Glossary

The ability to take meaningful action based on self-reflection.

See Learner Agency and Educator Agency.

Recognizing growth in skills and knowledge through evidence collected within and beyond the school walls. The system honors learning that occurs across all aspects of a learner's life.

A co-created illustration that describes a future to which the organization aspires.

Assessment that focuses on self-reflection, self-assessment, and metacognition, allowing learners to monitor their own progress and empowering them to learn how to learn. It is an opportunity to intentionally embed learning experiences that develop skills and dispositions that will support learners as they grow and learn both in and out of the classroom.

Assessment that quickly informs the learner where they are at in the learning process by providing specific, actionable, immediate feedback. Learner ownership in the evaluation is integral to learning. Assessment results help determine the next steps in instruction.

See Formative Assessment and Summative Assessment.

Assessment that is cumulative and often at the end of a learning process in which the learner shows evidence towards their current level of understanding of the competencies.

Learning that happens any time an individual learns at least in part at a supervised brick-and-mortar location away from home and at least in part through online delivery with some element of learner control over time, place, path, and/or pace (Horn and Staker, 2011).

Learning that focuses on equipping learners for skill-based careers such as engineering, manufacturing, and/or health science. CTE is often characterized by real-world work experience with a hands-on approach so that learners can earn certifications and enter the workforce with a solid skill set.

Learner choice is the term for the decisions learners are able to make as they engage in the learning process. It is the practice of providing real, significant, and authentic choices for learners about their learning, their environment, and the strategies and approaches that they will use in order to build commitment and grow from the choices they make.

Learners and educators collaborate to determine evidence of learning. Learners play an active role in the understanding, planning, and demonstration of learning.

Learners and educators collaborate to design learning experiences based on the learner's academic and/or skill based readiness.

Stakeholders collaborate to fully leverage resources and expertise to maximize the learning experience for all.

This term is defined by the Aurora Institute (formally iNACOL), as a systems model in which:

1. Students are empowered daily to make important decisions about their learning experiences, how they will create and apply knowledge, and how they will demonstrate their learning.
2. Assessment is a meaningful, positive, and empowering learning experience for students that yields timely, relevant, and actionable evidence.
3. Students receive timely, differentiated support based on their individual learning needs.
4. Student progress is based on evidence of mastery, not seat time.
5. Students learn actively using different pathways and varied pacing.
6. Strategies to ensure equity for all students are embedded in the culture, structure, and pedagogy of the schools and educational systems. Rigorous common expectations for learning (knowledge, skills, and dispositions) are explicit, transparent, measurable, and transferable (Sturgis & Casey, 2018).

A competency-based structure enables personalized learning to provide flexibility and support to ensure mastery of the highest standards possible. With a clear and calibrated understanding of proficiency, learning can be tailored to each student’s strengths, needs, and interests and enable student voice and choice in what, how, when, and where they learn (Sturgis, 2018).

Also, a system’s model in which: 1) teaching and learning are designed to ensure students are becoming proficient by advancing on demonstrated mastery, and 2) schools are organized to provide timely and differentiated support to ensure equity.

Learner progress and advancement is based on demonstrated competency in pre-defined, agreed-upon learning targets aligned to standards.

Connecting for the purpose of goal reflection, progress monitoring, and planning next steps in learning. This can occur with educators, peers and/or other experts.

Learners are provided opportunities to engage with content through various cultural lenses and perspectives and draw from their cultural background to build their learning.

Community, parents, educators, and learners hold shared urgency of the need for a new design of learning and teaching.

Learning experiences that allow learners to follow interests and natural learning progressions as they emerge. When this element is in play, learning moves beyond the accumulation of content knowledge and towards deep exploration of topics driven by curiosity, personal relevance, and wonder. Genius Hour, Passion Projects, Project Based Learning, Place Based Learning, and Inquiry Time are examples of curiosity-driven learning experiences.

See Inquiry Based Learning.

Learning paths that allow students to co-design their learning with educators rather than simply complying with the directions and expectations of adults. This element is designed to help learners take ownership of their learning, find greater meaning and purpose, and become increasingly independent in their learning skills. Learners are actively involved in what they learn, how they learn it, and how they demonstrate understanding. Each unique path is based on the learner's individual readiness, strengths, needs, and goals.

• Step 1: Develop personal learning goals
• Step 2: Select activities and resources to support learning
• Step 3: Identify progress markers
• Step 4: Define how the learning will be demonstrated

This process of co-creating learning paths helps students develop key life skills. The discipline and organization that learners employ in planning their learning will serve them well long after they leave school to pursue lifelong endeavors.

Creating varied learning experiences that scaffold the learning and meet the different levels and needs of learners. Differentiating requires educators to acknowledge the diverse needs that exist, adjust the elements of a lesson to meet those needs, assess regularly, and offer a variety of choice options to demonstrate understanding. Educators may differentiate content, process, products or the entire learning experience.

Evaluation, professional development and teaming support educator risk-taking and growth to meet the aspirational vision of a personalized and competency-based system.

Educators are guides as they coach alongside learners to achieve shared goals. Coaches provide resources and support flexibly to ensure learner success.

Engagement reflects stakeholders’ connection to a concept while empowerment reflects stakeholders’ ownership over a concept.

Empowered learners are self-aware of their own knowledge, skills, and dispositions, and can advocate for their own growth in each area.

The broad set of knowledge, skills, and dispositions that provide the foundation for learning, work, and life. Essential skills enable people to evolve in their roles and are important to success in today’s rapidly changing world.

See Social-Emotional Learning.

Evidence of learning in the form of a balanced assessment system used throughout the learning process through varied means such as performance, application, demonstration, and student interaction. Evidence is used to describe artifacts that learners are using to show they have met a certain Power Standard/Learning Target.

Unbiased, referring to the idea of 'fairness' when considering a variety of strategies, ideas, and models that may benefit the learner. All stakeholders have access to supports to help them engage and succeed at the same level as their peers regardless of any obstacles that may be present. Equity is different from equal in that what is equitable for learners may not always be equal based on their individual need.

Family input is reflected in the school design and learner experience. Collaboration between families and schools supports learners in and out of the learning environment.

Written or spoken information to a person in response to the individual’s performance. Individuals can use feedback to reflect and make adjustments and/or decisions about the next steps in their learning or engagement with the district.

See Timely, Actionable Feedback.

Spaces that allow for a range of instructional approaches. The configuration of learning spaces is determined by and aligned to the purpose of the instructional practices and needs of the learner.

A commitment to being flexible about the time educators allot for learning and allowing individuals to progress at the paces that best match their learning needs. With educator support, learners accelerate or decelerate their pace of learning to ensure that it is rich and deep.

Learning activities aligned to curricular standards that communicate the level to which learners demonstrate their progress toward mastery of a given standard/learning target. This type of assessment guides instruction and informs the teacher and learner of the next steps for learning.

A term by psychologist Carol Dweck in which failures are not perceived as negative events and are instead treated as chances to learn.

Elevated levels of expectation focused on academics and behaviors that support the learner's lifelong success.

The act of not only creating space for, but ensuring participation from and representation of, all of the various sub-groups of stakeholders.

See Inclusive Classroom Practice.

Classroom practices that serve the needs and engagement of all learners, regardless of background or identity.

Data management systems that are transparent, real-time, and easily accessible to all stakeholders in order to support each learner's progress and goals.

Learning that moves beyond asking learners what they want to learn about. It is about creating a classroom environment where curiosity is nurtured and learners are encouraged - almost expected - to dive into learning that piques their interest and curiosity. Inquiry often uses a design thinking approach where learners develop questions, research the topic of interest, go public with their learning, and reflect on the overall learning and process.

Learners play an active role in the decision making process, take initiative, and understand they have an influence over their learning. They have the power and ownership over their own learning path and the results of their choices.

Learners are valued partners and a resource for their own learning and the learning of others. Learning is driven based on readiness, strengths, needs, and interests.

An environment established in response to learners’ needs and goals. Typically learners’ input will have been sought in order to create this environment, and they will have had an opportunity to make meaningful decisions about their environment.

Organizations utilize adults in roles aligned to the goals of learners and the design of the system.

Organizational structures are designed to support learners through flexibility in use of time, pace of advancement, and use of physical spaces.

Leaders work to align local policy to remove barriers and support the depth and sustainability of a learner-centered system. Leaders challenge the state and national policies that are not aligned to the aspirational vision, and advocate for policies that are aligned.

Learning drives the use of technology as learners determine what they learn, how they learn, and/or how they demonstrate learning. The technology enhances, deepens or accelerates understanding and mastery of content.

An individual who works alongside learners to provide support and help them achieve their goals. A learning coach provides resources and supports as needed to ensure learner success. In this role, educators support learners to be the drivers of the learning process and facilitate learning through opportunities for experiences, inquiry, and exploration.

See Educator as a Coach.

Progressions outline competency across a skill, concept or standard. They provide a roadmap to support flexibility in pace and learner agency.

A document that is co-built by the learner and the educator that tells the story of who the learner is. They are dynamic, real-time, learner-owned and managed.

A culturally responsive Learner Profile includes culture, background, experiences, academic, and Social-Emotional Learning attributes of the student or learner. A comprehensive, data-rich learner profile conveys a deep understanding of the learner and is used to plan a customized learning path and instructional strategies.

The purpose is so that both the learner and the educator or mentor that works in partnership with the learning can fully understand all aspects of the learner in order to personalize educational experiences.

A means or device used to accomplish something that otherwise might not have been possible (Frontier and Rickabaugh, 2014).

Instruction offered using a variety of methods (e.g. demonstration, use of pathways/playlists, choice boards) and modes (e.g. face- to-face, blended, online) in response to learner profiles.

Learners and educators co-develop purposeful, personalized goals to provide benchmarks and add focus, clarity, and commitment to learning.

Learning that is co-designed between educator and learner, customized academically to the learner, and considers the learner's background, experiences, culture, and prior knowledge.

Intentional design of a learner-centered approach that uses both a Learner Profile and a Portrait of a Graduate to help define who the learner is and what they are ready to learn.

A document that defines what the community believes their graduates should know and be able to do upon graduation. The PoG focuses on both the academics and skills/dispositions of the learner. It allows both the learner and the district to define success measures that respond to the community’s values.

A detailed picture of a connected learner portrait using a strengths-based approach to accurately describe each learner and their successes as defined by their Profile of a Graduate, constructed in collaboration with all community stakeholder groups.

A learning configuration that exists in order to provide targeted instruction based on readiness, needs, and interests of learners.

Focuses on developing the emotional and interpersonal skills of our learners. SEL is defined by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) as the development of “knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions."

See Essential Skills.

Content and skill standards related to a specific discipline that help guide the development of district Power Standards. Examples include National, ACT, Common Core, and content-specific professional guidelines.

Referring to frameworks that provide transparency, consistency, and alignment of curriculum, assessment and reporting, and instruction. Learning activities, measuring, and reporting of learning defines clear Power Standards / learning targets.

Teaching through identified Power Standards and Learning Targets. Instruction is thoughtfully codesigned with each learner in mind. Learners understand and articulate how proficiencies/ competencies align to standards and drive their learning experiences.

Teaching through the perspective of the learner. It follows a learning cycle in which the learner decides, “What do I need to know and be able to do?” and then co-designs the pathway with their educator/mentor.

An assessment at the end of a learning process in which a learner shows evidence towards their current level of understanding of the competencies.

Traditional teaching practices that begin with the teacher deciding what is next for them to teach. A teacher-centered pedagogy follows an Instructional Cycle process in which the teacher asks, “What are the students going to learn?”

Frequent feedback from educators, peers and/or other experts that empowers the learner to execute next steps on their learning progression in an immediate manner.

Used to describe a process that courses/content strands will go through to ensure that learning connects from level to level and no gaps exist. Vertical alignment focuses on the standards and appropriate levels of instruction, as opposed to just curricular resources.

Referring to the input learners have as they engage in the learning progress. Learners' thoughts and ideas drive what they are learning, how they learn, and/or how they demonstrate the learning. When learners have the opportunity to share their perspectives, participate in decision making, set goals, and take ownership of their progress, their commitment to, and confidence in, learning grows.