For many students the feel of Spring means that Summer is near. For faculty though, it's that 'special time' when we're both preparing for the end-of-year crunch and thinking about how to improve teaching and learning for next year.

We're delighted to offer unique options and opportunities to administrators and teachers who are engaged in curriculum upgrades, interested in contemporary instructional strategies, and/or focused on assessment design.

Our services are delivered through a series of onsite leadership consulting, step-by-step curriculum coaching, and meeting facilitation for school boards and parent groups. We also offer virtual options for teams in need of curriculum audits or other remote support.

In addition, we're happy to partner with schools and school districts to offer Boot Camp Workshops featuring Drs. Heidi Hayes Jacobs and Marie Alcock. The popular Curriculum Mapping and Bold Moves for Schools workshops, offer specialized topics, tools and time to develop a strategy with your team, and personalized on the spot consulting from Heidi and Marie.

Learn more about our Boot Camp Workshops.

Learning Systems Associates is proud to support school organizations that are embracing curriculum change, contemporary instruction, and assessments that are authentic and standards based.

Dr. Marie Alcock works personally with school leaders and faculty to improve curriculum and transform learning environments to meet district and state-wide goals, while providing students with meaningful and measurable learning outcomes.

New Jersey Schools: Invite Marie to your school for a leadership meeting, strategic planning session or curriculum review and we will schedule a virtual planning and review session follow-up, at no additional cost. Or, partner with us to host a 1, 2 or 3 Day Professional Development Workshop at your campus. Partnering schools experience increased faculty engagement, broader connections to neighboring school groups, 20% discount on registration fee's and a complimentary full-day strategic planning session with Dr. Alcock.

When thinking about education policy around assessments, Bold Moves for Schools proposes 5 tenets to transform accountability, leadership and performance in schools.

1. Authentic Student Work -- Authentic student product or performance should be the goal
2. Realistic Audience Feedback -- Feedback connected to the purpose of the product or performance can be gathered from an audience outside of the classroom
3. Long-Term Projects -- Long term projects where deeper learner can occur should be favored over short-term memorization of processes and ideas
4. Collaborative Assessment Design -- Teachers and students can work collaboratively to identify indicators of innovation for assessment purposes
5. Self-Navigating Learners -- Students as self-navigating professional learners can monitor, reflect upon and feel connected to their personal learning path and progress

In a previous blog post we stated, "Standardized testing has its place in education, however, it is insufficient and has the potential for far-reaching unintended consequences." Here we'll discuss 4 detrimental outcomes of standardized testing.

Misuse of Data

Standardized tests used to rank learners, faculty and schools assess a few limited proficiencies but falls short of measuring what we value as learning – that which is educationally significant. This singular method does not factor in varying student conditions and environmental factors that impact scoring. In addition, grading practices are inconsistent state to state and scorers are often encouraged to favor quantity over quality reviews.

Educators and policymakers have a unique relationship – they share responsibility for shaping learning systems and preparing students for an interconnected and ever-changing world. We often think of teachers and administrators on one side and legislators on the other in a virtual tug-of-war, each side firmly planted in ideologies that inform programs and regulations. On the contrary, diversity of thought exists among teachers, administrators, superintendents, unions, governors, legislators, taxpayers, parents and students. And in fact, we’re all in this together.

Accountability and assessment methods emerge as the single most contentious policy topic. While policymakers have the extraordinary task of making decisions that impact all aspects of education, faculty struggle with administering programs that are meaningful, effective and result in satisfactory test results.

Contributed by: Craig Gastauer

This post was originally shared on Just Start for Kids & Schools and the author has given his permission to post it here.

Natural learning experiences are generated by observation and questioning.  As individuals share their different perspectives, each of us begin to make meaning of these experiences and deepen our understanding of the world.

Hiking on the cliffs above the the Pacific Ocean with my nine year old son creates for us a safe space to explore the world.  Questions abound as we come across animals, plants, rock strata, and even the wonderful variety of people we encounter. 

Contributed by Marie Alcock, PhD.

The truth is that teaching is changing in America.  As a profession we have been in a state of flux for more than 20 years.  In the big picture that is not much time and we can all agree that one day we will look back and note this period and the changes that resulted from it.  Here are our top ten things about teaching that have changed.

We made this movie as a way to note the key characteristics of this change. Teaching is Changing.

Contributed by: Marie Alcock, PhD

When is a video game useful?  When is it a tool for education?  Or even a tool for social change?

I enjoyed a TED talk featuring Jane McGonigal and her ideas about using video games as training grounds for saving the world.  Check it out here.

Jane raised some good points about the addictive rush from being on the “verge of an epic win” and the motivation from “epic quest” that is trusted to us as players.  What would we need to upgrade about our curriculums to get this kind of “epic quest” feel for the learner?  How do we make each skill progression for reading or writing feel like the addictive leveling of the “imminent win”?