Promising State Policies for Personalized Learning

This report is a valuable resource for state policymakers—whether they are seeking to create conditions in state policy to support personalized learning, moving forward with initiatives to develop personalized learning pilot programs, hosting task forces to explore policy issues and needs, or taking a comprehensive policy approach for supporting advanced personalized learning models.Personalized learning is where instruction is tailored to each student's strengths, needs, and interests—including enabling student voice and choice in what, how, when, and where they learn—to provide flexibility and supports to ensure mastery of the highest standards possible

Strengthening High School Teaching and Learning in New Hampshire's Competency-Based System

For a century, most students have advanced from grade to grade based on the number of days they spend in class, but in New Hampshire, schools have moved away from "seat time" and toward "competency-based learning," which advances students when they have mastered course content. This report profiles how two high schools in New Hampshire made this shift and examines the changes that were necessary to make competency-based advancement an important part of New Hampshire's strategy for implementing the Common Core State Standards and ensuring that students graduate ready for college and a career

Sea level rise adaptation: emerging lessons for local policy development

Many coastal communities across the United States are beginning to plan for climate-related sea level rise. While impacts and solutions will vary with local conditions, jurisdictions which have begun this process seem to pass through three common stages when developing policy for local sea level rise adaptation: l) building awareness about local sea level rise threats, 2) undertaking analyses of local vulnerabilities, and 3) developing plans and policies to deal with these vulnerabilities. The purpose of this paper is to help advance community dialogue and further inform local decision-makers about key elements and steps for addressing climate-related sea level rise. It summarizes the results of a project the Marine Policy Institute (MPI) undertook during 2011-12 to review experiences from fourteen U.S. coastal jurisdictions representing a variety of city, county, and state efforts with sea level adaptation. There are many more initiatives underway than those reflected in this sample, but the “focus jurisdictions” were selected because of the extensive information publically available on their experiences and lessons being learned that could provide insights for coastal communities, especially in Southwest Florida

Employment Program Components: Considerations for Modifying Programming for People Experiencing Homelessness

Employment programs typically include assessment, job search assistance, work readiness training, occupational training, job placement, and retention services. Research and experience suggest that programs can best meet individual needs, strengths, and interests by modifying these elements to ensure flexible services that support each individual's personal and developmental needs as they transition to employment. This best practice brief highlights a menu of enhancements and examples that programs may consider in providing supportive, flexible services for individuals experiencing or at risk of homelessness

Integrating Essential Elements of Person-Centered Transition Planning Practices Into the Development of the Individualized Education Program With All Students with Disabilities

This is the second of two white papers that were developed to look at the potential for integrating a person-centered approach into the design and implementation of transition planning with individuals with disabilities in high school across nine demonstration sites in New York State. While the first paper, Infusing a Person-Centered Approach into Transition Planning for Students with Developmental Disabilities, 2001, looked at the barriers present within and between systems of support, this paper provides a deeper view of the strategies, methods and approaches that proved to be effective in supporting and/or sustaining person-centered practices within the Individualized Education Program (IEP) process. Through an emphasis on the need to utilize post-school outcomes as a basis for transition planning, a real example is provided to highlight the contrast between the use of person-centered practices in the development of an IEP and the use of typical special education programming. A model that overlays person-centered practices into the existing IEP process is suggested along with several suggestions proven effective in leading to seamless transition across the school experience. The paper concludes with a review of the data across the project life (1998-2000) identifying the accomplishments and challenges experienced by project participants, as well as overall recommendations to the field

Engaging sport students in assessment and formative feedback

Sport as a discipline in higher education is grappling with the challenge of providing authentic and relevant assessment that engages students in their learning. The centrality of assessment to the student experience is now well accepted within the research literature (Brown and Knight, 1994; Rust, 2002). In particular, formative assessment, or assessment that creates feedback to support future teaching and learning experiences, can be a powerful tool for enhancing learning (see Black and Wiliam, 1998). Given that feedback is most effective if it is considered or reflected upon, one of the key challenges is to actively engage sport students in formative assessment processes. This guide offers advice in designing and facilitating sport students’ involvement in assessment and enhancing their engagement with the feedback they receive. The aim is to support sport programme teams by taking a pragmatic approach, combining a clear academic rationale based on assessment for learning principles with case study examples of successful formative assessment exercises emphasising innovative approaches to giving feedback. The guide consists of three key sections focused on: 1) Providing staff in HLST with background knowledge of formative assessment and formative feedback and how it relates to their subject. 2) Providing case study examples of how to effectively engage sport students with assessment feedback so that it feeds-forward to aid learning. 3) Providing a resource of references and sources of support for tutors wishing to further their learning in this area

What's Cooking in Your Food System? A Guide to Community Food Assessment

Learn about Community Food Assessments, a creative way to highlight food-related resources and needs, promote collaboration and community participation, and create lasting change. This Guide includes case studies of nine Community Food Assessments; tips for planning and organizing an assessment; guidance on research methods and strategies for promoting community participation; and ideas for translating an assessment into action for change

The State of Adaptation in the United States: An Overview

Over the past two decades the adaptation landscape has changed dramatically. From its early days as a vague theoretical concept, which was often viewed as a threat to advocating for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, it has developed into a widely, albeit not universally, recognized governmental mandate to reduce societal vulnerability to climate change. While it is important to appreciate the progress that we are making on this issue, it is impossible to ignore the urgent need to do more. Smart investment can be made by reflecting on what is already underway in order to determine where to build on existing efforts and where to innovate new approaches to fill the gaps in the path forward. In this report we provide illustrative examples of the variety of work on climate change adaptation that is underway in the United States. This is by no means an exhaustive survey of the field; however it does provide insight into the dominant focus of work to date, the resultant gaps, and the opportunities available for advancing this essential aspect of sustainability. We focus on four areas of activity -- agriculture, natural resources, human communities, and policy. The general trends relevant to these sectors can be applied more broadly to other sectors and countries. Adaptation can be thought of as a cycle of activities that ultimately -- if successful -- reduces vulnerability to climate change. This process starts with identifying the impacts of climate change to determine the types of problems climate change might pose. This includes all of the research on the causes and the global, regional, and local manifestations of climate change, often referred to as impacts assessments

Supporting community engagement through teaching, student projects and research

The Education Acts statutory obligations for ITPs are not supported by the Crown funding model. Part of the statutory role of an ITP is “... promotes community learning and by research, particularly applied and technological research ...” [The education act 1989]. In relation to this a 2017 TEC report highlighted impaired business models and an excessive administrative burden as restrictive and impeding success. Further restrictions are seen when considering ITPs attract < 3 % of the available TEC funding for research, and ~ 20 % available TEC funding for teaching, despite having overall student efts of ~ 26 % nationally. An attempt to improve performance and engage through collaboration (community, industry, tertiary) at our institution is proving successful. The cross-disciplinary approach provides students high level experience and the technical stretch needed to be successful engineers, technologists and technicians. This study presents one of the methods we use to collaborate externally through teaching, student projects and research

Catalytic Change: Lessons Learned from the Racial Justice Grantmaking Assessment

ARC and PRE designed the Racial Justice Grantmaking Assessment to help foundation staff and leaders understand the benefits of being explicit about racial equity, and to determine the degree to which their work is advancing racial justice. This report is based on the pilot process, and is intended to share insights into some of the barriers within the philanthropic sector that stand in the way of achieving racial justice outcomes. It is organized into five segments:This introduction, which provides brief profiles of ARC and PRE, and of the assessment team;A description of the assessment process, including definitions, assumptions, and methodology;An overview of the assessments of the Consumer Health Foundation and the Barr Foundation, including brief profiles of each, summary findings, recommendations, and impacts to date;Lessons learned from the pilot process by the ARC-PRE assessment team; andAppendices with more detailed findings, recommendations, and initial impacts for each foundation