{"id":6558,"date":"2015-05-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-05-05T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/blog\/cw_post\/a-schools-journey-to-promote-student-achievement-and-ownership-of-learning\/"},"modified":"2020-02-27T14:46:28","modified_gmt":"2020-02-27T19:46:28","slug":"a-schools-journey-to-promote-student-achievement-and-ownership-of-learning","status":"publish","type":"cw_post","link":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/cw_post\/a-schools-journey-to-promote-student-achievement-and-ownership-of-learning\/","title":{"rendered":"A School’s Journey to Promote Student Achievement and Ownership of Learning"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Roger Vadeen<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Our journey to a true competency-based system has been a long yet rewarding one.<\/p>\n

It began with the stark realization that the status quo wasn\u2019t working for our students and far too many of our kids were either not graduating from high school or receiving diplomas and finding themselves ill prepared for the twenty-first\u00a0century workforce or for college. As you will find, there have been a lot of steps along the way and it has been hard work.<\/p>\n

In 2006, a group of principals, teachers, and Adams County School District 50 leaders took a plane north headed for Anchorage, Alaska. Our destination was a small school district near Anchorage called Chugach School District. We had heard about the work of the Chugach District from the Reinventing Schools Coalition (RISC) and we were intrigued by the possibilities. I was especially interested to learn more about how students were being authentically engaged in goal setting and making decisions on what they needed and wanted to learn. I heard that students in Chugach were highly engaged in their learning and were taking responsibility for their own learning at levels that surprised even the Chugach teachers. I traveled a long way see this approach to education in action and I was not disappointed.<\/p>\n

Following our week-long visit to schools and workshops with the Chugach School District leaders, teachers, and students, we were convinced this approach made sense and we were determined to figure out how we could reinvigorate learning in our district and in our schools.<\/p>\n

I have to give a lot of credit to the teachers and leaders of the Chugach School District. They had a number of great processes and protocols in place for students and teachers designed to promote the success of their standards-based system. The key components to what I experienced were easy to identify, but my mind was filled with many questions about how we would actually be able to implement these key ideas back at my school, Sunset Ridge Elementary. What I saw working in Chugach and what I knew would make a difference for the teaching and learning in my school was threefold:<\/p>\n