepare off-track, out-of-school youth for postsecondary success. Located in the Pharr-San Juan-Alamo Independent School District, Texas, CCTA is a dropout recovery school where young people experience themselves as college students rather than high school dropouts. Students take a specific set of courses designed to… Read More ›

Deeper Learning Micro-Credentials

This website allows teachers and educators to earn micro-credentials through submission of their competence. Micro-credentials, an emerging professional development strategy, allow educators to demonstrate and gain recognition for skills developed throughout their careers and used in practice. To earn a micro-credential, a teacher submits evidence of their competence, such as examples of student work and… Read More ›

Try: A Little Word Becomes a Big Gift

In this article, a school administrator discusses a simple strategy to encourage personal and professional growth. Recent research indicates the importance of a growth mindset. The author encourages fellow educators to get practical with this research by asking themselves when they last tried something new and took a risk. She describes her experience taking on… Read More ›

Teaching the Whole Child: Instructional Practices That Support Social-Emotional Learning in Three Teacher Evaluation Frameworks

This research-to-practice brief explores teaching practices that promote social-emotional learning (SEL) and positive learning environments. The author begins with an overview of SEL and discusses action steps policymakers and educators can take to support it. Next, the brief provides an overview of 10 teaching practices that encourage the development of SEL. These practices were identified… Read More ›

Constant Learning and Creative Response: Charting the Course in Personalized Learning

In this article, guest bloggers Janice Vargo and Mike Wolking from Education Elements discuss the ways their organization is helping districts measure success in implementing personalized learning. Education Elements, which provides consultation services to districts, has shifted its approach to evaluating progress to better mimic the personalized mindset they help schools enact and to embrace… Read More ›

How Teacher-Created Free Online Resources Are Changing the Classroom

In this blog post, Katrina Schwartz, a San Francisco-based journalist, explores why some teachers are putting down the textbooks and instead opting for teacher-created online resources to create personalized learning experiences in their classrooms. She reports on the work of two schools in California who have been creating teacher-designed curriculum using online open educational resources… Read More ›

The Design Thinking Toolkit for Educators

This toolkit, Design Thinking for Educators, introduces the concept of design thinking to help educators, school, and district leaders create impactful solutions to tough challenges. It outlines a process and method to approach problem solving and planning in an intentional and collaborative way. IDEO, a design firm, worked with Riverdale Country School, a Pre-K through… Read More ›

How to Help Principals Do a Better Job? Train Their Bosses

This article discusses the changing role and new demands on principals. Districts nationwide are trying to figure out how to better support principals on the job and improve their effectiveness. It also describes the work in Oakland, where consultants are training superintendents and other district administrators at the top to do a better job of… Read More ›

Will Eliminating the “F” Eliminate Bad School Design?

In this article, Julia Freeland Fisher, Director of education research at the Clayton Christensen Institute discusses the possible effects of eliminating the “F” from grading systems, and what that means for competency-based learning strategies. She notes that while the dreaded “F” is going out of vogue in schools, educators must consider whether students in turn… Read More ›

Personalizing 21st Century Education: A Framework for Student Success

This book, Personalizing 21st Century Education: A Framework for Student Success, begins with a manifesto for change, emphasizing the significance of true personalization for every learner. Next, it describes classroom, school, and system-level performance indicators that suggest personalization is alive and well. The authors also examines the historical origins of most modern school cultures—i.e., a… Read More ›