Alabama Aerospace & Aviation High School (Alabama)

• Through the practice of Healing Circles and the embedding of cultural practices into the culture of the school and classrooms, how might we center Black, Brown and Indigenous rituals, practices and ways of knowing in support of healing and joy of all learners at ALAAHS?

Capital District Writing Project (oakland, California)

• The Capital District Writing Project will explore how to create conditions for belonging, equity, and liberation by approaching assessment through an artistic lens. Building on questions of “education freedom dreams,” the Capital District Writing Project will explore the following questions: 

  • What happens when we come together as a community to design new approaches to assessment reflective of the arts and of freedom dreaming? 

  • How can teaching artists help us revolutionize our approach to assessment? 

  • What do we learn when students co-design assessments?

  • How can our assessments move towards what students know as opposed to what they don't know? 

Great Lakes Stewardship Initiative (michigan)

• In the practice of place-based education what are some key design elements of a system that provides students with equitable access to a community’s social capital?  Specifically, we are interested in coming together of a digital platform (created by CommunityShare) that matches community partners with teachers (and their students) to help them co-create and organize local stewardship projects with a broad, relationship-rich support system for place-based learning, how can we integrate the power and efficiencies of technology with the thoughtful, caring support of humans?  

The Kohala Center, Inc. (Hawai'i)

• What tools might we as a team develop that will help our community of learners to assess for belonging, equity, and liberation of individuals, collectives, and ecosystems through ʻāina accountability?

Massachusetts Consortium for Innovative Education Assessment (at University of Massachusetts Amherst) 

• How do we create a school-wide performance assessment system that promotes learner belonging, equity, and liberation, and that maximizes local innovation, creativity, and tailoring to each community’s assets and needs? How do we demonstrate that this school-wide performance assessment system improves demonstrations of academic proficiency and growth among  students of color, low-income students, English Learners, and students with disabilities?

New Hampshire Learning Initiative (New Hampshire)

• New Hampshire Learning Initiative seeks to design an educator community of practice to support assessment for learning and create the conditions for learner belonging, equity, and liberation? As they pursue this learning community, they will explore the following questions: 

  • How might we access student funds of knowledge and the role of place based learning in creating classrooms that are agile and responsive to student learning?

  • How do we create identity safe classrooms? 

  • How might we expand the invitation to other teachers ie: NH PLACE for an ongoing community of practice on assessment for learning? 

Oakland High School Environmental Science Academy (oakland, ca)

• How can student-driven, graduate capstone community action projects: 

  •  provide students with an experience of equitable participation in a group, a sense of belonging, and participation in liberatory action for their communities?

  • empower students to be assessment-capable learners able to drive their own learning goals?

  • build student confidence and competence in their career pathway-aligned content knowledge and skills so they develop a strong academic identity?

San Diego Unified School District, Instructional Innovation Department (san diego, ca)

• We will explore the intersection of connecting standards-aligned content within meaningful, diverse, student-centered contexts, through the lens of instructional best practices and bright spots. It is important that we, as a large district who serves multiculturally, linguistically, and ethnically diverse student populations, make visible how educators are designing and bringing students into the learning process so that they can have a greater sense of connection, belonging, and overall engagement. From this line of inquiry, our team is hoping to better understand:

• How teachers might invite students into the instructional design and/or feedback process?

• What practices are teachers leveraging to promote learner-centered, standards-aligned instruction and assessment of learning?

• What would it look like to have bodies of evidence (varied assessments) where context (student-centered design) and content (standards-alignment) are present?

• What are implications for learner equity and belonging when both content and context are intentionally paired?

Science Leadership Academy Middle School (Philadelphia School District) 

• In the third year of implementing a Grading for Equity inspired pilot, Science Leadership Academy will explore what they are learning from their pilot, how their work has influenced student and parent agency, and get a deeper understanding of how their learners have influenced their system. 

Skyline High School Capstone Project (Oakland Unified School District) 

• How can we design Capstone Action Project scaffolds and assessments that uplift and expand our students' sense of belonging, equity, and liberation, especially for our Black students?