Craft Category: Artifacts

Episode 11: Ector County ISD on Community Internet Access, Personalized PD, and Strong Home-School Connections

On this final episode of What Will We Take With Us?, a series featuring our conversations with education leaders across the United States on how they grappled with the COVID-19 pandemic in K-12 education, we speak with Scott Muri, Superintendent of Ector County Independent School District in Texas, about how leaders worked to make the most of the pandemic to accelerate the implementation of goals that benefitted the entire school community, ranging from expanding connectivity and internet access, to focusing on personalized professional development, to forging stronger, more meaningful connections between schools and student families.

October 7, 2021

Episode 10: Distinctive Schools on Communities of Care and Thoughtful Instructional Strategies

On this episode of What Will We Take With Us?, a series featuring our conversations with education leaders across the United States on how they grappled with the COVID-19 pandemic in K-12 education, we speak with two leaders at Distinctive Schools in Chicago: Mike McCarthy, Executive Director of Student Services, and Stephanie Cardella, Executive Director of Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment. They share with us how Distinctive developed a community of care, nimble practices, and targeted instructional strategies to support students in balancing their learning and well-being through a year of uncertainty as schools closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

October 7, 2021

Episode 9: Meriden Public Schools on Creating Student Opportunities Through Partnerships, Spaces, and Technology

On this episode of What Will We Take With Us?, a series featuring our conversations with education leaders across the United States on how they grappled with the COVID-19 pandemic in K-12 education, we speak with three school leaders from Meriden Public Schools in Connecticut: Mark Benigni, Superintendent of Schools; Barbara Haeffner, Director for Teaching and Innovation; and Susan Moore, Supervisor of Blended Learning Director for Teaching and Learning. These three leaders shared with us how they worked to establish partnerships with community organizations and local educational institutions, to reimagine learning spaces, and to leverage technology to support students and create engaging learning opportunities.

October 7, 2021

Habits of Success: Helping Students Develop Essential Skills for Learning, Work, and Life

This report offers guidance for K-12 districts and schools by synthesizing the latest research and knowledge on emerging practices for: 1) developing local habits of success frameworks, 2) addressing equity and cultural considerations in implementing habits of success and lifelong learning skills, and 3) promoting and assessing habits of success. The report also provides recommendations and next steps to support all students in building strong habits of success.

Habits of success are the skills, dispositions, and mindsets needed to continue as a lifelong learner and participate effectively in work and civic life. (They are also called 21st century skills, personal success skills, social-emotional skills, and noncognitive skills.) Schools, districts, and states have recently devoted an increasing level of attention to helping students develop habits of success.

Success in most professional and personal pursuits requires an additional set of skills and dispositions, in addition to academic knowledge, that can be learned in school and anytime/anywhere. These “habits of success” include self-direction, collaboration, communication, self-awareness, social awareness, and others. The extensive practice examples and research findings synthesized in this report will help practitioners implement frameworks to support students in developing essential skills for learning, work, and life.

October 4, 2021

A Mastery-Based Math Teacher’s Journey

This case study highlights a high school math teacher’s successful journey of taking the steps needed to move away from traditional teaching methods to innovative pedagogies supporting mastery-based teaching and learning.

Mastery-based learning (also called competency-based learning) is a shift away from traditional, one-size-fits-all teaching. Teachers ensure each student masters academic knowledge and builds core skills as they progress through K-12 education. It also increases student engagement and agency, or ownership of their learning. In competency-based learning environments, all students are held to the same high standards and assessed based on showing what they know through a performance, with flexibility in pacing and assurances for equity.

Mastery-based learning poses unique opportunities for creating new personalized learning designs and transforming the traditional education system. Educators are leading new designs from the ground up to spearhead innovative learning that increases equity, agency, and meaningful learning and assessment for every student.

When author Ashley Ferrara, a founding faculty member and math instructor at the Academy for Software Engineering (AFSE), a public high school in New York City, heard her school was transitioning from traditional practices to mastery-based learning, she was skeptical. Today, after a multi-year transition, she is an enthusiastic and devoted practitioner of mastery-based learning.

In A Mastery-Based Math Teacher’s Journey, Ferrara shares a refreshing and candid account of her own transition to mastery-based learning with her students. Lessons learned from Ferrara’s transition can be applied beyond mathematics to inform mastery-based learning in all academic disciplines.

Ferrara’s journey of deep devotion, reinvention, improvement, and a commitment to all learners achieving success serves as a guiding resource for applying competency-based learning principles in the field.

September 27, 2021

Episode 8: Metro Nashville Public Schools on Relationship-Building, Family Engagement, and Remote Support During COVID

On this episode of What Will We Take With Us?, a series featuring our conversations with education leaders across the United States on how they grappled with the COVID-19 pandemic in K-12 education, we speak with Dr. Keri Randolph, Executive Officer of Strategic Federal, State and Philanthropic Investments at Metro Nashville Public Schools in Tennessee about how the district created innovative initiatives to build relationships with students, reach out to families, and offer virtual support during school closures and remote learning, seeking to tackle the challenges posed by physical separation between teachers, students, and families.

September 22, 2021

Episode 7: Mendon-Upton Regional School District on Flexible Learning for Educators, Career-Oriented Learning, and Innovation

On this episode of What Will We Take With Us?, a series featuring our conversations with education leaders across the United States on how they grappled with the COVID-19 pandemic in K-12 education, we chat with David Quinn, the Director of Technology Innovation at Mendon-Upton Regional School District in Massachusetts about how, in spite of the challenges posed by the pandemic, the district was able to leverage opportunities that remote learning had to offer to design innovative practices, facilitate flexible learning for educators, integrate strategic scheduling, and offer career-oriented learning for students.

September 22, 2021

Episode 6: Austin ISD on Instructional Blueprints, Professional Collaboration and Development, and the Concept of “Learning Loss”

On this episode of What Will We Take With Us?, a series featuring our conversations with education leaders across the United States on how they grappled with the COVID-19 pandemic in K-12 education, Dr. Suzanne Newell of Austin Independent School District in Texas details how the district focused on supporting students and teachers by providing instructional blueprints with prioritized standards to help guide instructional time, as well as how they emphasized professional collaboration to address “learning loss” (also referred to as unfinished learning) and maximized time for valuable remote professional development.

September 22, 2021

Episode 5: Monterey Peninsula Unified School District on Communication, Collaboration, and Transparency

On this episode of What Will We Take With Us?, a series featuring our conversations with education leaders across the United States on how they grappled with the COVID-19 pandemic in K-12 education, PK Diffenbaugh of Monterey Peninsula Unified School District in California shares with us how the district integrated inclusive communication, collaboration, and transparency with critical stakeholders in their school community, ensuring that students, teachers, and families were set up to navigate a school year like none they had experienced before. Through multilingual supports, proactive partnerships, and a focus on innovative practices, the district was able to take deliberate steps to move their initiatives forward and bring the full community into the fold.

September 22, 2021