The title of this post refers to the vision statement for my district. I recently applied for a district committee position (unsuccessfully). In the application, I expounded on the meaning of our district vision moving forward:
World-class education in 2009 and beyond will involve three key factors: customization, collaboration, and ownership.
Increasingly, students and families will expect a customized learning experience for each learner. We know that every student in our district has a unique mix of learning strengths and styles. As we move forward, we will need to develop resources, tools, practices, and assessments that allow educators to harness the strengths of each student to maximize academic achievement.
Collaboration will be the life-blood of this movement toward customized learning. Educators throughout our district will need to combine their bags of tricks, and they’ll need the tools to sort through and catalog those resources for easy modification and implementation. To realize world-class results, we will need to collaborate and share with educators world-wide.
We must empower our students to take ownership of their learning and performance. By developing assessments that are timely and informative, students can assume a more active roll in their own achievement. For students, assessment data should provide logical and immediate feedback regarding mastery of skills and concept. For teachers, data tools should allow easy slicing and dicing of assessment data to inform instructional decisions. We must also cast a wider net to collect student-centric evidence of mastery. Students express mastery in many different ways, and our data collection should acknowledge and leverage this diversity.
