Westminster Public Schools (WPS) in Colorado has embarked on a transformative journey toward competency-based education. Through strategic planning and continuous improvement, WPS developed a learner-centered system prioritizing personalized learning and student agency. Their road map--rooted in shared vision and second-order change--highlights…

Institutions of higher learning are providing access to free and low-cost open resources to support students with prior college-level learning during every step of their educational journey. This unconventional approach to education removes traditional barriers to college credit by placing learners in an open environment, which encourages…

Digital learning is defined as "any instructional practice that effectively uses technology to strengthen a student's learning experience and encompasses a wide spectrum of tools and practices." This "School Leader Digital Learning Guide" is a resource to help school leaders consider, plan, fund, implement, maintain, and adapt…

This practical guide shows leaders how to implement and sustain a robust microcredentialing program in their school or district. Teachers require rigorous professional learning that ensures mastery rather than simply marking time served. Microcredentials offer a competency-based approach to professional learning that can be tailored to…

As traditional classroom settings are transitioning to online environments, teachers now face the challenge of using this medium to promote effective learning strategies, especially when teaching older age groups. Because adult learners bring a different set of understandings and skills to education than younger students, such as more job and life…

"Leading Personalized and Digital Learning" provides needed guidance for principals, aspiring principals, and other school leaders at a critical time when educators are looking to put the power of technology to work for student-centered learning. The authors identify eight leadership essentials that school leaders must attend to if they…

COVID-19 exacerbated and brought attention to inequities long present in public education. Facing inconsistent access to learning over distance, students will leave this period with months of what's been called "lost learning." Short of repeating a full year, addressing these gaps presents a grave challenge for traditionally structured…

The rising cost of tuition, increasing competition, and mounting student loan debt has caused educational leaders to rethink degree programs and resources for learners. As such, open educational resources, prior learning assessment, open degree plans, and competency-based learning have gained popularity in the field of higher education.…

The DoD's [Department of Defense's] Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Initiative is designing a framework of commercial standards, technical specifications, and business rules to enable plug and play interoperability of learning technologies. The Total Learning Architecture (TLA) framework will allow education and training products to…

This paper focuses on engaging and enabling educators to play new roles and take new leadership in the paradigm shift between traditional and competency-based education: a system of learning designed to ensure that all learners are prepared with the knowledge, skills and dispositions to be successful lifelong learners. The paper re-envisions…

Education for adults ought to consider a both-and mindset when it comes to selecting approaches, values, and program models in today's multi-sector, multi-diverse, and cross-cultural environments of teaching and learning. Experiences from educational professionals can lead to recommendations for these instruction and mentoring approaches of adults…

The knowledge society arises from the combination of four interdependent elements: the production of knowledge through research, its transmission through education, its dissemination through information and communication technologies, and its exploitation through innovation. For this reason, higher education institutions (HEIs) are the main…

This document is a revised version of the National Consumer and Financial Literacy Framework (the Framework) originally developed in 2005. It articulates a rationale for consumer and financial education in Australian schools; describes essential consumer and financial capabilities that will support lifelong learning; and provides guidance on how…

In-service education that truly contributes to the development of teachers must focus on the individual. The unique characteristics of adult learners (i.e., their experiences, readiness, orientation, and motivation) must also be taken into account in in-service education efforts. When teaching adults, the educator must act as a facilitator of…

Every young person should be obliged to engage in some program of systematic study until he/she can meet core learning standard for entry into adult society realizing that this will take different amounts of time for different individuals. Learning can take place in wide variety of settings and by many methods. Age-grade link also needs to be…