by Courtney Belolan The new year is underway. New classes, new teachers, new supplies, new buildings (for some). But how new should the new year be in a learner centered proficiency based environment? Is it really a clean slate, a fresh start, a brand new year of learning? Maybe the start of a new school year should be thought of more as a resuming of the learning rather than a new start of learning. After all, when learners work at their readiness levels and move forward at a pace that makes sense for their learning the idea of an “end” starts to feel a little, well, off. We no longer close the textbook in June and accept that “this is as far as we got.” We no longer use the language of “finishing a grade level’s targets.” The learners simply keep going along the progressions in different measurement topics.
With a system of learning progressions in place, and the ability to honor the readiness levels of learners from social pK-12, it should be easier to being thinking of a learner’s time in school as one continuous event. Yet most schools, RSU2 included, still have a summer vacation. This large suspension of time in school makes it more challenging to think of learning time as something that seamlessly spans multiple years. Here are some ideas for how to connect the learning from June to the learning in September, and make that gap feel more like a pause rather than a reset.
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