Teaching & Learning Blog

Next Gen Learning in Action

This blog offered perspectives from educators engaged in redesigning the future of public schools. This blog is no longer being updated.

Personalized Learning Opinion The Virtues and Vices of Portfolio Assessment
A portfolio lends itself naturally to assessment, whose aim is to collect evidence to answer a question about learning or performance.
Contributing Blogger, February 1, 2018
2 min read
Professional Development Opinion Moving Beyond Educational Echo Chambers
Sean Wybrant shares the how he realized that if he truly wants to understand how to improve education for his students he really needs to understand where they are coming from.
Contributing Blogger, January 31, 2018
5 min read
Personalized Learning Opinion Educator Networks: Building a Community to Advance Learning
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and FSG collaborated to release a new report that provides practitioners an opportunity to reflect on what we think we know about network design and theory and how we apply it in education.
Contributing Blogger, January 30, 2018
5 min read
Assessment Opinion A Student's Perspective: Some Truths About Real-World Learning
This week's edition of Friday Focus: Practitioner's Guide to Next Gen Learning was written by Ricky Sierra, a student at Da Vinci Extension sharing her experiences at Da Vinci Schools.
Contributing Blogger, January 25, 2018
7 min read
Professional Development Opinion A Year in the Making: The Third Lesson My New Year's Resolution Taught Me about Next Gen Learning
This post describes what I learned about where learning can happen, offers some insights I gained by reflecting on my needle felting and block printing experiences, and provides additional resources.
Contributing Blogger, January 25, 2018
5 min read
Assessment Opinion Speak, John, Speak: Feeling the Power of Exhibitions at the Workshop School
Like many progressive schools, the students at the Workshop School, a non-selective high school in the School District of Philadelphia, present their work at the conclusion of each quarter.
Contributing Blogger, January 22, 2018
8 min read
Student Achievement Opinion Student-Led Conferences: A Key Structure of Student Agency
Student-led conferences are core to realizing our mission of every one of our students as a life-long active participant in their own education with a strong sense of self and community.
Contributing Blogger, January 22, 2018
3 min read
Professional Development Opinion The School Principal as Change Agent
Principals must become change agents in order for education to transition from assembly line efficiency to learner-centered agency.
Contributing Blogger, January 17, 2018
7 min read
Professional Development Opinion School Visits: Go There to Know There
For this edition of Friday Focus: Practitioner's Guide to Next Gen Learning, we spoke to leaders of schools in the NGLC network who have experience both as guests and hosts of school visits.
Contributing Blogger, January 12, 2018
8 min read
Assessment Opinion 3 Ways Student-Led Assessment Improves Learning in Virginia
A group of 11 school districts across Virginia came together with one goal: create more student-led assessment opportunities in our schools so students are more engaged in learning.
Contributing Blogger, January 10, 2018
4 min read
Professional Development Opinion A Year in the Making: The Second Lesson My New Year's Resolution Taught Me about Next Gen Learning
Throughout my career, I have had the kind of jobs where "deliverables" are things like meetings and papers and presentations--in other words, intangible products. But this year, even as I experienced the challenging side of making, I also experienced a special reward when my projects were complete.
Contributing Blogger, January 10, 2018
5 min read
Assessment Opinion Our Quest to Personalize Competency-Based Learning in New Hampshire
New Hampshire's Assessment for Learning Project (ALP) has been a quest to deepen and personalize competency-based learning for all students.
Jonathan G. Vander Els & Debra Holloway, January 9, 2018
6 min read
Personalized Learning Opinion Schrödinger's cat in Personalized Learning: Providing Grade Level and Individual Level Instruction
Distinctive Schools has been implementing a next generation model of learning that embraces personalized learning. In our academic model, we set high expectations for students to become curious, engaged learners who can thrive in college, career, and life and will be able to adapt and succeed in new and unknown contexts.
Contributing Blogger, January 4, 2018
5 min read
School & District Management Opinion Building Young Entrepreneurs for Change
By providing authentic opportunities to practice self-direction, connect with the larger community, collaborate with peers, and develop their respect for social responsibility, the annual Magnolia Makers Market is one way Montessori For All works toward preparing children to be successful leaders in the 21st century.
Contributing Blogger, December 28, 2017
3 min read