CompetencyWorks | July 2020

July 31, 2020

This monthly newsletter shares the latest CompetencyWorks blog posts and Aurora Institute publications—providing thought leadership and practical lessons learned from the field to support transformation toward personalized, competency-based K-12 schools and systems.

Competency-Based District Leaders on Managing Change During the Pandemic

Strategies for successfully managing change during the pandemic are shared by superintendents from two deeply personalized, competency-based districts—Patricia Deklotz of Kettle Moraine School District (WI) and Tom Rooney of Lindsay Unified School District (CA).

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Book Review: So You Want to Talk About Race, by Ijeoma Oluo

Oluo offers powerful guidance as we work to deepen our anti-racist understanding and action in the K-12 education system and beyond. This review shares lessons from the book through the lens of educational equity and competency-based education.

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Book Review: So You Want to Talk About Race, by Ijeoma Oluo

Students at South Bronx Community Charter embracing each other

Essential Components of Local Assessment Systems for Personalized, Proficiency-Based Learning

Transforming school and district assessment systems is an essential part of ensuring equitable learning for all students. This first post in a series by Pat Fitzsimmons, Team Leader of Proficiency-Based Learning at the Vermont Agency of Education, begins sharing resources and lessons learned from a series of Vermont convenings for building competency-based assessment systems.

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Improving Student-Centered Assessment Systems With Formative and Summative Performance Assessments

Learn more about Vermont’s strategies and resources to strengthen the use of formative and summative performance assessments to actively engage learners so learning becomes visible.

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Student presenting project with poster to teacher

Student-Designed Performance Assessments for Personalized Learning and Student Agency

Student-designed performance assessments put students in control, helping them become intrinsically motivated, lifelong learners. Teachers can provide stronger supports to help students become partners and activists in their own learning using these professional learning ideas and strategies.

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Supporting the Development of Student-Designed Performance Assessments

Pat Fitzsimmons wraps up her series by walking through one learner’s student-designed performance assessment and providing sample rubrics, a review template, and an assessment template that can be used to support this work with students.

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Supporting the Development of Student-Designed Performance Assessments

What’s New in K-12 Competency-Based Education?

CompetencyWorks provides brief reviews of new resources, research, and Aurora Institute news and publications.

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Wishing good health to you and your families, schools, and communities.

Eliot Levine and Susan Patrick
Aurora Institute CompetencyWorks

For more news and updates in K-12 competency-based education, sign up for our monthly newsletters and follow the Aurora Institute on Twitter: @aurora_inst

About CompetencyWorks

CompetencyWorks is an initiative that provides information and knowledge about competency-based education in the K-12 education system. Drawing on lessons learned by innovators and early adopters, CompetencyWorks is an online resource for sharing knowledge, original research and policy advances, and a variety of field perspectives. CompetencyWorks provides an informative blog with practitioner knowledge on key topics and papers on emerging issues, with resources curated from across the field of K-12 competency-based education.

Contact: Eliot Levine
[email protected]

CompetencyWorks | Aurora Institute