Strategy: Explore College, Career and Life Options with Learners
Inclusive & Equitable Learning Strategy: Explore College, Career and Life Options with Learners NOTE: This strategy is part of the self-paced Partner with Learners to Reach Their Full Potential Preparing learners for their next steps in life involves exposing them to a variety of options for life after high school and this can begin with young learners. Through exploring a variety of different career options and thinking about their strengths, over time, learners will develop the knowledge and skills they need to be college, career and life ready. Bright Spots Gain inspiration from authentic examples of this ...
Strategy: Provide Options for Accessibility
Inclusive & Equitable Learning Strategy: Provide Options for Accessibility NOTE: This strategy is part of the self-paced Partner with Learners to Reach Their Full Potential An equitable and inclusive learning environment is one in which ALL learners have access and challenge within every learning experience. This means that all learners, regardless of their language and ability, will be able to engage meaningfully with the learning experience. Providing options for accessibility can look like adding closed captioning to videos, providing an audio option for readings, ensuring the readability of text based on language needs, providing a translation tool and ...
Strategy: Make Thinking Visible
Personalized Learning Strategy: Make Thinking Visible NOTE: This strategy is part of the self-paced Develop Learner Agency Course Metacognition, the ability to think about your thinking and act on that reflection, has been shown to lead to greater learning outcomes and higher learner agency. To start the metacognitive process, educators can make their own thinking visible by thinking out loud and modeling metacognition. They can also provide sentence stems and opportunities for learners to show their thinking. This is common in math class but can be expanded to other subject areas. Bright Spots Gain inspiration from authentic ...
Strategy: Provide Learners With Tools to Prioritize Their Time
Personalized Learning Strategy: Provide learners with tools to prioritize their time NOTE: This strategy is part of the self-paced Develop Learner Agency Course Personalization can not just be made up of decisions that the educator makes for students. Educators must empower learners to make decisions about their learning and that takes new prioritization and decision-making skills, especially when learners are in charge of their own time. Providing tools such as blank planners, schedule templates, timers, and frameworks for prioritization, along with explicit modeling, practice and support, can empower learners to use their time wisely. Bright Spots Gain ...
Strategy: Create Portfolios with Learners
Competency-Based Learning Strategy: Create Portfolios with Learners NOTE: This strategy is part of the self-paced Design Performance-Based Assessments Portfolios are student-curated collections of work that include a self-reflection on progress over time and why that piece was selected to include in the portfolio. Portfolios can take a digital form in websites or a school’s LMS or can be collected in folders or binders. Building a portfolio fosters student self-reflection skills and provides them a space to show growth over time. Families can also use portfolios to see their child’s favorite pieces of work. Bright Spots Gain inspiration ...
Strategy: Host a Defense of Learning
Competency-Based Learning Strategy: Host Defense of Learning NOTE: This strategy is part of the self-paced Design Performance-Based Assessments A defense of learning is a way for a student to share a portfolio or a specific product and reflect on how they achieved the intended learning outcomes. A committee of peers, teachers, family, and/or community members provide feedback and determine if the student met learning outcomes. This experience mimics real-life situations like work presentations and provides an authentic deadline and audience, leading to higher-quality work. Bright Spots Gain inspiration from authentic examples of this strategy shared by teachers ...
Strategy: Host Student-Led Conferences
Competency-Based Learning Strategy: Host Student-Lead Conferences NOTE: This strategy is part of the self-paced Design Performance-Based Assessments A student-led conference is a meeting facilitated by students with their families and teachers. In this meeting, students reflect on their overall learning, progress towards goals, and next steps. Students who participate in student-led conferences take more ownership of their learning. The communication between school and home becomes more transparent through this form of conferencing. Bright Spots Gain inspiration from authentic examples of this strategy shared by teachers who have used them with their learners. Creating your own Bright Spots? ...
Strategy: Host Exhibitions of Learning
Competency-Based Learning Strategy: Host Exhibitions of Learning NOTE: This strategy is part of the self-paced Design Performance-Based Assessments Exhibitions of Learning, also called Celebrations of Learning or Demonstrations of Learning, are events where students share their learning and any products with their community. These events could take the form of a formal presentation (e.g. play), an individual exhibition (science fair), or a gallery walk of student tables (showcase). Exhibitions of learning provide authentic audiences for students with a public deadline which leads to higher quality of work. This gives students motivation to work towards something that will be ...
Strategy: Connect Learners to Mentors
Authentic Learning Strategy: Connect Learners to Mentors NOTE: This strategy is part of the self-paced Promote Anytime/Anywhere Learning While your school might not yet have a formal internship or mentorship program, there are still many ways to ensure learners get connected with local community members and with work-based learning experiences to expose them to the ever evolving world of work, and to support them in building essential skills for success in college, career and civic life. This could look like partnering with a nonprofit organization and inviting learners to engage in meaningful work to advance their mission, pairing ...
Strategy: Bring the Real World into the Classroom
Authentic Learning Strategy: Bring the Real World into the Classroom NOTE: This strategy is part of the self-paced Promote Anytime/Anywhere Learning Blurring the boundaries between the classroom and the real world doesn’t only mean physically bringing learners outside the classroom walls. Equally important is bringing the real world into the classroom by connecting students with content experts, community members, or governmental organizations, or by using technology to go on virtual field trips. Bright Spots Gain inspiration from authentic examples of this strategy shared by teachers who have used them with their learners. Creating your own Bright Spots? Let's ...
Strategy: Take Learners into the Real World
Authentic Learning Strategy: Take Learners into the Real World NOTE: This strategy is part of the self-paced Promote Anytime/Anywhere Learning When we prioritize engaging learners in authentic learning experiences and tasks, the entire world becomes our oyster for learning, exploration and reflection! Learning outside the four walls of the classroom can be as simple as stepping outside onto the playground to take measurements for learners’ proposed redesign plans, or going on an ethnographic walk through the neighborhood to learn about the history of people, businesses, and organizations, or going on a learning expedition (aka field trip) to a ...
Strategy: Design a Flexible Learning Space
Authentic Learning Strategy: Design a Flexible Learning Space NOTE: This strategy is part of the self-paced Promote Anytime/Anywhere Learning Flexible learning environments are spaces that honor the fact that learning happens both in and outside of the traditional classroom. They also enable opportunities for collaboration and student agency when deciding where and how to learn. A flexible learning environment may be a classroom space set up with desks in a variety of arrangements and flexible or comfortable furniture that allows for choice and variety in seating. However, flexible learning spaces are also about going outside of the box ...
Strategy: Protocols for Reflection on Learning
Authentic Learning Strategy: Protocols for Reflection on Learning NOTE: This strategy is part of the self-paced Design Real-World Learning Experiences Course Reflection is a key practice for deeper learning and should happen throughout the learning experience to shift the focus from the product of learning to the process. Reflection protocols, which are sentence starters/stems or specific reflection questions, support learners in learning how to reflect. Bright Spots Gain inspiration from authentic examples of this strategy shared by teachers who have used them with their learners. Creating your own Bright Spots? Let's get them out into the world! ...
Strategy: Project-Based Learning
Authentic Learning Strategy: Project-Based Learning NOTE: This strategy is part of the self-paced Design Real-World Learning Experiences Course Project-based learning is a way to engage learners in meaningful, authentic tasks that develop content-based knowledge and important skills for success in life including critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and problem-solving skills. Project-based learning is different from doing a traditional project in that it does not come after the learning but is instead the learning process itself. Learners are presented with an essential question that does not have a simple answer but does have a real-world application. Through exploring the question ...
Strategy: Encourage Retakes & Test Corrections
Competency-Based Learning Strategy: Encourage Retakes & Test Corrections NOTE: This strategy is part of the self-paced Design Performance-Based Assessments Bright Spots Gain inspiration from authentic examples of this strategy shared by teachers who have used them with their learners. Creating your own Bright Spots? Let's get them out into the world! Share yours here. Error-analysis stations At Drew Middle School in Talladega County Schools in Alabama, you will find error analysis stations throughout the hallways. By digging into the errors, students gain valuable insights into their thinking and any misconceptions they have. Test Corrections aren’t just for ...
Strategy: Co-Create Rubrics with Learners
Competency-Based Learning Strategy: Co-Create Rubrics with Learners NOTE: This strategy is part of the self-paced Design Performance-Based Assessments Co-creating rubrics with learners ensures that you clearly share the desired learning outcomes for a learning experience and gives learners ownership over their learning. It not only creates clarity of expectations for the educator but more importantly for the learner who was part of the creation process. Through the process of creating the success criteria learners. If learners are not part of the actual creation process, bringing them into make meaning of the pre-created success criteria by looking at models ...
Strategy: Bring Students to the Table for School Decisions
Personalized Learning Strategy: Bring Students to the Table for School Decisions NOTE: This strategy is part of the self-paced Amplify Learner Voice Course Asking students their opinions about decisions that affect them in their school community is a great place to start listening to learners. However, taking it a step further puts students at the decision making table. Inviting students to participate in school or district-wide decisions by being on the board, a part of a student government or on an ongoing advisory council gives them a direct way to influence decisions that affect them and their peers. ...
Strategy: Let Students Make Decisions in your Classroom
Personalized Learning Strategy: Let Students Make Decisions in your Classroom NOTE: This strategy is part of the self-paced Amplify Learner Voice Course In addition to making choices about their individual learning, students should be invited to engage in decisions that happen in their classrooms that affect them, their peers, and their educators. These decisions can range from something simple and small such as what music to listen to all the way to larger decisions such as what the arrangement of the furniture should be or what the class pet might be and how to take care of it. ...
