Maine’s P2 Approach (Personalization + Proficiency-Based)

If you haven’t taken the time to watch the videos at Maine’s Center for Best Practice, I hope you will in the near future.  I don’t think there is anything better to understand the spirit of competency-based approaches. They’ve just released two new ones (see below).

Maine, as you probably know, has started with the goal of creating a personalized, proficiency-based system.  The P2 approach is much more powerful than proficiency-based as a stand-alone approach. The personalization opens the gate to students having voice, choice, and responsibility in their education. Although learner-centered approaches are a set of very precise practices it looks and feels like magic dust sometimes. Just take a look at the faces of the kids in History Day.

If you want to learn more about Maine’s work, join us on Friday for the webinar on state policy with Don Siviski, Maine’s Superintendent of Instruction, and Jason Glass, Iowa’s Education Director. Register Here

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History Day: Integrated Performance Assessment features Bruce M. Whittier Middle School and their annual History Day, celebration.  This event allows students to demonstrate proficiency in ELA and Social Studies standards, as well as the Guiding Principals.  Inviting the public in and having 30 members of the public serve as judges of the presentation brings a level of authenticity to the assessment that motivated many students.

The video can be found here:  http://maine.gov/doe/cbp/videos/rsu16b.html
Owning Their Own Reason:  Learner-Centered Literacy features Elm Street School, which began seriously investigating learner-centered education and professional learning groups when their school was designated a CIPS school two years ago.  The video shows how Elm Streets use of Cafe and Daily Five as instructional models for reading have transformed their program.  Also discussed is the new level of collaboration fostered by the adoption of the programs, and how that collaboration is strengthening Elm Street.

The can be found here:  http://maine.gov/doe/cbp/videos/rsu16a.html