Reflect, Rest, and Rejuvenate This Summer
Image taken at Duquesne City School District The end of the school year is an exciting time filled with ceremonies, field trips, field days, exhibitions, plays, and performances celebrating the hard work of every educator and learner. However, it can also be a stressful and emotional period. Grades are due, everyone is tired from a long year, we must say goodbye to our students while juggling too many tasks in the final days. As we end this school year and start a well-deserved summer vacation, let’s take a moment to reflect so we can truly rest and rejuvenate. ...
3 Key Shifts from Traditional Grading to Competency-Based Learning and Assessment
This is the second blog post in a series on Competency-Based Learning from Bryanna Hanson. Read the first post on what competency-based learning is and why it’s important here. As a teacher, I quickly became frustrated by the limitations of the traditional grading system, one based on points, percentages and averages. This sparked my journey into competency-based learning - an approach that aligns with modern research on how students actually learn and grow. At its core, competency-based learning proposes three transformative shifts: from grading assignments to assessing proficiency on learning outcomes, from fragmented grade-level standards to developing interdisciplinary competencies over ...
Competency-Based Reporting Playbook
Welcome to the Learner-Centered Collaborative's Playbook on Competency-Based Assessment, Grading and Reporting. In many traditional grading systems, learners are ranked, sorted and seen as a number in a gradebook. But there's a competency-based world in which learners can be valued for who they are and how they are growing as individuals. It's time for a paradigm shift from a traditional to a competency-based approach to assessment, grading and reporting. This resource illuminates what is often a black box - how schools and districts are shifting away from traditional grading practices to ones that better align with and support learner-centered, competency-based ...
Competency-Based Learning: Shifting from Grading Points to Assessing Learning
Photo by Allison Shelley/The Verbatim Agency for EDUimages I started as a first year teacher, armed with a student teaching experience and a master’s degree, fairly confident that I was well prepared. If you are or have ever been a teacher, you are laughing right now because as you know, I figured out pretty quickly that I had a lot to learn. One of those things was how to grade. On my first day I was given access to our SIS and was given two requirements: 1) I needed a gradebook that had assignments in it by the ...
Ready-Set-Goal! Then Reflect & Repeat
We often talk about goals at the beginning of the school year and the calendar year as these are really natural times to reflect about what’s gone well and what we might do differently. However, these “seasonal” goals often end up on a physical or digital shelf and forgotten by the time October or February rolls around. Research has linked high quality goal-setting and reflecting routines to increased motivation, self-efficacy and engagement while decreasing anxiety. In a learner-centered environment regular, ongoing reflection and goal-setting are embedded into practices and routines. Ideally they are happening throughout the year by all members ...
How You Can (Almost) Have It All With AI: Optimizing the Balance of AI and Human Interaction
Written in collaboration with Brittany Griffin, Director of Strategic Partnerships There’s ample buzz around AI’s potential in K-12 education. It ranges from excitement, to concerns around ethical dilemmas, to debates about the efficacy of learning in front of a screen, to fear that technology will replace educators. Some have called for an all-in adoption of AI, while others have banned it outright. Almost every technology platform (including leading LMS and SIS tools) has started to advertise how they are currently leveraging AI. So, how can educators and leaders make decisions about when and how to use AI? There are ...
Learning Experiences BINGO card
Access actionable steps for creating personalized, competency-based, authentic, inclusive and equitable learning experiences
Reclaiming Joy at the End of the School Year
At VIDA middle school in Vista Unified School District, students in an English class give each other affirmations and gratitudes throughout the year. “Joy is the ultimate goal of teaching and learning, not test prep or graduation.” - Gholdy Muhammad, author, Unearthing Joy The end of the school year is in plain sight. Maybe you’re feeling elated, maybe you’re feeling overwhelmed or apprehensive, maybe it’s a mix of all these emotions, undoubtedly with some exhaustion mixed in. It may feel like time to focus on just surviving until summer break. According to Psychology Today, surviving is a slog ...
Scaling the Collaboration Pyramid
Students assemble a model wind turbine they constructed. Photo by Allison Shelley/The Verbatim Agency for EDUimages Collaboration is a top skill employers look for according to LinkedIn, Glassdoor and Indeed, all job search tools that see thousands of job postings everyday. It’s not surprising then that in a review of over 50 school, district, and state Learner Profiles (often called Graduate Profiles or Portraits of a Graduate), we found collaboration as a common desired learner outcome. At Learner-Centered Collaborative, our framework prioritizes collaboration as one of our three whole-learner outcomes we believe are key for learners to be ...
Embark Education: Rethinking Middle School Through Embedded, Integrated, and Learner-Centered Education
This micro middle-school, embedded in two small businesses, was designed with learners at the center and is an exemplar of what’s possible in learner-centered education. Learn how their design pillars, scheduling model, learner profile, competencies, assessment practices, and demonstrations of learning have evolved to form a powerful, learner-centered, student-driven middle school learning experience.
5 Ways to Foster Learner-Centered Innovation Through Professional Learning Cycles
Learning at any age requires clarity of objectives or goals, continued practice, feedback cycles, and plans for iteration and growth. This is why professional learning is best done through learning cycles instead of being a one-and-done event. These learning cycles promote a culture of sharing and innovation and oftentimes are best done in Communities of Practice or Professional Learning Community (PLCs) . At Coyote Springs Elementary School in Prescott Valley, AZ, Professional Learning Community members that meet regularly throughout the year build learner-centered teaching practices in the same way they encourage their students to learn: capturing and reflecting on evidence ...
Uncovering the True Purpose of Assessment
In a learner-centered classroom, assessment is not done to but rather with the learner. Assessment becomes less about determining what a student doesn’t know or can’t do, but instead the emphasis shifts to providing opportunities for students to show what they do know and can do.
