State Strategies to Develop Teacher Capacity for Personalized, Competency-Based Learning
This issue brief outlines state policy recommendations and action steps to modernize educator preparation and development systems to bring student-centered learning environments to scale. To transform the K-12 education system, states must build teacher capacity for personalized, competency-based education. This brief highlights four strategies for states and school districts to prepare teachers with the skills… Read More ›
10 Game-Changing Ideas in Education
In this article, editors at EdWeek have compiled 10 commentaries that outline exciting ideas in the field of education. For example: In The Secret to Student Engagement authors Chip & Dan Heath assert that “peak moments”, events that represent the culmination of students’ work are remembered long after the event and can create engagement and motivation… Read More ›
Model Schools, Districts, Networks and States for Competency-Based Education
This article catalogues successful competency education models on many scales. It provides links to schools, both district-based and charter; districts; learning networks; and states implementing competency-based learning. The list of state’s implementing wider scale mastery-based systems include links to documents detailing lessons learned. Local and state education leaders, researchers, and policy-makers could use these lists… Read More ›
Bringing Students Into Professional Development
This article looks at the importance of including student voice in professional development for teachers. The author promotes this approach both as a way to improve PD and to empower students and strengthen relationships. He suggests inviting students to PD events or collecting feedback in advance. PD providers and educator leaders can use the included… Read More ›
Civic Preparedness in an Era Characterized by its Discord More than its Dialogue
Political discord is as old as politics. However, disagreement between people with different political perspectives has become entrenched, and often rancorous, in our era. Many choose only to listen to viewpoints similar to their own and opportunities for conversation across political differences are shrinking. Research indicates that people are (increasingly?) choosing a self-selection of news… Read More ›
How Metacognition Boosts Learning
This article presents strategies for boosting students metacognitive skills. It covers several studies that show the importance of understandings one’s thinking process to increase academic success on assessments. Next it introduces several strategies middle and high school teachers can use to help students better understand their own learning process. It includes specific questions teachers can… Read More ›
Writing Commentaries: The Power of Youth Voice
This video shows a producer from Youth Radio in Oakland, CA working with students to produce their own commentaries. It discusses why commentaries can be powerful tools to spark discussion and stimulate civic engagement. It includes prompts to help students uncover a meaningful story they want to share, components of good commentaries, and tips for… Read More ›
The Six Secrets to More Successful Partnership Between Students and Teachers
Educators work on behalf of their students every day, but some of the richest learning opportunities arise when educators take it a step further and actually partner with students to address a local issue. Drawn from decades of experience studying and leading youth-adult partnerships, Students at the Center Distinguished Fellow Dana Mitra provides six secrets educators can… 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 ›
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 ›
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 ›