Your monthly curation of learner-centered insights, tools, & resources.
Dear Educator,
There is no shortage of advice, online and offline, on how to be a better teacher, leader, and coach. Some of it's helpful, most of it's not, and some just bears no relevance to what you're trying to achieve in your learner-centered practice.
That's why we created The Download—your monthly resource for cutting through the noise and staying at the leading edge of learner-centered innovation. Each issue will feature the most valuable tools, strategies, and insights the Learner-Centered Collaborative team has created and curated from the learner-centered field.
This is a no-fluff resource that is easy to scan, enabling you to pick out what's most intriguing to you and go about maximizing impact in your learning community.
"...we create what we experience, so let’s make our own learning the experience we want for our students."
📖 Six Attributes for Portrait of a Powerful Graduate (4-minute read)
"...we identified six categories to capture 90 percent of attributes articulated by school districts across the country [in their Portraits of a Graduate]."
"At Embark, we believe in radical trust...learners immediately feel the radical trust in one of the most palpable ways possible: cold, hard cash in hand."
DEEP DIVES
🎙️ Keeping Humanity at the Center of Assessment (60-minute listen)
"Learn how Buffy Cushman-Patz leads learner-centered innovation at SEEQS—a middle school focused on empowering learners to become stewards of planet Earth and healthy, effective citizens of the world."
"Young people learn quickly that a grade is valuable not for the learning that it reflects, but for its future exchange value—that it can be traded in for parental praise, college admission, or a good job."
"A Qayaq to Carry Us explores the issues of merging traditional knowledge and modern science...and place that knowledge in a dynamic, living context with the young people of Kodiak Island."
"Learning Walks bring us beyond our own classrooms and schools to observe learner-centered practices and bright spots in classroom environments, celebrate strengths, and identify trends to inform future support—all in a non-evaluative way."
"This tool is designed to support teams to develop plans for advancing learners through an Authentic Learning continuum, from connection to empowerment."