Youth Adult Partnership Rubric
This detailed rubric assesses the implementation level of several aspects of effective youth-adult partnerships. It can be used as a peer/self assessment, formative, or summative evaluation tool to assess and strengthen practice. It was designed for use in any setting that involves high school or older middle school students and adults working together towards a… Read More ›
Education Change and Youth Engagement: Strategies for Success
This clear, concise guide provides an overview of five strategies for engaging youth in education reform. It makes the case for involving youth as decision-makers and partners in problem solving, seeing youth engagement as a strategy rather than an outcome. It highlights the Youth Leadership Institute’s theory of change including, strategies, stake-holder actions, and the… Read More ›
Why Change Schools: Section One, Module B
This module was designed to promote discussion and build support for student-centered education reform. It explores topics that can help move the participants from an individualistic view of education to a mental model which treats education as a common endeavor. It strives to leave participants with several important takeaways including the common purpose of education,… Read More ›
Guide to Protocols that Support Dialogue
This guide catalogues protocols developed by the School Reform Initiative that can be used to stimulate productive public conversations. This list provides a brief overview of the purpose, description, time needed, number of participants, and possible question prompts to begin the activities. You can also find a link to the full protocol instructions which are… Read More ›
Public Engagement: A Primer from Public Agenda
This short guide provides an overview of public engagement. It describes the differences and advantages of a capacity-building versus an event-oriented approach to public engagement. It outlines ten core principals to effective public engagement such as attending to people’s main concerns, framing issues for dialogue, and providing the right amount of information at the right… Read More ›
Resource Guide on Public Engagement
This guide outlines key practices of effective public engagement. It provides an overview of the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation’s approach to engagement, called the streams framework. This helpful visual categorizes engagement techniques into four “streams” based on the primary intention or purpose, and shows which methods have proven to be effective in each… Read More ›
Resources for Building Public Understanding of School Redesign in Vermont
This collection of resources provides examples to help schools, districts, or states increase public support for student-centered learning. It includes talking points, FAQs, an “Elevator Speech,” and sample brochures. It also includes an overview of protocols that can be used to facilitate public dialogues. The Shaping Our Future Together statewide campaign from the Agency of… Read More ›
Self-Regulation Professional Development Module
This professional development module was created as part of a partnership between Students at the Center, a Jobs for the Future initiative, and the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents. Six Connecticut high school teachers worked closely with researcher and lead author of “Prioritizing Motivation and Engagement” in Anytime, Anywhere: Student-Centered Learning for Schools and Teachers,… Read More ›
Telling Stories Out of School: Reframing the Education Conversation Through a Core Story Approach
This toolkit is designed to help leading voices in the education sector to build support and cultivate demand for an excellent public school system by building public understanding of issues such as assessment, instruction, and systemic supports and reforms. This set of materials is intended to support communicators in explaining many of the central issues… Read More ›
The Deeper Learning Planning Guide
This tool offers practical guidance on the conditions that have to be established for schools to truly change their practices to ensure students leave school with the sophisticated content knowledge and skills needed to be critical thinkers, problem-solvers, collaborators, and communicators. The Planning Guide is designed to be a resource and tool that can be… Read More ›
OER Commons
This website, Open Education Resource (OER) Commons, is a database of over 50,000 open educational resources and free digital content tools including lesson plans, electronic textbooks, and interactive mini lessons. The database is searchable by subject, grade, and material type. Each entry includes clear terms of use and access to the alignment tool to evaluate… Read More ›
Student Voice Rubric
This rubric is designed to help schools assess their inclusion of student voices in six key areas such as school governance and classroom culture. It also helps schools think through the qualities of student voices, including real leadership roles and appealing to students’ interests. The tool is the culmination of one year of research by… Read More ›