Community Asset Map Tool

Community PartnershipsReal-World Learning

The Community Asset Map is a tool that helps educators identify and leverage local resources, skills, and networks to enhance their teaching practice. By mapping out community assets – from businesses to cultural organizations – educators can create more meaningful learning experiences that connect classroom content with the real-world.

Through a step-by-step process, this tool helps you determine your mapping goals, identify key community connections, and create action plans. Want to explore more? Visit our Learner-Centered Ecosystem page to dive deeper.

Deepen your understanding of community partnerships through our blogs on Community Connections and Prioritizing Community & Relationships.

Blog

Making Learning Feel Real With Community Engagement in the Classroom

Written by Kim Landry, 3rd-Grade Teacher, Alamogordo Public Schools We’ve all been there: you’re deep into a unit, the students are engaged, but there’s a lingering sense of “so what?” You want your students to see that what they learn at their desks actually breathes and moves in the real world. One of the…

Blog

What an 8th-Grade Defense Taught Me About Competency-Based Learning

Written by Maysa Dadmun Have you ever watched a student light up when they get to learn about something they truly love? That spark is what shaped my entire 8th-grade defense project, and now, as a freshman in high school, it’s shaping the way I approach learning every day. I attended Sussex School, a…

Blog

5 Tips for Launching Internships and Apprenticeships in Your District

Every year, thousands of students graduate high school without stepping foot into a professional work setting. In today’s rapidly changing world, this lack of exposure is not providing students with the experiences and skills they need to thrive beyond graduation. So, what if school was not separate from the “real world,” but an active…

Publications

School Redesign Playbook

For more than a century, schools have been shaped by an industrial-era model built for efficiency, standardization, and compliance. While that design achieved many of its original aims, it has not met the needs of all learners, and it no longer prepares young people for a rapidly changing world. In addition to content knowledge,…

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Blog

Building a Public Education System That Learns, Adapts, and Endures

In 1972, Kodak Research Labs began experimenting with digital photography. By 1975, they had their first battery-powered digital camera prototype. Four years later, a Kodak employee predicted digital photography would be ubiquitous by 2010. Kodak filed for bankruptcy in 2012. What happened and what can education leaders learn from Kodak’s unexpected collapse? Kodak…

Blog

Making Learning Feel Real With Community Engagement in the Classroom

Blog

Testing Change Helps Educators Learn Their Way Forward

There’s a paradox at the heart of meaningful change in education: educators need shared direction while maintaining individual ownership within their schools and classrooms. They need coherence across a system and professional learning that honors and grows the ability to adopt new practices for their unique learners and contexts. Testing change honors this…