Plugged In | 01.17.20 – A New Policy Guide for Building Balanced Assessments Systems and More

January 17, 2020

Aurora Institute - Plugged In
iNACOL Is Now the Aurora Institute.

New Report to Build a Vision for Balanced Systems of Assessments in a Guide for States and Districts

Aurora Institute and the Center for Assessment published a report this week with guidance for state leaders to build better and more balanced assessment systems, with the ultimate goal of achieving equitable outcomes for all learners. The organizations jointly released How Systems of Assessments Aligned with Competency-Based Education Can Support Equity to transform current policy and practice challenges into levers for change.
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From the Education Domain Blog

Education Innovation Is Flourishing Across the Commonwealth of Virginia

In a dawn of new business opportunities across Virginia, all students need to acquire the essential knowledge and skills that lead to lifelong learning, workforce success, and active citizenship...
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What Could a Shift Toward a Whole Child Approach Look Like in Schools? An Emphasis on Mental Health

When we think about the whole child, we think about six key domains of development, and mental health is one of them...
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A Call to Action for Higher Education to Modernize Teaching

A new brief urges a fundamental re-imagination of the educator profession alongside the transformational changes happening in K-12 education systems...
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The State of the Field, 2019

There was growing awareness that one-size-fits-all approaches to school knowledge and organization are ill-adapted to individuals’ needs and to the knowledge society at large...
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Featured Resources

Webinar | Designing for Equity: Leveraging Competency-Based Education to Ensure All Students Succeed

Competency-based education holds promise as a uniquely powerful model for fostering equity, but only if equity is an intentional design feature embedded in the culture, structure, and pedagogy. View this archived webinar for an in-depth exploration of the report, Designing for Equity: Leveraging Competency-Based Education to Ensure All Students Succeed, and for action steps to develop an equity agenda within a personalized, competency-based system.
Watch

Bonus

Report | Designing for Equity: Leveraging Competency-Based Education to Ensure All Students Succeed

Plugged In Headlines: News About Education Transformation



Personalized Learning Can Even Playing Field for Tennessee's Low-Income Students
Rhiannon Dunn, The Tennessean

Why a High-Performing District Is Changing Everything with Competency-Based Learning
Tara García Mathewson, The Hechinger Report

Eight Lessons We Learned from Education Research in 2019
Matt Barnum, Chalkbeat

We Need to Teach Young Men of Color Differently. That Starts With Books Where They Are Celebrated
David Banks, The 74

5 K-12 Trends to Watch in 2020
Linda Jacobson, Roger Riddell, and Naaz Modan, Education Dive

NCLB's 'Hangover' and 'Schools Without Walls': AASA Finalists Detail Top Ed Concerns
Naaz Modan, Education Dive

If Every Kid Learns Differently, Why Does Cookie-Cutter Approach to K-12 Education Persist?
Marjorie Cortez, KSL

Making SEL Culturally Competent
Scott Seider and Daren Graves, Edutopia

How Schools are Expanding the Definition of Student Success
The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative

Innovation Is Everywhere
Jenny Curtin, Britt Neuhaus, and Saskia Levy Thompson, Barr Foundation

Aurora Institute in the News



2019: A Year in Review
Happy New Year! As we close out 2019 and look forward to what the new year will bring, let’s take a look back at what our profession learned in the last year. Read More

Policy Brief Highlights Need for Higher Education Institutions to Create Systematic Changes Within Teaching
Titled “Transforming Teaching: What University Presidents and Deans of Colleges of Education Need to Know about Modernizing the K-12 Educator Workforce,” recommends three main policy changes including the need to “diversify the workforce, modernize teacher preparation and promote continuous professional learning and development.” Read More
Reminders

Our Email Addresses Have Changed

Now that we have become the Aurora Institute, our email addresses have changed. To make sure your email gets through, replace "inacol.org" with "aurora-institute.org" Please update your address books, and contact our communications team if you have any questions.

Deadline for Round 3 of IADA Approaching

The U.S. Department of Education announced a third round of the Innovative Assessment Demonstration Authority (IADA). This authority allows states to rebalance assessment systems for evaluating schools, as well as other approaches for increasing the utility of assessments for improving teaching and learning. ​​​​​Read More
Symposium 2020 - October 25-28, 2020 | San Antonio, TX
Our Center for Policy Advocacy leads the multi-stage evolution of policy necessary for the growth of effective student-centered learning models toward the goals of high-quality learning and equity. Our policy priorities are designed to ensure the nation’s education system is fit for purpose and help move states forward from their current state of education to future systems. 
CompetencyWorks is an online resource dedicated to competency education in K-12 education. CompetencyWorks shares original research, knowledge and a variety of perspectives through an informative blog with practitioner knowledge, policy advancements, papers on emerging issues and a wiki with resources curated from across the field. Bookmark this resource and check often for frequent updates.
The Aurora Institute hosts a resource library containing more than 200 materials. Working collaboratively with diverse experts in the field, the Aurora Institute produces reports, books, policy briefs, blog posts, webinars and related resources on key topics and tough issues that equip and empower educators and leaders to catalyze and scale personalized, next generation learning models.
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Aurora Institute

The mission of Aurora Institute is to drive the transformation of education systems and accelerate the advancement of breakthrough policies and practices to ensure high-quality learning for all.
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