Getting Smart

This blog is a community for news, stories, and leadership on innovations in learning and teaching. Read, watch, and listen to thought-leading perspectives as The Getting Smart Blog features articles on K-12, higher education, and lifelong learning. With over 5,000 blogs, GettingSmart.com has maintained the belief that excellence and equity in education are the most important… Read More ›

Incorporating 21st Century Skills in the Classroom

Students at the Center Hub Video Tool Suite explores how teachers incorporate 21st-century skills into core subject classes. What does it look like in action? How does this help prepare students for college and career, and enrich their core subject learning?

Can a Truly Student-Centered Education Be Available to All?

The Big Picture Learning Network started with the Metropolitan Regional Career and Technical Center in Providence, Rhode Island, and has expanded to almost 100 schools around the world, with 55 in the U.S. alone. The majority of the U.S.-based schools are traditional in-district public schools, although about 25 percent are public charter schools. Many are located… Read More ›

Personalized Learning is Not a Product

This article argues the possible down-sides to personalized learning. For all the hype surrounding so-called “personalized learning,” plenty of skeptics worry that it could do more harm than good—especially within the context of larger trends in academia. They worry that, among other things, personalized learning products will be used not to improve student learning, but… Read More ›

How Da Vinci Schools Built an Instructional Model Around “Failure”

This article describes how the Da Vinci schools are giving their students the right to fail. Giving students the freedom—and fearlessness—to fail first requires them to take ownership of their own learning, and Da Vinci achieves that with a curriculum centered around project-based learning, or PBL. Source Organization: EdSurge Visit the Resource

School Counselor Advocacy Letter

The School Counselor Advocacy Letter was created with counselors and is addressed to teachers, school leaders, and other staff. The goal of the letter is to open a conversation about the areas in which counselors can be valuable team members in the changing 21st century learning environment. With a greater emphasis on college and career… Read More ›

Reflection Tool For 21st Century Learning

Supporting college and career readiness by fostering soft skills—sometimes called essential skills, is an important area of student-centered work. Working with the staff and students at C-Town Tech, a new information technology program at Charlestown High School, located in Boston, the Students at the Center Hub team developed the Reflection Tool For 21st Century Learning to support… Read More ›

Innovating Pedagogy 2015

This is the fourth in a series of yearly reports explores new forms of teaching, learning, and assessment for an interactive world, to guide teachers and policy makers in productive innovation. This fourth report, produced in collaboration with SRI International, proposes 10 innovations that are already in currency but have not yet had a profound influence on… Read More ›

5 Ways to Build Student Agency in the Digital Age

This article explores the idea that youth today may feel external social forces are controlling their lives much more than their own internal compasses. Taking this into consideration, the article shares tips on how young people can develop their own sense of agency in the digital age. Source Organization: Getting Smart Visit the Resource

Instructional Coaching for Secondary School Transformation

This article the second in a three part series on instructional coaching and professional learning. In 2012 Gary Barber took over as superintendent of Marion, Ohio and the district launched a series of community conversations that led to aggressive reforms seeking improved academic performance and workforce preparation. The conversations with teachers about their next-generation vision… Read More ›

Future Ready Learning: Reimagining the Role of Technology in Education

This report, the National Education Technology Plan, sets a national vision and plan for learning enabled by technology through building on the work of leading education researchers; district, school, and higher education leaders; classroom teachers; developers; entrepreneurs; and nonprofit organizations. Our schools, community colleges, and universities should be incubators of exploration and invention. Educators should be… Read More ›

Continuum of Voice: What it Means for the Learner

This infographic, “Continuum of Voice: What it Means for the Learner,” adapts Students at the Center’s Continuum of Voice chart by adding examples and ideas that illustrate each level to support implementation using a design by Sylvia Duckworth. Source Organization: Personalize Learning Visit the Resource