At White Mountains Regional High School, we challenge students to own their learning. Students personalize their educational experiences through avenues including a STEAM program, CTE completer programs, ELOs, and seminar courses. Regardless of the pathway they choose, each student has the opportunity to engage in meaningful, inquiry-driven work, often based in real-world challenges.
These efforts have not been without challenges. Free blocks and flex periods give students autonomy in using their time and space, and some have struggled to embrace this agency. In response, we have built structures to support students and have implemented new ways to track and assess student learning, such as school-wide exhibitions. In these ways, we strive to ensure that all students thrive and learn in our unique environment, so we can do more for more kids.
In this session we will share how we support students in owning their learning and, in turn, promote the success of all students. We will discuss how our emphasis on teacher agency works in tandem with these efforts. Participants will learn how we hold students accountable for their learning and discuss strategies to implement in their classroom and/or school to help students own their learning.
At White Mountains Regional High School, we challenge students to own their learning. Students personalize their educational experiences through avenues including a STEAM program, CTE completer programs, ELOs, and seminar courses. Regardless of the pathway they choose, each student has the opportunity to engage in meaningful, inquiry-driven work, often based in real-world challenges.
These efforts have not been without challenges. Free blocks and flex periods give students autonomy in using their time and space, and some have struggled to embrace this agency. In response, we have built structures to support students and have implemented new ways to track and assess student learning, such as school-wide exhibitions. In these ways, we strive to ensure that all students thrive and learn in our unique environment, so we can do more for more kids.
In this session we will share how we support students in owning their learning and, in turn, promote the success of all students. We will discuss how our emphasis on teacher agency works in tandem with these efforts. Participants will learn how we hold students accountable for their learning and discuss strategies to implement in their classroom and/or school to help students own their learning.
Research shows that to succeed in college, career, and civic life, students need more than academic knowledge. They need to possess skills and attitudes colleges and employers prize—communicating effectively and collaborating in diverse groups. While educators support students developing these skills, it can be difficult to assess them rigorously and responsively. What does it look like to communicate effectively? What evidence can we collect to support mastery? How can new assessments complement strategies educators already use in their classrooms?
Join a team of educators and researchers as they share their experiences integrating work-study practices (a.k.a. deeper learning competencies) into New Hampshire’s statewide performance assessment for competency-based education (PACE) system. Participants will learn how others working to assess these critical skills in their classrooms share strategies and systems that may be emerging in their schools, and engage with a research-driven framework for designing work-study practice assessments currently guiding New Hampshire educators.
Participants will leave with practical tips for applying deeper learning competencies in classroom instruction and assessment for learning, focusing on metacognition and self-regulation as well as strategies for designing, communicating, and integrating performance assessment rubrics for deeper learning.
Felicia Sullivan, PhD, joined JFF in 2018 as associate research director. She leads a Hewlett-funded research-practice partnership in New Hampshire and will also assist in the development of the JFF Research Unit. Dr. Sullivan previously worked with the Center for Information and... Read More →
Director of Collaborative Learning, New Hampshire Learning Initiative
Jonathan directs innovative, competency-based projects for the New Hampshire Learning Initiative and is the co-author of Unpacking the Competency-Based Classroom: Equitable, Personalized Learning in a PLC at Work (Solution Tree, 2022) and Breaking With Tradition: The Shift to Competency-Based... Read More →
Appropriate for school leaders, administrators, and teachers, this session will lead participants through a series of exercises that allows them to identify problematic structures within their district, schools, or classrooms and design solutions that lead to lasting change. The emphasis on using data to drive decision-making has allowed leaders and teachers to identify problems that exist within our schools. This session is designed to introduce participants to a new way of thinking about those problems and find solutions in their schools using a systems thinking approach. Participants are asked to keep an open mind as they begin to see themselves as a part of the system in which inequities exist before applying a set of tools and developing the strategies that will allow them to put an end to these inequities.
Participants will learn to use a systems-thinking approach to identify appropriate levers to reduce structural inequities and develop a plan of action to change or eliminate at least one structure in their district/building/department/classroom.
Is your school juggling multiple initiatives? Is your school trying to implement a successful social emotional learning-focused advisory program? Is your school struggling with how to offer relearning, reteaching, and reassessment during the school day? Is your school working to engage students in clubs, activities, and enrichments? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then this is the session for you! Session attendees will interact with dynamic presenters from Oyster River High School who have created an innovative non-traditional schedule in a traditional setting, meeting student needs and encouraging development. Come hear stories of success, challenges, and growth. This session will provide a landscape for implementing a master schedule based on student choice, a social emotional learning-based advisory, and a FLEX period that provides relearning, reteaching, reassessment, clubs, activities, and enrichment and will also review the pre-planning which is needed to make the change at your school.
Attendees will be: 1) Informed of a process a high school followed to create a master schedule to meet multiple student center initiatives; 2) Knowledgeable of implementing an innovative non-traditional schedule in a traditional system; and 3) Equipped with resources and framework to foster positive change affecting the student/staff culture/climate in your building.
Is your school juggling multiple initiatives? Is your school trying to implement a successful social emotional learning-focused advisory program? Is your school struggling with how to offer relearning, reteaching, and reassessment during the school day? Is your school working to engage students in clubs, activities, and enrichments? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then this is the session for you! Session attendees will interact with dynamic presenters from Oyster River High School who have created an innovative non-traditional schedule in a traditional setting, meeting student needs and encouraging development. Come hear stories of success, challenges, and growth. This session will provide a landscape for implementing a master schedule based on student choice, a social emotional learning-based advisory, and a FLEX period that provides relearning, reteaching, reassessment, clubs, activities, and enrichment and will also review the pre-planning which is needed to make the change at your school.
Attendees will be: 1) Informed of a process a high school followed to create a master schedule to meet multiple student center initiatives; 2) Knowledgeable of implementing an innovative non-traditional schedule in a traditional system; and 3) Equipped with resources and framework to foster positive change affecting the student/staff culture/climate in your building.