Craft Category: Artifacts

Education Policy Issues for the COVID-19 Era: Policy Actions and Responses to Leverage the Moment for Future Readiness

As school districts deliberate over reopening schools with the COVID-19 pandemic still ongoing, we’ve developed this report with strategic guidance on how to harness our current opportunity to transform K-12 education.

Education Policy Issues for the COVID-19 Era: Policy Actions and Responses to Leverage the Moment for Future Readiness offers insights and recommendations on 10 critical issues identified through our technical assistance in the field and work with education policy decision-makers around the country. These include:

  1. Using Blended, Competency-Based Learning as an Entry Point for Innovation
  2. Moving Away from Seat Time Credits to Awarding Credit Based on Demonstrated Mastery
  3. Re-Examining Grading Policies
  4. Rethinking Assessment and Addressing the Need for Balanced Systems of Assessments to Measure Student Learning
  5. Examining the Purpose of Accountability
  6. Creating Flexibility and Multiple Pathways for Graduation Requirements
  7. Ensuring All Communities Have the Necessary Technology Infrastructure and Internet Access
  8. Supporting Students with Disabilities
  9. Ensuring Students Have Continued Access to Meals during School Closures
  10. Prioritizing Future Readiness for Pandemic Preparedness and Continuity of Learning

Building the capacity for educators to redesign toward a competency-based, learner-centered system is no easy task with the challenges imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Education Policy Issues for the COVID-19 Era concludes with a 10-point program with principles that lay the groundwork for the reforms our system urgently needs.

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August 21, 2020

Federal Policy Priorities to Accelerate Education Innovation

The Aurora Institute’s 2020 Federal Policy Priorities are an equity-driven and future-focused set of recommendations designed to ensure the nation’s education system is fit for purpose. The priorities are intentionally constructed to support moving states and localities forward from their current state of education to future systems capable of preparing all graduates with the knowledge, abilities, and dispositions necessary to achieve success, to contribute to their communities, and to advance our society.

Policymakers at all levels are positioned to take advantage of existing law and policy—or adopt effective strategies being piloted around the country—to move K-12 education toward its higher purpose. At the federal level, these priorities call on national leaders to:

  1. Prepare Educator-Leaders for the Future,
  2. Increase Access and Affordability to Diversify Educator Talent Pools,
  3. Expand the Innovative Assessment Pilot, and
  4. Increase Access to Broadband Connectivity.

For more information or technical assistance, connect with our Center for Policy.

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April 7, 2020

Future Focused State Policy Actions to Transform K-12 Education

State policymakers are in a unique position to enable the innovations in education necessary to prepare students for a rapidly changing world. Working with 8,500 educators nationwide, the Aurora Institute identified the top issues to address in state policy for transforming our K-12 education system, with a special issue dedicated to continuity of learning in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis.

Guided by values of educational equity and future-readiness for all learners, this publication is a set of 11 opportunities to make the nation’s education system fit for purpose. At the state level, the Aurora Institute Center for Policy is supporting policy analysis and making recommendations governors, state legislators, education agencies, school leaders, and other policymakers to work together with their communities to:

  1. Establish Profiles of a Graduate
  2. Launch Innovation Zones
  3. Create Competency-Based Education Task Forces & Pilots
  4. Offer Credit Flexibility
  5. Make Credentials Meaningful
  6. Align the pathways between K-12, higher education, career and technical and education, and the workforce — and make them competency-based
  7. Modernize the Educator Workforce
  8. Diversify the Educator Workforce
  9. Produce Balanced Systems of Assessments
  10. Create Next-Generation Accountability Systems
  11. Ensure Continuity of Learning

Taken together, these policy priorities challenge lawmakers and education decision-makers to wield their influence and take advantage of existing opportunities to disrupt the traditional one-size-fits-all model of K-12 teaching and learning and unleash learning from the confines of place and time.

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April 7, 2020

Rules for “Say Something” Cards

This set of cards provides students with sentence stems to use during classroom conversations. Educators can print off this document to create tangible cards for students to reference. Some teachers laminate the deck and hang it from a hook in the classroom so students can easily access the material. These cards can also be printed in multiple colors to allow more strategic use during daily activities.

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March 24, 2020

How to Set Up Language Warm-Ups

Language Warm-Ups use receptive and productive language tasks including “repeat-after-me” activities, minimal pairs, phoneme identification, numbers pronunciation, rhythm drills, and intonation exercises using tools such as mirrors and phonics phones.

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March 24, 2020

Bilingual Binders at Dallas ISD

This picture illustrates an example of a bilingual binder used in a school in Dallas ISD. Students are given the option of using worksheets in both English and Spanish to take down the barrier of entry when self-monitoring mastery, progress, assignments, mood, and more.

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March 24, 2020

What is Modeling?

The teacher models a skill or strategy for students using a gradual release method that follows the pattern: “I do, we do, you do.” The teacher uses a variety of instructional methods while thinking aloud and explicitly modeling a skill or strategy for students. Then, the teacher models the strategy alongside the students before allowing them to work independently.

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March 24, 2020

How to Use Vocabulary Frames

This website describes both when and how to use vocabulary frames in instruction and provides a printable worksheet. Vocabulary frames provide additional support for students who are learning English by helping them to not only define a word but also build a broader understanding of the word through antonyms, pictures, and applying it in context.

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March 24, 2020
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