“Alright, we’re going for 10,000 meters in the next 4 minutes! Give it everything you’ve got!” 

As if competing (or Vikings), everyone in the room pushed harder, fans were whirling, and slowly but surely, the number on the screen began to climb. Nobody was getting spotlit for doing more than their fair share, and no one was getting critiqued for doing less, but we all saw the goal and knew that we were playing a part. 

This is a small example but a potent one. 

Think about how different this is from standard assessments and demonstrations of learning in school. There are some places (music, theatre, team sports) where the experience embraces a more collective demonstration of skills, but this ethos rarely makes its way into classrooms or even into the fabric of what we tell young people to know and do. 

We are at a global moment where challenges can rarely be solved alone. Each of us has a moral reckoning with ourselves, our local and global communities, and the environment. This will not happen by accident, it must be intentional. In the words of Tom Vander Ark, “The future is diverse teams working with smart tools and complex problems. ”To do that, we must radically rethink our relationship with the individual and the collective. 

In our conversations over the years, we’ve framed this as “contribution” and “difference making,” learning approaches that require learners to think about their real-world impact on their community. Fundamentally, this is purpose-driven work. 

Personalized Portraits within a Community 

Our recent publication, The Portrait Model, serves as a valuable resource for educators and edleaders to take a critical look at themselves, their schools, and their community and ensure that the visions are aligned such that they reinforce and sustain each other. We advocate for the following process:

“To facilitate and empower leaders in this transformative journey, we start with a comprehensive visioning and strategic process that revolves around five interconnected and dynamic portraits: the Portrait of a Learner, the Portrait of a System, the Portrait of a Leader, the Portrait of an Educator and a Self-Portrait. The framework’s interrelated and adaptable elements have interconnected and discrete competencies. Done in an intentional order of Learner, System, Educator, Leader, then Self, the resulting framework provides clear guidance and transparency to the redesign process.”

Across the nation, we witness the creation of Portraits of a Graduate created by states, districts, networks, and individual schools, often stacked on top of each other (i.e. a state has a portrait, a district has a portrait that iterates on it, etc.). This model of personalization allows leaders to better cater to their community while aligning with the broader goals and initiatives of the state, decreasing friction and increasing access to opportunity. 

Collective Assessment

Moving beyond the school level, every learner and leader must investigate their own portrait, identifying how they plan to contribute.

“Centering the entire system is understanding self. The “Self-Portrait” process provides opportunities for learners to articulate goal-setting, strength evaluations, description of learning preferences, well-being, hope, social network, etc. While technology solutions like Thrively, Unrulr, and AYO allow learners to capture their portraits, simple systems can be created to capture the Self-Portrait portfolio over time using journaling, documents, or websites.”

As we explore collective assessment and personalized graduate portraits, we are starting on a path that goes beyond the conventional norms of education. The rowing class example serves as a metaphorical paddle of a future where collaborative efforts, communal goals, and shared accomplishments become the norm. However, as each rower contributes to the overall distance covered, learners and leaders must navigate their unique roles within the broader community. The Portrait process becomes a compass, guiding us to articulate our aspirations, strengths, and contributions while fitting into the collective narrative.

• Learning as a Collective
• Community is Learning
• Assessment as Revelation, Not Destination
• Building a Capstone Program

The post The Productive Tension of the Me and the We appeared first on Getting Smart.

Today, ETS announced that MTC will become a subsidiary. It’s a big deal—not financially, but because it brings together key infrastructure components for the future of learning.

Mastery Transcript Consortium (where I am a Director) is a national nonprofit membership organization that provides a mastery transcript that replaces traditional high school transcripts. Instead of a list of courses and grades, learners share competencies with colleges and employers. This spring, over 500 colleges accepted learners applying with the Mastery Transcript or Mastery Record. 

Nonprofit ETS is a global education and talent solutions organization. Their innovative assessment solutions help 50 million people each year to clarify their strengths and find opportunities for growth in education, work and beyond. They operate around the world with operations in 200 countries and territories. 

A year ago, the Carnegie Foundation and ETS announced a new partnership designed to transform assessment by creating a robust, scalable suite of assessment and analytic tools that captures the full range of skills required for American students to succeed in K–12, postsecondary education and beyond. ETS described A New Vision for Skills-Based Assessment. 

What’s the Problem? 

One of the core problems is that education is based on time rather than learning. Tim Knowles explains: 

“In 1906, when the Carnegie Foundation created the Carnegie Unit, it suggested that a college degree should be 120 credits. Today, it’s 120 credits. It’s become the bedrock currency of the educational economy. It’s infiltrated everything. It’s how we organize high schools and universities and how we think about assessment, it’s instrumental to accreditation, to who gets financial aid and who doesn’t. It defines the daily work of teachers and professors. It is the system.”

More on the problem with courses and grades:

• Diplomas and grades have lost currency as signaling devices 
• A list of required time-based courses is a weak and inconsistent way to organize skill priorities 
• Courses silo learning by discipline and stifle innovative and equitable learning experiences 
• Grades are a mushy inflated signal and lousy extrinsic motivator

At ASU-GSV, Tim Knowles and XQ’s Russlyn Ali outlined the pillars of the new architecture: 

• New goals for what students should know and be able to do.   (our XQ Learner Outcomes below)
• New learning experiences that transform what teaching and learning look and feel like
• New signals and indicators of success about how students are doing and how adults and the system must adapt to serve them
• All with catalyzing forces underneath with unprecedented coordination among them, like supportive policies, smart infrastructure, and intuitive technology like AI

The ETS and MTC partnership is a big advance in goals and signals. New learning goals—what ETS calls Skills for the Future—will be assessed in accurate, authentic and dynamic ways yielding new signals—skill credentials shared through portable learner records.

We finally have a chance to move courses and grades into the background and foreground powerful personalized learning experiences and capture and communicate the resulting capabilities in much more descriptive ways—and do it at scale.

For more, check out the conversation below where we talked with Tim Knowles and Amit Sevak about ETS, collaboration and the Carnegie Unit.  

The post Skills Transcripts at Scale: Why The ETS & MTC Partnership is a Big Deal appeared first on Getting Smart.

Recently, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC, served as a vibrant venue for the first-ever International Micro School Conference hosted by Microschools.com, Mysa, and Prenda. This event gathered a global community of microschool leaders, educators, researchers, social entrepreneurs, and innovators, all sharing a common goal: to explore and expand the horizons of microschools –  small learning environments designed to provide highly personalized learning experiences. This gathering was not just a conference but a celebration of innovation, community, and the potential of education to adapt and thrive in diverse environments. As a participant, I had the unique opportunity to engage with this diverse group and now share the compelling insights and experiences from this gathering.

A Global Gathering of Visionaries

The conference featured an impressive lineup of speakers from around the globe, each sharing their unique insights into the evolving world of education. Among them was Tim Vieira, founder of Brave Generation Academy and presidential candidate of Portugal, who shared his vision for a school without walls that extends its learning environment into the community. His approach not only breaks the physical barriers of traditional schooling but also integrates 61 global hubs from the US to Mozambique, creating a truly international learning network.

Another standout session was led by Mohammed Rezwan, founder and architect of Shidulai Swanirvar Sangstha, known for their innovative Floating Schools in Bangladesh. These floating schools, libraries, playgrounds, health clinics, and training centers in flood-prone areas are essential as they offer a poignant example of how education can be tailored to meet the specific needs of a community, ensuring that learning never stops, even in the face of natural disasters.

Challenges and Innovations in Education

Thomas Arnett, senior research fellow at the Clayton Christensen Institute, led a session on transforming education and addressed the systemic barriers that often stifle educational innovation. His focus on organizational autonomy, catering to unconventional students, and promoting opt-in adoption provided a framework for thinking about how new educational models can be successfully implemented.

Data-Driven Approaches to Homeschooling

Dr. Angela Watson, founder of the John Hopkins Homeschool Hub and Research Lab, brought attention to the rapidly growing sector of homeschooling and shared insights on trends and regulations. She emphasized the need for policies informed by robust data, saying, “As homeschooling continues to expand and evolve, we need a better understanding of this growing and diversifying education sector. We need policy based on facts, not historical stereotypes. My hope is that the Homeschool Hub will help fill these needs.” Her presentation emphasized the importance of developing stronger data and policies that accurately represent the modern state of homeschooling. This shift away from outdated misconceptions aims to foster a more evidence-based comprehension of its effects and scope by providing accessible data and research to the public.

Historical Perspectives and Future Directions

Professor James Tooley, Vice-Chancellor and President of The University of Buckingham, and described by Philanthropy magazine as “a 21st century Indiana Jones” traveling to “the remotest regions on Earth researching something that many regard as mythical: private, parent-funded schools serving the Third World poor” provided a historical lens on the microschool movement, discussing the evolution of low-cost private schools across various countries. His insights into the characteristics that have helped these schools succeed offered valuable lessons for anyone looking to support or launch similar models. He has helped to create a chain of low-cost private schools in India, Ghana, Honduras, and most recently established one in the north-east of England with the proper infrastructures and resources needed to advance equitable, accessible, and inclusive education.

Creating Spaces of Possibility

The workshop I led, along with notable educators such as Coi Morefield (Lab School of Memphis), Andrew Lee (Vita Schools of Innovation), Oscar Valles (Ellemercito Academy), and Lana Tran (Project Olives) focused on the concept of “Creating Spaces of Possibility: Transforming the Mundane to Magical.” Through a dynamic fishbowl-style discussion, we explored strategies for reconceptualizing educational spaces and cultivating supportive learning communities. We engaged closely with the audience, discussing how any space can be transformed into areas of creativity, safety, and innovation, and offered a holistic approach that views every environment as an opportunity for engaging and transformative learning. The energy in the room was palpable as participants shared their experiences and dreams for creating educational environments and school cultures that transcend the mundane to achieve the magical. The main goal was to provide a time of reflection so that founders could realize they have already created spaces of possibility, as most of our programs represent what parents have desired for their children but did not know existed. The overarching aim was to inspire educators and leaders to view the collective learning cultures of our microschooling communities as what they truly are—unique, needed, and indeed, magical.

Neuroscience and Education

Kaity Broadbent, Prenda’s Chief Empowerment Advocate, delved into the neuroscience behind learning and its implications for education during her workshop “Changing Childhood and Education.” She discussed the critical roles of connection, competence, and autonomy in fostering environments where students can thrive mentally and physically. Understanding brain-based approaches to learning underscores the importance of aligning educational techniques with how students naturally learn and process information, a crucial consideration for anyone involved in educational planning and curriculum design. 

Reflections and Future Outlooks

The two days of the conference were not just about sharing knowledge but also about building a community of individuals committed to rethinking and reshaping education. The collaborative atmosphere was a reminder that while the challenges are significant, the potential for impactful change is enormous.

As I reflect on the myriad discussions, workshops, and panels, I am struck by the resiliency, social entrepreneurship, and creativity of educators worldwide. The shared commitment to improving education through innovative, community-focused solutions was inspiring. The conference not only provided a platform for sharing best practices but also sparked conversations that will resoundingly continue to influence the educational landscape long into the future.

Lizette Valles, M.Ed., is the founder of Ellemercito Academy, a Los Angeles-based microschool, with a focus on project/place-based learning with a strong focus on trauma-informed teaching approaches.

The post Microschools with a World Vision: Insights from the First International Micro School Conference appeared first on Getting Smart.

As school builders, how do we best minimize blindspots, respond to inequities, and create universally designed spaces that account for the diverse array of lived experiences within our schools? 

By building from the margins, or redesigning in deep consideration of the most underserved, we have the opportunity to create empowering schools that use the experiences of the most at-promised youth to enhance the overall school. 

The design process must be centered around the user experience. Youth must be at the table to share insights, illuminate blindspots, and critique current practices to design and revise the overall school model. Cogenerative dialogue is a useful tool for eliciting the voices of youth to drive and direct change. 

Secondly, design processes must be focused and scaffolded. What is the capacity of your school for change? Does this change align with your current priorities and mission? All must be in alignment for meaningful growth to occur.  

Example Design Process

1. Assess the assumed need or challenge (do so without making general assumptions, but rather devise questions to ask your youth to inform your problem statement. Avoid getting attached to claims about the problem and allow the true issue to be surfaced through empathy interviews and discussions with the community) 
2. Survey your youth/community 
3. Revise your need or challenge 
4. Assess your school’s capacity for change 
5. Plan backward from the desired outcome with frequent check-ins with students on the impact these changes have on their experience in schools (focus on slow meaningful change rather than rushed changes) 

While this design process is a great way to lay a foundation for starting, there are numerous pitfalls of school and system transformation. Below are a few of the most common and some guidance on how to anticipate and overcome them. 

Identify the Locus of Control

A common trap of the school redesign process can be overemphasizing all of the factors that we do not control within schools. Ultimately, a huge portion of our students’ personal lives directly impacts their performance in school and overall ability to learn. Though schools and school personnel cannot control it all, it is important for us to adequately assess how we can operate as community hubs to address the most challenging issues our youth face which may lead to inequitable learning experiences. To address these factors, it is important to consider two things; advocacy and fundraising. 

Spot Inequities

When building from the margins, it is common to expose inequities that are not considered by the status quo. Once this is identified it can be important to expose the inequity to local, state, and federal leaders to be considered for future policies. This can also direct funding and resources to ensure these changes have long-term sustainability. 

Fundraise and Staff Accordingly

When designing schools that provide extraordinary resources (i.e. housing support,food beyond school hours, extended counseling services, etc.)  or services, it is imperative to devise long-term sustainability models in tandem with designing the system. Innovative ideas are often attractive for grant funding when paired with concrete action plans, deadlines, and impact assumptions. Having someone on the team document the impact and process to later be used for grant writing can save time and effort. Codify and memorialize as you build! 

Don’t Recreate The Wheel

Transcend Education’s Innovative Model Exchange is an amazing toolkit for accessing innovative and successful school models and resources. I would advise that anyone seeking to make meaningful changes to their model use this toolkit only after they have engaged with their community to unearth the root of the problem and the most meaningful level of change. 

Looking to other school models prior can lead to misidentification of the needed change and ultimately adopting a system or model not tailored to your particular community. Building from the margins is all about recentering the most disenfranchised as a way of building a more encompassing model capable of equitably serving all. 

Erin Whalen, is the Executive Director at Da Vinci RISE High School.

The post Tips and Tools for Equitable and Sustainable School Design appeared first on Getting Smart.

Here’s an alarming statistic: in a 2019 survey of 47,000 high school students, just 40% of students said they felt like “a real part of this school.” That means 60% of students show up to school each day feeling, to some degree, like outsiders. Given the intense isolation many students have felt during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s hard to imagine this lack of belonging has gotten any better. In fact, it’s likely gotten worse.

So, what happens to those kids? Research shows that a lack of belonging at school causes students to disengage. Their performance suffers. And they come to believe that certain futures aren’t available to them. 

We’ve seen cultural movements around diversity, equity, and inclusion that are meant to help people feel included. But, is merely being included enough for a child, or does she need to feel like she belongs and is a valued member of her community? 

Just about every school experience improves when students feel like they belong. According to one 2022 review, students become more confident, motivated, and engaged overall. That means they’ll speak up more confidently in class, ask more questions, work better with their classmates, and perform better academically. Ultimately, if you can model a place of belonging for children as they’re growing up, they’re more likely to become adults who create this kind of world for others—and isn’t that the highest goal education can achieve?

Most school leaders probably think they already do things to make students feel like they belong. But, this isn’t the case. Painting your walls blue and yellow just because those are your school colors won’t make students feel like they belong. Chances are, it will just give them headaches. To create a school of belonging, an institution’s leaders need to consider what really gets people of any age to feel connection: ownership, representation, and community.

Exceed Student Expectations

Not long ago, I designed a tech lab in Oakland, California for students to use after school and on the weekends. It’s called Code Next. On a typical Friday afternoon, Code Next is relatively quiet. There’s the low humming of a laser cutter as a student etches a piece of wood, and a few 3D printers whirring in the makerspace. Pretty soon, a handful more students filter in. Without hesitation, they grab a laptop and a pair of headphones. Then they grab a few other essentials: a bottle of Vitamin Water, a pack of Oreos, and a piece of Swiss chocolate. They get down to work. 

The work that gets done at Code Next is permissionless. Students don’t need to ask anyone if they can work on certain projects or use whatever materials and tools they need. They just do it because they feel comfortable in that space. When the Code Next team at Google asked me to design a learning lab where students would feel a sense of belonging, I knew that meant students had to feel like the space was theirs. 

I designed the entire lab to feel accessible, where all of the supplies and fancy equipment were in reach, not hidden or locked up in cabinets. Students have front-door access and show up whenever they please. Furniture is movable and modular, so kids can create the workspaces that make sense for them. The space is theirs, and it’s in that sense of ownership where we most feel like we belong. 

Within weeks of Code Next’s opening, a student told me, “The design of the lab really makes it feel like a workspace for engineers. You really feel that engineering feeling going through your body. It really helped me understand what I want to pursue in the future.”

A staff member shared, “The space is so cool, and open and fun. It kind of feels like a playground but in an educational way. And that’s kind of the best part — it motivates you to say ‘What can I learn?!’  We have students come on their lunch breaks or after school even when there’s no programming.”

Ask Students for Input So They Can Make it Their Own

It’s also crucial that school leaders consult the students themselves about the kind of school they want to attend. If students have a say, they’re more likely to feel like the space belongs to them and that they belong there. 

An example of this came from the City Neighbors High School in Baltimore, Maryland. When it opened in 2010, the school did something fascinating. They let students design the cafeteria. In fact, they asked students, “If you could have the all-time coolest cafeteria for your high school, what would it look like?” The kids came up with a long wish list: black leather couches, a stage with a piano, pub-sized tables, and booths. And the school gave it to them! 

This act alone, of involving students in the design process, makes students feel like it’s partly their space. This leads to feelings of belonging, in the same way a child would feel more at home if their parents let them design their living room. 

City Neighbors did something else interesting to break down the barrier between students and teachers, which led to greater belonging. In the cafeteria, all around the walls, they put up framed photos of the students and staff from when they were young children. For example, there’s a photo of the school principal when he was a young boy with his big brother at the kitchen table. To the students, this humanized their teachers. It made it easier to connect with them since they could see how the faculty was once just like them—that they too used to love video games or playing pranks with their siblings. 

Once it was easier to form these relationships, students started to feel like they belonged, because they truly knew one another. They became a part of a community. 

Use Representation to Help Students Dream Big

Lastly, a way to create a sense of belonging is through seeing the space as a place “where people like me succeed.” A couple of years ago, I got the chance to design a campus for Tech Exchange. It’s a program where university students from HBCUs and Hispanic Serving Institutions spend a year studying at Google’s headquarters, a place where (like many tech companies) Black and brown faces are noticeably sparse.

To help these college students feel greater belonging, all over the campus I plastered billboards of successful Black and Hispanic engineers who went to the very same universities that these students were coming from. Walking around, students see billboards of successful people of color. They see people who came from where they came from and made things happen—that even though they don’t look like Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg, they belong on this campus and in the tech world because people of color can and have achieved great things. 

I also located the billboards so they’d be seen by Google’s hiring managers. If these hiring managers saw success stories of Black and brown people, maybe they’d see more potential in these kids. They would look at them differently, and even treat them differently—like they belonged as much as students from Stanford or MIT. 

This way, students can enjoy more upward mobility with help from adults in power who also believe that the students belong and feel compelled to support their success.

Inclusion Isn’t Enough

While it’s important that no one feels excluded at school, that should be the bare minimum. As education leaders, the real goal should be to make everyone feel like they belong. People should look forward to coming to school. 

The way to do that is to create experiences where teachers interact more meaningfully with students. How much agency you give to students makes a difference. And whether they see themselves in that world and have a say in creating it, too, also makes a big difference. 

Remember, the environment is not neutral. Our spaces influence how we feel from moment to moment, week to week, year to year. If six out of ten students are saying they don’t feel like they belong, that means they’re counting on their teachers, community leaders, and parents to fix that. They are counting on you to roll up your sleeves and create a place where they do feel like they belong.

Danish Kurani is an architect and created the Baaham design philosophy. In 2021, Fast Company named him one of the world’s Most Innovative Architects.

The post How to Design a School for Belonging appeared first on Getting Smart.

On a chilly Saturday morning this March, a sold-out crowd of more than 250 educators got up early and drove from towns all over Western Pennsylvania to gather in a primary school gymnasium at the Ehrman Crest Elementary School in the Seneca Valley School District north of Pittsburgh. The educators celebrated the teachings of Fred Rogers as part of frED Camp. The Ehrman Crest Elementary School is a 2022 Time Magazine award-winning building that is a living example of how “the Fred Method” is based on intentional learning. 

The “Fred” of this day-long workshop’s title is Fred Rogers, creator and host of the groundbreaking television series “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.” Though many adults remember Rogers as a kindly presence on their childhood TV screens, his legacy includes extensive research into child development and a commitment to leveraging the technology of his day in groundbreaking ways. Beyond entertaining America’s kids, Rogers left behind a body of work that a growing community of educators are now using to improve the ways they teach and mentor children. 

“There’s a growing recognition that we see among teachers that this person they grew up loving for all sorts of different reasons — but mostly because he made them feel good when they were kids — is now someone who can guide them to become better at their jobs as educators and even as parents. It’s a really joyful thing,” says Ryan Rydzewski, co-author of When You Wonder, You’re Learning: Mister Rogers’ Enduring Lessons for Raising Creative, Curious, Caring Kids. 

The book, co-authored with Gregg Behr, was the inspiration for frED Camp. Since its release in 2021, teachers around the world have been applying “The Fred Method” in their classrooms, using technology — and findings from the science of learning and child development — to spark joyful, welcoming learning experiences. “We’ve been talking to teachers for three years now, and they’re always showing us their incredible work, saying ‘Oh, here’s the Fred-like thing I’m doing in my classroom,’” Behr says. “So we thought, ‘Why don’t we bring some of these folks together and see what happens?’”

The program started with an opening plenary session highlighting how “Environment Drives Behavior” led by Anne Fullencamp from the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh and Lauri Pendred, the principal at Ehrman Crest Elementary. They explained how every part of the building was designed to engage learners. Hallways become extensions of the classrooms. Even the playground incorporates space themes so play becomes an intentional activity. The center of the building, a spiraling staircase from the first to second floor showcases student artwork and provides opportunities for student voice. The staircase is also an example of how students were incorporated into the design process. It was the students who made the case for the pathway. 

The majority of the morning educators interacted with presenters at educator-led workshops. The educators shared great examples of the Fred Method in action throughout the Pittsburgh region. Anna Blake, a STEAM teacher for the Elizabeth Forward School District, and Melissa Unger, a STEAM teacher for the South Fayette School District, conducted a workshop “Capturing Creativity: Leveraging Engagement and Deepening Reflection through STEAM Learning.” According to Anna, “We are so honored to present at frED CAMP! I felt inspired as I walked in the door at the doors of Seneca Valley. So many chances to wonder and collaborate with Mr. Rogers in mind. So excited to connect and share learning! PD like this IS what fills up my bucket of love for teaching.”

“It’s refreshing because it’s not, ‘here’s one more thing you have to do,’” says Rydzewski. “Instead, it’s ‘here’s the value in what you already love to do.’ If you can do that in front of your kids, it’s going to elevate their learning. We know from science that when kids get swept up in the vortex of a teacher’s interest, then they get excited about learning all kinds of other things, too.”

It’s a lesson Fred Rogers knew well. For more than 30 years in Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, he introduced viewers to countless guest stars: think Yo-Yo Ma, Wynton Marsalis, Julia Child, and beyond. “Whoever it happened to be, we remember their visits because we saw their passion for what they do,” says Behr. “Fred didn’t focus on their accomplishments or awards. Instead, he focused on the things that lit them up, and that light created the joyful learning atmosphere that still resonates a half-century later.” 

“What we’ve tried to do is make Fred’s lessons and his blueprints more accessible,” Behr says. “But it’s the practitioners who are going to make this stuff matter — and they are. They’re running with it. And their students are running right along with them.”

Jennifer Wachs, a media teacher for the South Allegheny School District, reinforced the impact of the day for practitioners, “What an absolute privilege it was to attend this year’s frED Camp! There was a tremendous amount of warmth and sense of community from the participants. We were all united by a profound love of children, and of course, Mr. Rogers. It was inspiring to witness the collective passion and dedication as presenters shared a host of innovative ideas for sparking curiosity and joy, and participants engaged in hands-on activities and meaningful discussions.  frED Camp reinforced the importance of creating a warm, inclusive, and stimulating learning environment that nurtures children’s social and emotional well-being. The day recharged my batteries and reaffirmed my belief in the transformative power of education.”

Next year’s frED Camp will be held at another venue that embodies its namesake’s legacy: Theperfy Fred Rogers Institute in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. Open to educators of all kinds — including teachers, early learning educators, librarians, parent leaders, afterschool directors, coaches, mentors, and more — frED Camp is set for March 15, 2025.

Norton Gusky is an educational technology broker and uses technology to empower kids, educators and communities. You can find him on Twitter at @ngusky.

The post frED Camp: The Legacy of Fred Rogers appeared first on Getting Smart.

Visiting One Stone in Boise taught me that school could be about leading and difference making. I learned that young people could be invited into work and roles that matter (to them and their community) and that consequential experiences turbocharge leadership and problem solving (perhaps the two most important skill sets). 

Teresa Poppen launched One Stone 15 years ago as a free afterschool program for Boise high school students. She explained the origin of the studio model: 

Our innovative initiatives grew out of the desire to help students use their voice to change the world. At the starting line for One Stone is Project Good, an experiential service program that mobilizes the power of passionate students to bring real-world solutions to complex issues. Next came Two Birds, our student-led and directed creative services studio. Then we doubled down on entrepreneurship through the launch of Solution Lab, a business incubator for high school students. In each of these platforms we teach and use design thinking—ensuring we are relevant, innovative, and focused on our end user for real results.

Students are “active participants in the governance and direction of the organization” and make up two-thirds of the board of directors. (The featured image is of a One Stone board meeting where Teresa is sitting in back listening to student leaders.)

In the fall of 2016, with support from Albertson Foundation, One Stone opened Lab51, a high school based on the unique student-led culture, rooted in empathy and powered by design thinking.

Lab51 students co-author lab and studio experiences inspired by a beautiful outcome framework. They demonstrate and track progress on a Growth Transcript. Students explore their passions and develop a sense of purpose through Living in Beta, a personal wayfinding program.

One Stone studio learning experiences invite student leadership and value creation. 

Poppen explains, “We are forging an army of good, for good.”

This Boise program and school is a place alive with possibility. It inspired my book Difference Making at the Heart of Learning. It convinced me that inviting learners into work that matters could more than a capstone experience, it could be central to the mission of education.

In November, Teresa Poppen retired as the Executive Director and Ultimate Difference Maker at One Stone. She’s made a big difference in Boise and created a model that inspires educators nationally. I’ve learned something on every visit. 

For more on One Stone see: 

• Not Your Typical Back-to-School Days at Learner-Centered Sites (8/23)
• One Stone Students Serve Up the Glass Half Full (6/21)
• On Building a Network of Schools Using the One Stone Growth Transcript (4/21) 
• The Power of the Pivot (3/20)
• Why Difference Making is the New Superpower (4/20)
• Living in Beta: One Stone’s Pilot Results Are In (8/21) 
• Living in Beta: New Advisory Program Helps Teens Learn With Purpose (10/20)

The post One Stone: Forging An Army of Good  appeared first on Getting Smart.

At a conference in Malaysia in the spring of 2023, I heard keynote speaker Todd Shy, author of Teaching Life: Life Lessons for Aspiring (and Inspiring) Teachers (2021) and head of upper school at Avenues in New York, refer to education as a “human event” that changes lives for the better. He shared beautiful stories about students impacted permanently and positively by an adult who saw them, who “claimed them,” as Shy put it, and who lifted them to be their best selves and pursue a life they perhaps hadn’t envisioned for themselves before. He invited us to remember who those people were for us as children, and it took me back to those educators who really saw me, adults who extended kindness and grace when I stumbled, who challenged me to work harder and supported my whole self even as I figured out who that was. It was a beautiful way to start the conference.

But I can’t shake the questions Todd’s words raised for me. Seeking to have a positive impact on our students is what we educate for, no question, and I highly recommend his book, which I found deeply poetic and moving. But what about those moments of accidental harm an educator can create as well, moments when students feel seen only for their deficits, or are held back from their aspirations because an adult suggests their goals somehow don’t make sense? We all have memories of those teachers, too—and the use of “accidental” is me giving educators the benefit of the doubt, as I certainly hope it’s never intentional. Sadly, there are still teachers out there who revel in how many students fail their classes, who enjoy wielding power over young people and may even cause intentional harm. But I believe they are few, and that most cases of harm are in fact unintentional.

In The Landscape Model of Learning (2022), my coauthor Kapono Ciotti and I share stories of such harm: Astronaut Mae Jemison being told by a kindergarten teacher that she should become a nurse instead of a doctor; my hija de corazón feeling seen only for her deficits for five years of her education, who gave up on higher education partly because a teacher made her feel like a hard luck case to get into college; the boy in a special education program who didn’t think he had any gifts until he was a senior in high school. Many of us have these stories from our childhoods as well, and some of us teach to erase the accidental harm once done to us by opening doors and avoiding such harm for our own students. 

Mine was a humanities teacher I had for 4^th through 6^th grade. I loved the humanities and still do, but this teacher could easily have pushed me away from my future as a writer and thinker. I have no memory of what preceded her comment, only that this teacher told me I needed to learn to think before I spoke. My parents had chosen an alternative school for me, a place where every child was supposed to feel seen, a place where I fit in because we were all a little outside the box. And most of the time I did. But on this day, an educator turned my mind into my enemy, and she broke something in me that I spent years trying to repair.

I remember bits of the aftermath. Honestly, I was confused at first, and maybe a little angry. Surely I did think before I spoke—I was always thinking. But I rarely saw anything the way other people did. Did she mean I should think before saying something different than what she was looking for? Did she mean I needed to learn to filter my thoughts differently, censor myself instead of being forthright about my ideas? I struggle to remember what I said that precipitated the comment, but I remember how it sealed my lips for months. This encounter was the moment I began to lose confidence in my ideas, and to question my right to share them. And I’ve had to fight those demons my entire life.

While accidental harm may be impossible to avoid completely, there are myriad strategies we can use to help prevent acts of accidental harm and to restore wellbeing after harm occurs in our classrooms and schoolhouses. 

Establish a classroom culture that is safe and encouraging for every child.

 I often invite teachers to create a Y chart on this topic before they start their school year: If we have built a classroom space where every individual can thrive and no harm should occur, what should we see, hear and feel? A safe and encouraging culture isn’t just a place where students don’t hurt each other physically; it’s a place that encourages intellectual risk taking, honest self reflection, and all the messy complexity of growth, without fear of judgement or failure. It can be a chaotic space, too, but it’s a sort of productive chaos anyone can recognize when it’s happening—the classroom comes alive with a buzz of activity, curiosity, and collaboration. It’s not a space where there are no disagreements; it’s a space where disagreements are an opportunity to understand each other better. And it’s not a space where we avoid frustration; instead, it’s a space where we work our way through our frustrations and learn from them. This requires effort on the part of both educators and students, to ensure that frustrations and challenges don’t explode into accidental harm, instead offering opportunities for growth and safe connection.

Build asset-based relationships with every student. 

There’s plenty of science to support the importance of every student having at least one “trusted adult” in school. But it has to be the right sort of relationship to be considered one that leans on assets and supports learning. In our research for The Landscape Model of Learning, Kapono and I encountered research (Victoria Theisen-Homer, 2022) that found a prevalence of instrumentally focused relationships with students among educators in low-income schools (a one-way relationship designed to ensure a specific outcome, usually student compliance), and a tendency for reciprocally focused relationships among educators in more affluent schools (an affirming, two-way relationship designed to encourage students to think for themselves). Impulsed by implicit bias, instrumentally focused relationships are a clear source of accidental harm for students in low-income contexts, as they do not encourage the growth of students’ whole selves so much as compliance with the demands of the teacher. 

Having the right sort of relationship with students is essential to avoiding accidental harm, and asset-based relationships are essential to students feeling seen and honored for who they are and what they’re good at. When we stop focusing on quiet, compliant classrooms and start focusing on showing every child that we see their talents and interests, and believe in them as learners and humans, we can motivate growth in their areas of need as well.

Use different forms of self reflection regularly to help students explore their identities and understand themselves. 

Students’ self knowledge doesn’t develop because of an activity or two; identity develops and coalesces over years through the consistent practice of self reflection. Unfortunately, classroom teachers often feel they don’t have time to pause and let students reflect, which isn’t suprising given the demands of the classroom. But the science is clear: self reflection and metacognition are essential to human growth and wellbeing, and the better students know themselves, the more comfortably they will self advocate if an accidental harm occurs. Similarly, educators who create space for safe self reflection in class get to know their students far better, which helps reduce the likelihood of accidental harm and increase the likelihood that they will help spark students’ growth and nurture their wellbeing. I strongly recommend that at least some forms of reflection be private if students choose, as a private journal can motivate deeper, more honest self knowledge than one students know will be read by the teacher. 

Offer thoughtful feedback that encourages and even sparks growth. 

We have all received less-than-helpful feedback at some point in our lives, and we know how easily it can stop growth rather than catalyzing it. I learned early in my teaching career to start from compliments and then offer constructive feedback, what my friend and colleague Jill Ackers always calls “growth-producing feedback.” By starting with compliments, we show every student that we do see what they’re doing well, that we know they are capable of excellence and growth. And when students know that their teachers believe in them, in their ability to grow from where they are to where they could be, they are more able to learn from and apply the feedback received, less likely to get defensive or just give up. In my opinion, the whole point of feedback is not judgement or grading—it’s about nurturing our students and encouraging their growth. Whereas judgemental feedback can make students feel incapable of improvement, thoughtful and supportive feedback makes students feel good about themselves and capable of incredible growth.

Apologize and repair when an accident occurs. 

Sometimes, accidents do occur; no educator is perfect, and bad things can happen when we’re undertrained, overstressed, or rushing to meet expectations. In my experience, teachers can also get nervous about regulations and restrictions on what they’re allowed to say or do to support students, which is a recipe for a whole lot of anxiety and even more accidental harm. So part of the solution is simply to notice when harm has occurred, as quickly as possible, and to respond immediately in ways that help to restore wellbeing for the student. That might look like something as simple and personal as a sincere apology, or something as complex and collaborative as a restorative circle or other restorative practices. And yes, admitting our mistakes is hard for most people, but if we never take the time to say we are sorry, our students may carry that accidental harm in their hearts for days, months, or even years.

I reflect often that what my teacher saw in me at 10 turned out to be my superpower, not my downfall. People read my work today because of my frank honesty and unfiltered perspectives. I always think before I speak, and I say what I mean; I make a living by being direct and unapologetic while nurturing change. What might it look like if educators were to help students recognize that their most core tendencies, even those that challenge others, might actually be their superpowers? What sort of “human event” might we create if we help students hone those assets and talents into even more effective skills? I believe it is possible for educators not just to avoid accidental harm, but to teach intentionally toward the needs and identities of every child, and to help students recognize and hone their superpowers not just for a good life, but for a better world.

Jennifer D. Klein is a product of experiential project-based education herself, and she lives and breathes the student-centered pedagogies used to educate her. She is a former head of school with extensive international experience and over thirty years in education, including nineteen in the classroom.

The post Avoiding Accidental Harm: Fostering Positive Impact on Students’ Lives appeared first on Getting Smart.

As we think about kids heading back to school, our minds are often filled with images of brown bag lunches tucked into oversized backpacks, individual desks neatly arranged in rows, and teachers setting the tone for how they’ll keep order in a room full of 25 (or more) kids. But in learner-centered sites across the country, back-to-school is a time filled with adventure and exploration—from neighborhood scavenger hunts and NBA-style introductions to overnight cabin trips and campus-wide cookouts. In these environments, self-discovery, trust-building and interest exploration are the starting points of learning.

Learner-centered leaders recognize the need to help young people lean into their personal development as a critical part of their learning and do so in community with the peers and adults in their environments. By design, this approach helps foster fulfilled human beings with the skills needed for life and career. While each site approaches learning in a way that works for their young people and community, Education Reimagined has identified five elements that can be found at sites that demonstrate the full breadth of learner-centered education. These elements are learner-agency; socially embedded; personalized, relevant and contextualized; open-walled; and competency-based. As sites welcome learners, many choose to make these quantities evident from day one. Here, interests are explored and curiosity abounds.

Lab51

If you’ve ever thought about starting your school year with the cheers and applause of an NBA-style announcement welcome, look no further than One Stone’s Lab51 school. Located in Boise, ID, Lab51 is an independent high school focused on growth, not grades. Coaches—their term for educators—guide learners through their various programs to discover themes that are of interest to them. Learners can choose the duration of time they spend on a particular area, ranging from week-long “deep dives” to 12-week “immersions” to choose-your-own-adventure day-long “cannonballs.” Young people can explore topics from skateboard design and mechanics to agriculture and environmental science.

Learners who are new to Lab51 are welcomed back early for a Reboot Week. They’re paired with returning “trail guides” who engage in four days of team and culture-building activities. The autonomy young people experience in a learner-centered environment is often a big (but empowering) shift from their conventional schools, so this time is important to help them rediscover their voice and identify what sparks their interest.  

Once all of the learners have returned, the group engages in two weeks of welcome activities. The focus is on establishing strong foundations of personal understanding, vulnerability, and curiosity so that coaches and learners can build on these relationships as they move throughout the year. These welcome activities include experiential service projects in the community, the sharing of one-minute life stories, an introduction to Lab51’s Bold Learning Objectives, a community read discussion, and short and long-term goal setting. The group even takes an overnight cabin trip to Payette Lake in McCall, ID. Talk about building relationships and community from day one!

Embark Education

For learners at Embark Education, a micro-middle school in Denver, CO, learning happens in and around their peaceful yet vibrant neighborhood. With a strong emphasis on building community and radical trust, Embark learners start the year with a whole-school scavenger hunt where learners lead themselves through the neighborhood to better orient themselves with the places and people that matter to their learning. They’re also given cash to explore local lunch spots or other businesses. (Given their extensive candy selection, Ace Hardware is a popular choice.) Not only does this help learners build bonds with each other and explore their community, but primarily, it is an exercise in trust and responsibility. For many learners who are new to Embark, nothing says “learner autonomy“ quite like an unsupervised group trip around the neighborhood with money at their disposal.

In the following days, learners will meet with staff at Pinwheel Coffee and Framework Cycles, local businesses that are core to Embark’s education model. Staff at these shops, who are educators within the Embark community, will work with the young people throughout the year to learn a variety of skills including marketing, mechanics, business management, and yes, even coffee-making.These young people have opportunities to learn from each member of their community and build mentorship opportunities along the way. And speaking of community, to start the school year, the learners collaborate on a team project. At Embark, learners are always empowered to choose from multiple learning experiences that are sparked by authentic needs. This year, learners chose between rehabilitating one of their outdoor learning spaces or designing the first-ever Embark swag.

The SD Met

The SD Met, located on the San Diego Mesa College campus, is a high school that follows the Big Picture Learning model. While each Big Picture school has its own unique qualities, each follows a philosophy of student-led, adult-supported learning. The year begins with a New Family Mixer, a one-hour meet-and-greet for learners and families to get acquainted with fellow learners, advisors, and facilities on campus. At The Met, advisories are cohorts of about 16 learners and one advisor who remain together for all four years of high school.

Because relationships are an important part of learning at the Met, the first few days have a heavy emphasis on building community and connection. Freshmen are also introduced to personalized learning plans, a keystone feature that will help drive each young person’s learning journey and make meaning out of each experience. These plans are developed between each learner and their advisor to address competencies including knowing how to learn, personal qualities, quantitative reasoning, empirical reasoning, social reasoning, and communication. Through off-campus internships, classes at the community college, and instruction within advisories, learners will create goals and map them against their learning plans. To top off a week of introductions and relationship building, the entire Met community comes together for a campus-wide luncheon where learners are encouraged to sit with new people, share their experiences, and explore the campus.

While many teachers in conventional schools are doing the hard work of prepping their classrooms for students and designing a curriculum to meet state requirements, remember that back-to-school doesn’t look the same everywhere. In learner-centered environments, they continue on with learning, because learning can and does take place all around us. Returning to a learning environment can be a time of exploration, connection, understanding, and growth when it’s centered around the needs of each learner.

 Jason Krobatsch is the Communications Manager at Education Reimagined, an organization focused on advancing learner-centered education at a national level.

The post Not Your Typical Back-to-School Days at Learner-Centered Sites appeared first on Getting Smart.

Updated: The Missouri State Board of Education voted unanimously Aug. 15 to approve ‘innovation waivers’ for the 20-school Success-Ready Students Network.

A network of 20 Missouri school districts is asking the state to implement a more responsive assessment system in order to personalize student learning.

The state Board of Education is considering the districts’ proposal to change testing at its Aug. 15 meeting. If approved, it would be the inception of a shift in Missouri’s education system that will “resurrect student engagement,” district leaders say.

The group of schools, part of the Success-Ready Students Network, wants to move away from the state’s annual standardized testing to assessments that would be administered multiple times a year. The coalition consists of public school districts and one St. Louis charter school, and includes a mix of rural and urban campuses with a wide range of student performance scores and poverty rates, according to state demographic and assessment data. 

During a June state board meeting, district leaders argued that the current system doesn’t provide results in time to be effectively used in the classroom. 

The schools want to instead take advantage of a new pilot waiver program created last year that offers exemptions for districts to bypass specific education laws for up to three years. These “innovation waivers” are intended to boost student performance and benefit educators by giving schools the room to implement unique strategies, said Lisa Sireno, assistant commissioner with the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. 

“The state legislature enacted a statute that allowed the school innovation waivers in 2022 and so we’ve been working on what that process might look like,” Sireno told The 74. “The group with our very first innovation waiver request — the Success-Ready Students Network — kind of grew out of a (state) work group that was looking at competency-based education.”

While 20 school districts in the Success-Ready Students Network have agreed to launch new assessments if approved, other schools will join in the future, said Mike Fulton, one of the network’s facilitators. The plan is for a new cohort of districts to use the innovation waivers each school year until the entire state is involved.

If approved, districts will be able to administer multiple interim tests, but will still have to give the normal annual standardized test until a federal waiver is approved to get rid of it. Fulton said the Success-Ready Students Network will be working on a federal waiver later this year.

Fulton said the state’s innovation waivers are key to competency-based learning, which allows students to move through education at their own pace as they demonstrate a full understanding of the material.

“The whole proposal is designed to support the participating districts in using personalized, competency-based approaches in their learning design,” Fulton told The 74. “The assessment system was designed to provide feedback to both students, teachers, parents and every stakeholder, on how individual students are progressing, how classrooms and schools are doing and how districts are doing as a whole.”

Jenny Ulrich, superintendent of the Lonedell School District, part of the Success-Ready Students Network, said her teachers are always asking for feedback on what they are doing in the classroom, but assessment results are returned too late to make an effective change for individual students.

“We are alone out there trying to figure out how we get real-world learning to our kids,” Ulrich told the state board in June. “This work supports educators. It gives them a platform, an opportunity and the data they need to make good instructional design and decisions for their kids.”

Besides lagging results, standardized tests have been criticized around the U.S. for sucking up too much time, being culturally biased and doing little to improve students’ academic outcomes.

Ulrich said instead of the one-time tests, schools will administer tests several times a year and keep results updated online on a district dashboard for teachers to use in real time. The dashboards, which will go live in November, will show a student’s progress in becoming “high school ready” or “college, career and workforce ready.”

“By the end of the 2025-26 school year, it is our aim — our lofty goal — that 100% of our graduates would have an individualized plan,” Ulrich said. “As we reach these goals, all students will be able to declare, ‘I am truly college, career and workplace ready.’”

Fulton said districts will be transitioning to competency-based learning even if the state innovation waivers aren’t approved. Students will progress on evidence of mastery of skills based on state standards, meaning they might move through the K-12 education system faster or slower than their peers.

“That scares people a bit and I understand that,” Fulton said. “That’s a big shift.”

Sireno, the assistant state education commissioner, said the desire to switch Missouri schools to competency-based learning emerged from the learning loss caused by the pandemic. Earlier this year, more than a 100 Missouri districts experienced a drop in their student assessment scores to levels that would typically threaten their state accreditation.

“This will allow students to move at the appropriate pace. So, if some students finish mastery of the content a little bit quicker, if some students take a little bit longer, that’s OK,” Sireno said. “It’s a heavy lift, but it’s important work, and (districts) realize that it can have a real positive impact on student learning.”

Other schools around the nation have been tackling competency-based education as a way to help students recover ground in learning. Idaho, South Carolina, Kansas and Utah are among those that have successfully created competency-based learning systems, according to a 2021 state education department report.

Some states haven’t done as well implementing competency-based education. In 2018, Maine’s Department of Education had to scrap its competency-based learning model several years after it went into effect. The system lacked specifics in things like proficiency and grading, which also sparked parent backlash.

This is a common failure in putting the approach into practice, according to the Missouri Education Department’s 2021 report. 

“Researchers attribute negative outcomes to schools that implemented (competency-based learning) without clear definitions and expectations, as well as uneven implementation,” the report says. 

When Missouri’s innovation waiver plan was unveiled in June, the entire State Board of Education voiced support for it.

“It is a gift to the students, the parents and families in Missouri, and I would say nationwide,” said Charles Shields, board president. “Others will learn from us nationwide.”

Vice President Carol Hallquist said she believed it will “change the face of education” in Missouri.

Fulton, of the Success-Ready Students Network, said he hasn’t heard from any stakeholders warning against the use of innovation waivers or the switch to competency-based learning, but there is some wariness from the state department about using a model that hasn’t been tested. 

“I think we’re all going at this cautiously. Research is going to sit at the core of this,” he said. “But you have to be willing to be entrepreneurial and innovative and that’s what I think these districts are being asked to do. We need more of that in public education.”

Lauren Wagner covers education for the Omaha World-Herald and is a contributor to The 74.

This story first appeared at The 74, a nonprofit news site covering education. Sign up for free newsletters from The 74 to get more like this in your inbox.

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