CompetencyWorks | March 2021

March 31, 2021

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

A Strategic Reflection on the Field of K-12 Competency-Based Education

The Aurora Institute carries out an annual reflection process on growth, change, and needs in the field of competency-based education, which culminated in a recent webinar on equity, policy, practice, and research. You can access the webinar recording and slides, as well as a blog post with links and cover images for the dozens of resources discussed during the webinar.

Structuring Standards-Based Instruction and Assessment at Vancouver iTech

Vancouver iTech in Washington has deepened their standards-based instruction and assessment, as well as other aspects of competency-based education. Principal Darby Meade shares key steps and strategies in their evolution, including project-based learning, explanatory materials for families, their grading platform and approach to weighted averaging, and remote learning strategies.

A Cornucopia of Competency-Based Education Resources from Vermont

The Vermont Agency of Education offers outstanding resources for educators and leaders at all levels who are advancing competency-based education. They have taken many complex topics and explained them in clear language with links to essential materials and examples of current practice. This blog post provides an overview of the resources and focuses on personalized learning plans, proficiency-based grading, and a tool to evaluate decisions with an equity lens.

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Personalizing Professional Learning to Increase Student Growth: Lessons from Lindsay Unified School District

Lindsay Unified School District (LUSD) has implemented a personalized professional learning program designed to cultivate the same mindset in educators that it fosters in students. Beth Holland and Ling Zhang of The Learning Accelerator discuss their collaboration with LUSD to identify which types and combinations of professional learning activities would be most powerful for increasing learner growth.

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Personalizing Professional Learning to Increase Student Growth: Lessons from Lindsay Unified School District

Personalizing Professional Learning to Strengthen Personalized Learning for Students

Beth Holland and Ling Zhang of the Learning Accelerator continue their discussion of the personalized professional learning program in Lindsay Unified School district. They focus on how three components of the program—agency, mastery, and community—might translate into more meaningful personalized learning experiences for students.

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Aurora Institute Seeks Field Input on Annual Stakeholder Survey

Aurora Institute Stakeholder Survey

As a valued part of the Aurora Institute community and an ally for educational systems change, we’re requesting your feedback on six questions on your challenges and strategies at this critical time in K-12 education. Would you kindly use this link to take the 2021 Aurora Institute Stakeholder Survey? Your insights are critical for guiding our research, advocacy, convenings, and publications for the field. Thank you very much for your contributions and your important work.

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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