notes from the flight deck

Building Toward the Defense: One reflection at a Time

Tue, 21 Apr 2026 18:10:55 GMT

We see such powerful moments in Defenses of Learning. Students confidently name themselves as communicators, collaborators, and problem-solvers. They point to artifacts. They use the language.

Sometimes however, when a panelist asks, “How did your thinking change as a result of working with others?” or “What did you do when communication broke down?” or even “What did you learn about yourself as a collaborator?” responses sound much less confident, almost as if this is something the learner hadn't considered. It isn't because learning didn't happen, but because reflection hasn't always kept pace.

Research is clear: reflection is what helps learning stick . But too often, it's what gets left out when time runs short. Before we know it, it's time to prepare for Defenses - and students are stuck trying to remember. When that happens, reflection risks becoming a rushed retelling, not sense-making - and we've missed what could've been an impactful learning opportunity.

This week in Runway Ready , you'll find simple routines to build reflection into the rhythm of day-to-day learning. Before you know it, getting ready for Defenses will become much easier for your students. Thanks to routine reflection, they'll find they've been preparing all along!

Ready to get Started?

Try One of These Four Runway Ready Reflection Ideas!

1) Peer Reflection Loop

Time: 10 minutes

Students give and receive feedback tied to a skill:

“I saw you demonstrate [skill] when…”
“One way to strengthen this could be…”

Why it works: Students learn to recognize skills in real time—not just name them later.

2) One-Minute Reflection Talk

Time: 5–10 minutes

Students quickly share (or record):

One skill they developed
A specific moment
What they learned about themselves

Why it works: Builds confidence and clarity—students are practicing for defenses without it feeling like “practice.”

3) “Where Didn't It Show Up?”

Time: 5–10 minutes

Students reflect:

Where did I not demonstrate this skill—but could have?
What got in the way?
What will I try next time?

Why it works: Normalizes growth and leads to more honest, meaningful reflection.

4) Want a Simple Weekly Routine?

Try this Friday Reflection (10–15 min):

Choose a skill
Name a moment (What happened?)
Show evidence (What proves it?)
Reflect (What went well? What was a stretch?)
Set a next step

Pro tip: Ask students, “If you had to defend your growth this week, what would you say?”

✈️ The Communication & Collaboration Playbook

April 29 | OVEC Middleton | 9:00–3:00

The two skills most commonly included in Portraits of a Learner AND on job descriptions: communication and collaboration. But, what does it really mean to bring those skills to life in classrooms? This session explores practical strategies and simple shifts found in our Profile Playbook that help make these skills daily habits. With or without a learner profile, participants will leave with tools that empower students to take ownership and collaborate with purpose.
�� sign up here

PORTRAIT IN PRACTICE: Teaching the Skills we ask Students to Defend

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 14:00:02 GMT

We often hear students describe themselves as “effective communicators” or “strong collaborators” during Defenses of Learning.

But does what they say—and what they show—reveal a true understanding of the skill?

A new report from America Succeeds and Northeastern University (2026), The Path Forward: How Schools Actually Help Learners Develop the Durable Skills They Need for School, Work and Life , highlights a critical truth: We're not struggling to name these skills. We're struggling to teach them intentionally.

This is the very challenge driving the Portrait of a Learner/Graduate Profile movement. We've gotten clearer on what matters. Now we have to get just as clear on how those skills are developed in daily learning.

What's Different in Schools That Get This Right?

The report highlights several key practices in schools where durable skill development is a top priority. These schools don't just assume durable skills will emerge. They design for them.

THEY MAKE THE SKILLS VISIBLE | These schools make the skills visible. Students aren't guessing what good collaboration looks like. | Transformation: Learner-Owned |

THEY CREATE REAL REASONS TO USE THEM | Students aren't practicing skills for someday. They're communicating with real audiences, solving real problems, and adjusting in real time. | Transformation: Real World |

THEY BUILD THEM INTO EVERYDAY LEARNING | These skills don't live in special projects. They show up across classes, across contexts, and across the year. | Transformations: Learner-Led + Collaborative |

The Result?

Students don't just talk about durable skills.

They demonstrate them.

They reflect on them.

They grow them.

And when it comes time for a Defense of Learning…

you don't have to wonder if the skills are there. You can see them.

If we want students to demonstrate durable skills - not just name them - then we have to design learning where those skills are practiced every day.

That's the shift.

And it's the focus of our upcoming April 29 Design Studio: The Communication and Collaboration Playbook , where we'll explore practical strategies and simple moves that help turn communication and collaboration into daily habits—not occasional outcomes.

Whether you're working from a Graduate Profile or just beginning to name what matters most, this session centers on one core idea:

Durable skills are built through intentional, everyday design.

In the meantime, here are two FREE sample plays from our Learner Profile Playbook —a practical toolkit for helping learners build the skills they need to communicate, collaborate, think critically, and navigate learning with confidence.

COMMUNICATION: Play 1 Run this play when learners are preparing for presentations, interviews, performances, or public- facing tasks and need to strengthen their delivery presence with confidence, clarity, and connection.

COLLABORATION: Play 1 Run this play when learners are about to start a collaborative project and need to surface their collaboration strengths and preferences before assigning roles or responsibilities. This play creates self-awareness and helps teams form balanced, complementary dynamics.

✈️ The Communication & Collaboration Playbook

April 29 | OVEC Middleton | 9:00–3:00

Designing for Impact

Tue, 03 Mar 2026 16:50:53 GMT

Before You Design the Defense: Start with Purpose

Across Kentucky, Defenses of Learning are gaining momentum. The benefits of these powerful opportunities for our learners are vast. However, before designing slides, rubrics, or schedules, there’s an important question to answer:

What is our PURPOSE for asking students to do a Defense?

The most powerful defenses don’t start with a template; they start with clarity of purpose. That purpose becomes the compass for every design decision that follows.

Is the purpose…

To move the Portrait of a Learner from wall décor to lived experience by asking students to demonstrate how competencies show up in their actual work and growth?

To give students authentic opportunities to articulate thinking, tell their learning stories, and respond to questions from a real audience?

To assess competencies not just through artifacts, but through how students present, reason, adapt, and respond in the moment?

To help students synthesize evidence from multiple subjects and experiences rather than viewing learning as siloed?

To create transparency and shared understanding of what the district values, and what learning looks like beyond grades?

To ensure every learner has structured opportunities to be seen, heard, and recognized for growth — especially in competencies that traditional grading may overlook?

To provide formative insight that shapes future instruction, supports, and personalized pathways?

To normalize reflection, revision, and growth over time?

Designing with Purpose

All of these are worthwhile options - and there are others. Identifying and communicating the purpose of these powerful learning moments is not optional, however.

It is foundational.

Without clarity of purpose, defenses can quickly become compliance-driven events.

With clarity, they become transformative experiences.

Finding the Purpose | A Collection of Tools

We are excited to share our collection of’ practical (and FREE!) tools designed to help teams surface, refine, and align around their purpose, ensuring that every Defense of Learning is intentional, coherent, and learner-centered.

FOR LEADERSHIP TEAMS

Purpose setting Protocol (Getting Started with Defenses) | This protocol will take you through the identification of a clear purpose for your Defenses and the design implications that naturally follow.

Purpose Refining Protocol (Existing Defenses) | Use this protocol if your team needs a structured way to revisit the purpose of your current Defense structure and make intentional decisions about what to keep, refine, or redesign for greater coherence and equity.

FOR LEARNERS

Build Your Own Defense: A Tool for Learners | A simple, student-friendly process that helps learners reflect on meaningful moments, find patterns, and identify a clear purpose for their Defense.

Powerful Defense Question Library | Designing a Defense with a strong, reflective question helps learners make sense of their experiences rather than simply recounting tasks. This library provides a set of meaningful, purpose-driven questions that help students grow, develop agency, connect to purpose, and understand who they are becoming.

✈️ The Communication & Collaboration Playbook

April 29 | OVEC Middleton | 9:00–3:00

✈️ Learning Opportunity with Our Friends at NGLC

Vibrant Learning In Practice: The Power of Relevance

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:48:10 GMT

Vibrant Learning In Practice: The Power of Relevance

Across Kentucky, educators are asking an important question:

What does vibrant learning actually look like day-to-day, and how do we design learning experiences so this is the norm for every student?

Kentucky Teacher of the Year Michelle Gross offers a clear and compelling answer—and it may be simpler than we think. A seventh-grade math teacher at Spencer County Middle School, Michelle designs learning that aligns seamlessly with Kentucky's vision for vibrant learning. In her classroom, you won't find pages of disconnected practice problems. Instead, students engage in deep, collaborative analysis and apply mathematical concepts through relevant, personal connections.

Relevance isn't reserved for long-term projects—it's embedded daily. No matter the task, unit or assessment, real-world context for rigorous mathematical thinking while also creating space for collaboration, feedback, and revision are Michelle's priorities - and the norm for learning in her classroom. Students own their work, revise based on feedback, and make their learning public, all important hallmarks of vibrant learning in Kentucky classrooms.

When learning is designed to connect to students' lives, it sticks. By prioritizing relevance, and creating time for deep thinking and revision, Michelle Gross exemplifies vibrant learning—not as an initiative, but as a daily practice.

You can learn more about Michelle's approach to learning design and the shifts she makes to ensure learning matters to her students here: It's like Riding a Bike: A Classroom Culture of Personal Connections.

A Place to Start: Transformations and a Tool

Vibrant learning doesn't require a complete overhaul—it starts with simple shifts. ElevatED Studios' Transformations framework is a free tool that helps educators examine learning experiences and identify simple, sustainable shifts that increase relevance, learner agency, collaboration, and real-world application. Whether you're planning a lesson, assessment, or project, Transformations offers a practical lens for designing learning that sticks—just like the work happening in Michelle Gross's classroom

We also recognize the importance of making these shifts without compromising the integrity of instructional resources like HQIRs. Michelle Gross models this beautifully—using Illustrative Mathematics as a strong foundation while applying the Transformations to make daily learning more personal, relevant, collaborative, and meaningful.

To support this kind of intentional design work, we created the Vibrant HQIRs tool —another free resource. Using the five Transformations as a lens, it helps teams examine existing HQIR lessons, unit launches, and assessments to identify small shifts that elevate the learner experience while honoring standards and purpose.

Through classroom case studies and guiding prompts, PLCs and coaching teams are supported in identifying one shift to try—and then reflecting on what changed for learners. It's a practical way to move from implementation to interpretation, making vibrant learning possible in classrooms every day.

If you'd like support in simple shifting an HQIR or to think more about how to leverage the Transformations, we'd love to connect!

Your Spring Learning Flight Plan

Designing Defenses of Learning

February 18 | 9:00–3:00
Back by popular demand! Every student has a learning story worth telling. This design session supports teachers, coaches, and leaders in creating or refining Defenses of Learning that center growth, reflection, and student voice. Through inspiring examples, exploration of common pain points, and digging into 50+ tools and strategies, you'll leave with ideas and resources to make your Defenses of Learning impactful for your entire school/ district community.
sign up here

The Communication & Collaboration Playbook

March 12 | 9:00–3:00
The two skills most commonly included in Portraits of a Learner AND on job descriptions: communication and collaboration. But, what does it really mean to bring those skills to life in classrooms? This session explores practical strategies and simple shifts found in our Profile Playbook that help make these skills daily habits. With or without a learner profile, participants will leave with tools that empower students to take ownership and collaborate with purpose.
sign up here

Learning Opportunity with Our Friends at NGLC

April 9–10, 2026 | Portland, Maine
Next Generation Learning Challenges invites educators to a Learning Excursion to Casco Bay High School , focused on rigor, relevance, and relationships in innovative instruction and proficiency-based grading. Participants will experience student-led, community-connected learning in action and take home bold yet practical ideas. Early bird pricing is available through February 1, with additional discounts through March 1.
Learn more & register: https://nglc-2026.eventbrite.com

Braided Learning:Strengthening What Already Works

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 14:42:00 GMT

Braided Learning: Strengthening What Already Works

Across classrooms, coaching cycles, and leadership meetings, we're hearing a similar tension surface: AI is everywhere—and yet we are still trying to figure out where it actually belongs. We know not as a replacement for professional judgment. And not as another initiative to manage. But a tool that can strengthen reflection, planning, and clarity in service of more vibrant learning experiences . Without flattening the human side of teaching and learning.

That tension is captured beautifully in the Getting Smart article, “Braided Learning: How AI Can Enhance What Educators Already Do Well” . The author offers a powerful metaphor: instead of treating AI as a separate strand—or worse, a shortcut—we can braid it alongside educator expertise, relationships, and lived experience. In this view, AI supports the work teachers and leaders are already doing: noticing patterns, drafting ideas, asking better questions, and making sense of complex information, while humans remain firmly in charge of meaning, values, and decisions. That stance closely mirrors our core belief at elevatED: transformation happens when tools amplify human judgment, learner experience, and community values, not when they replace them. It's also what we're seeing in the field: educators don't want more tools; they want tools that strengthen the work they already trust.

From Braided Thinking to Intentional Action

What we appreciate most from the article highlighted above, is it doesn't offer a silver bullet. Instead, it invites educators to ask questions: What work do we want humans to hold tightly? Where could AI reduce friction or surface insight? How do we design conditions where the braid strengthens, rather than tangles?

These are the same questions we ask when designing for vibrant, learner-centered experiences—and the ones we believe are worth slowing down for.

How teams might use this article:

In a PLC : Use the article as a shared read and invite teams to highlight one passage that affirmed their instincts and one that challenged their thinking. Pair that with the question: Where could AI support reflection or planning without touching the heart of our instruction?
With coaches: Read the article through a coaching lens and ask: Which parts of our coaching work should never be automated? Where might AI support prep, sense-making, or follow-up without replacing conversation?
With school or district leaders: Use the braided learning metaphor to ground AI conversations in enabling conditions. Ask: What policies, norms, or supports would help educators use AI as a partner—not a pressure? What guardrails matter most?

One tool that can support these conversations is our AI Braiding Protocol , a short, reflective process that helps educators start with the work they already do, notice where friction exists, and explore one small way AI might support thinking— while keeping learner experience, equity, and human judgment at the center.

When adult learning is personal, learner-owned, collaborative, and grounded in the real world, tools like AI don't lead the work, they quietly strengthen it.

Your Spring Learning Flight Plan

✈️ Designing Defenses of Learning

February 18 | 9:00–3:00

Back by popular demand! Every student has a learning story worth telling. This design session supports teachers, coaches, and leaders in creating or refining Defenses of Learning that center growth, reflection, and student voice. Through inspiring examples, exploration of common pain points, and digging into 50+ tools and strategies, you'll leave with ideas and resources to make your Defenses of Learning impactful for your entire school/ district community.
�� sign up here

✈️ The Communication & Collaboration Playbook

March 12 | 9:00–3:00

✈️ Learning Opportunity with Our Friends at NGLC

April 9–10, 2026 | Portland, Maine
Next Generation Learning Challenges invites educators to a Learning Excursion to Casco Bay High School , focused on rigor, relevance, and relationships in innovative instruction and proficiency-based grading. Participants will experience student-led, community-connected learning in action and take home bold yet practical ideas. Early bird pricing is available through February 1, with additional discounts through March 1.
�� Learn more & register: https://nglc-2026.eventbrite.com

Designing Defenses of Learning

Wed, 21 Jan 2026 18:59:00 GMT

How might Defenses of Learning become powerful spaces for students to reflect, grow, and share their stories.

Before the holiday break, school and district leaders from across our state came together to wrestle with this question at our Defenses of Learning Design Studio. Defenses of Learning offer more than a culminating event. When designed with intention, they become moments where students reflect on their growth, connect evidence to purpose, and practice telling the story of who they are as learners. They also give educators and leaders rare, meaningful insight into the student experience: what's working, what's sticking, and what matters most.

During the design studio, leaders stepped into the role of learning archeologists , uncovering simple shifts and practical tools for designing their very first Defense of Learning or reimagining ones already in place. Together, we explored multiple layers of the process—from establishing a clear purpose, to collecting meaningful evidence, to preparing students for defense day with confidence and clarity.

We also examined the behind-the-scenes moves that make defenses more seamless and more human: preparing panelists for rich conversation, designing defense-day structures that reduce stress and elevate voice, and harnessing defense data to inform reflection, instruction, and next steps.

The takeaway was clear. Defenses of Learning don't have to be complicated or cookie-cutter. With thoughtful design and a learner-centered purpose, they can become joyful, reflective spaces where students are seen, heard, and valued and where learning is made visible in ways that truly matter.

Fuel For Your Next Big Design Move

With Defense of Learning season quickly approaching, many schools are preparing for Defense of Learning season. This week, we're featuring a free resource from our Defenses of Learning Toolkit , along with a free opportunity to continue the learning. This tool is just one of the 50+ strategies, templates, and design moves leaders explored to make defenses more human, purposeful, and student-centered.

The Panelist Dialogue Menu addresses a common challenge we hear from schools: panelists often want to be supportive, but aren't always sure what to ask or may feel unfamiliar conversing with students in reflective, non-evaluative ways. This simple menu offers clear, compassionate conversation structures like Notice–Wonder–Hope and Shining Moments, helping panelists engage learners with curiosity rather than judgment. The result? Students feel seen and affirmed, panelists feel confident and prepared, and defenses become powerful conversations, not performances.

And for those ready to dive deeper, we're repeating the Defenses of Learning Design Studio on February 18 . See What's on Deck below for details.

Your Spring Learning Flight Plan

✈️ Designing Defenses of Learning

✈️ The Communication & Collaboration Playbook

✈️ Learning Opportunity with Our Friends at NGLC

Inspiration and Resources for Reimagining High School

Tue, 02 Dec 2025 16:22:09 GMT

The Prichard Committee's newest work on the Meaningful Diploma lifts up a challenge many districts feel: seniors often spend their final year in courses that feel disconnected from the futures they're stepping into. Fleming County High School saw that firsthand. Many seniors—especially those heading straight into work or technical programs—were sitting in traditional English classes that didn't match their goals, while their CTE pathways were buzzing with real-world learning, certifications, and purpose.

That tension sparked a simple but powerful question: What if senior English lived where students already felt meaning? Fleming County's answer: allow seniors to earn their English credit inside their CTE pathway, where reading, writing, and communication flow from the authentic work they're already doing.

The results are alive in classrooms. Instead of Beowulf, welding students analyze OSHA manuals tied directly to the safety skills they're building in the shop. Early childhood students write narratives grounded in their fieldwork with local preschoolers. Ag seniors craft informational pieces connected to the certifications they're earning. Family & Consumer Sciences students develop business concepts from the ground up: researching requirements, outlining processes, and writing the accompanying plans. It's still English—every priority standard intact—but suddenly relevant, embodied, and connected to a future students can see. CTE teachers teach English 12 themselves, using Schools PLP as the spine and collaborating with ELA colleagues to ensure rigor stays high—an approach that shows how staffing, standards, and pathways can work together instead of competing for time.

The benefits are already visible: stronger writing across the building, clearer purpose for seniors, and a staff that sees itself less as “departments” and more as a unified team designing for student futures. Fleming County is illustrating how aligned, purposeful design of the student experience can strengthen both engagement and the quality of student work.

Across the country, schools are redesigning high school so it feels connected to the futures students are actually building. Fleming County's senior English model is one example: instead of siloed courses, they've embedded English inside CTE pathways. It's a reminder that relevance isn't an add-on; it's a design choice that changes everything.

The Prichard Committee's new report, Kentucky's Edge A Diploma That Means More , shows why shifts like this matter. The report surfaces a reality many educators feel but rarely see captured so clearly:

Graduation ≠ readiness. Fewer than one in three Kentucky graduates demonstrate proficiency in core academic skills.
Employers aren't confident. Only 12% say recent graduates are fully prepared for the workforce.
High school is still fragmented. Students experience academic courses, pathways, and career exploration as separate tracks when their futures demand something more coherent.
Durable skills matter more than ever. Communication, problem-solving, and real-world application are emerging as essential currency for both college and career.

This report doesn't just name problems– it offers a vision for what comes next: mastery of core academics, integrated real-world learning, and a clearer launch into work, college, and community life. If your team is exploring senior-year redesign, pathway integration, performance tasks, or simply wants shared language to anchor your next steps, A Diploma That Means More is a powerful place to begin.

LAST CALL

December 9 – Designing Defenses of Learning (9am–3pm)

COACHES + BUILDING & DISTRICT LEADERS:

Whether you're launching defenses for the first time or ready to reimagine the ones you have, this session is your design lab. We'll spend the day exploring:

What makes a defense truly learner-centered
How to design prompts, artifacts, and reflection arcs that spotlight growth
Ways to bring students, staff, and the community into the experience

You'll leave with a defense model that's bold, doable, and ready to showcase the strengths and journeys of your learners.

sign up here

Learning from Local Accountability Trailblazers

Tue, 18 Nov 2025 19:27:13 GMT

Learning from Local Accountability Trailblazers

Last week, our Local Accountability Cohort grounded its learning in the lived experiences of Fleming County and Shelby County —two districts shaping local accountability long before the term became common in Kentucky. Their journeys echo many of the moves described in KDE’s Local Accountability Design Guide & Toolkit , which draws on UK Next Gen’s Local Accountability Continuum to name the actions districts often take as they design this work alongside their communities.

Both districts traced their beginnings back to the same starting point: engaging their communities to define what success looks like for their learners, the heart of Action One of UK's Continuum—Define Success for Students. For Shelby and Fleming, this work took shape through their Portraits of a Learner. More than posters or initiatives, these portraits became the foundation for building systems that center the student experience and reflect what their communities and learners value most. As the cohort listened, leaders shared how affirming it felt to recognize their own early steps—developing portraits, shifting learning experiences, gathering evidence of student growth—reflected both in the continuum and in the stories from the field.

All of this is unfolding as Kentucky is in the midst of the advocacy phase for a future accountability system outlined in Framework 4.0 . And while the path ahead is still taking shape, Shelby and Fleming offered a grounding reminder: districts don’t have to wait for statewide rules to create meaningful change. The systems they’ve built with their communities are already strengthening relationships, building trust, and creating richer learning experiences for students right now.

And that became the quiet but steady theme of the day—local accountability isn’t about building a dashboard: it’s about improving the learner experience to ensure learners have the skills they need to be successful. When districts stay rooted in that purpose, the work remains clear, energizing, and worth doing regardless of what comes next at the state level.

Map Your District’s Local Accountability Landscape

Both Shelby and Fleming named how central their Portrait of a Learner has been in shaping their local accountability work. For districts beginning to define success for students—or wanting to strengthen an existing Portrait—staying in genuine dialogue with the community is essential. One powerful way to do that is through Alumni + Employer Roundtables, a simple 90-minute conversation that brings recent graduates and local employers together to name the skills, mindsets, and habits that matter most after high school.

This tool can support districts at any stage:

Defining success for students if you’re creating your Portrait for the first time, or
Revising a Portrait you already have by checking whether it still reflects what young people truly need for college, career, and community life.

How to use it:
Invite 3–5 alumni and a small group of employers, share your current (or draft) Portrait for context, and facilitate the prompts provided. Capture themes using the Roundtable Summary Template. Use that feedback to refine your Definition of Success.

Alumni + Employer Roundtables lift up the voices of students, graduates, and local partners as anchors for defining success. That clarity keeps your Portrait a living reflection of what your community values most, which is the heart of meaningful local accountability.

Access the complete tool here . If you'd like support in hosting an Alumni + Employer Roundtable or to think more about next steps for Local Accountability in your district, we'd love to connect!

Your Fall Learning Flight Plan

✈️ December 9 – Designing Defenses of Learning (9am–3pm)

COACHES + BUILDING & DISTRICT LEADERS:

Whether you’re launching defenses for the first time or ready to reimagine the ones you have, this session is your design lab. We’ll spend the day exploring:

What makes a defense truly learner-centered
How to design prompts, artifacts, and reflection arcs that spotlight growth
Ways to bring students, staff, and the community into the experience

You’ll leave with a defense model that’s bold, doable, and ready to showcase the strengths and journeys of your learners.

�� sign up here

Coaching for Vibrant Learning: Stirring Up Parallel Pedagogy

Mon, 10 Nov 2025 19:22:00 GMT

Coaching for Vibrant Learning: Stirring Up Parallel Pedagogy

Last week, coaches and leaders from across Kentucky gathered for a full-day learning feast: Coaching for Vibrant Learning. Our kitchen was buzzing with conversation, curiosity, and creativity. With a cooking theme and the sweet aroma of collaboration in the air, we explored what happens when coaching becomes as vibrant as the learning we want for students.

The day centered on a simple but powerful truth: if we want vibrant learning for learners, we must create it for educators, too. Through rich discussion and hands-on exploration, participants unpacked common hurdles to more vibrant coaching, like time, overwhelm, and compliance, and experimented with low-lift, high-impact ways to shift everyday practices in PLCs, professional learning, and 1:1 coaching.

In parallel to our Transformations for Learners , we unveiled a new companion framework: Coaching Transformations . These five shifts—Relational, Educator-Driven, Contextualized, Growth-Minded, and Collective—invite us to reimagine coaching as a living, learning process that honors educator identity, agency, and community.

Just as vibrant classrooms are built on curiosity and connection, so, too, are vibrant coaching cycles. Coaches left the day not with recipes to follow, but with ingredients to remix the way educators themselves are challenged and inspired to grow.

Free Tool: Coaching Cards Sample Deck

Want to bring more vibrant educator experiences to your district? This free �� Coaching Cards Sample Deck �� offers a slice of one of the activities from our Coaching for Vibrant Learning design studio.

In the session, coaches used our full Coaching Card Deck to explore what makes coaching feel affirming, authentic, and growth-filled through the eyes of a teacher. Using real coaching moments captured on the cards, they reflected on what “feels really good” in coaching and where small shifts could spark deeper trust, agency, and curiosity. Those discoveries led naturally into the Coaching Transformations Framework —five design elements that move coaching from transactional to transformational.

The sample deck includes instructions for trying this conversation with your own team. Just remember: as you explore each card, keep your teacher hat on. Viewing coaching through the learner’s lens is what turns reflection into transformation.

Transformation doesn’t have to start with an overhaul: it starts with curiosity. If you’re ready to test simple shifts that make coaching more human, joyful, and connected, we’d love to partner with you.

Your Fall Learning Flight Plan

✈️ November 12 – KDE: Designing Local Accountability Systems (9am–12pm)

DISTRICT + SCHOOL LEADERS, TEACHERS, AND COACHES:

Ready to reimagine what accountability can look like when it’s locally designed and learning-centered? Join us to explore:

What “success” truly means for your students, schools, and district
How to design vibrant learning experiences that demonstrate growth
Ways to build a community-owned system that reflects your local story

This interactive session co-hosted by the KDE Division of Innovation, UK Next Gen, and elevatED studios features the new KDE Local Accountability Design Guide & Toolkit.

�� sign up here.

�� Flyer

✈️ December 9 – Designing Defenses of Learning (9am–3pm)

COACHES + BUILDING & DISTRICT LEADERS:

Whether you’re launching defenses for the first time or ready to reimagine the ones you have, this session is your design lab. We’ll spend the day exploring:

What makes a defense truly learner-centered
How to design prompts, artifacts, and reflection arcs that spotlight growth
Ways to bring students, staff, and the community into the experience

You’ll leave with a defense model that’s bold, doable, and ready to showcase the strengths and journeys of your learners.

�� sign up here

FullScale Symposium: Pushing the Edges of Competency-Based Learning

Tue, 04 Nov 2025 19:15:40 GMT

FullScale Symposium: Pushing the Edges of Competency-Based Learning

Last week, educators from across the country gathered for the FullScale Symposium , a national convening on the future of competency-based learning. Our team joined forces with leaders from Mesa Public Schools to explore one of the most practical, and often underestimated, levers for change: the master schedule.

In our session, we framed the schedule as the proverbial fence between traditional and competency-based models. Knocking the fence down entirely, redesigning the whole schedule from scratch, sounds bold, but it’s also incredibly hard. The structure of school is stubborn; bell schedules, credits, and class periods pull us back toward what we’ve always done. Too often, we end up painting the same six-period fence a different color instead of changing what it’s made of.

We offered another path: find the edges—the places where the fence is already cracked or has a few holes in it. This means finding places that are low-risk, potentially high reward: for example, reimagining an underutilized homeroom period to be a launching pad for passion projects or piloting an interdisciplinary model with a math and science teacher excited about the idea. These are the entry points for small, research-and-design shifts you can try right away with a team of teachers and learners.

Participants explored a protocol called “Pushing the Edges” to map their own schedules, spotting moments where rethinking how we allocate time, people, courses & credit, and technology could be powerful entry points for a better learner experience. Big change, especially sustainable change, doesn’t have to begin with bulldozers; it begins at the edges, where bold ideas and willing teams start carving new paths through the fence.

Tool for Reimagining Master Schedules: Pushing the Edges Protocol

Is your team looking to reimagine time, but not sure where to start? The Pushing the Edges protocol helps schools move from big aspirations to actionable ideas by uncovering what’s already possible within the schedule you have.

Instead of prescribing a model or template, this tool turns the conversation itself into the design space. Through a series of structured rounds, teams surface small but meaningful opportunities—the edges—where new ways of using time, people, courses & credit, and technology could take root.

Each round moves the group from individual sparks to shared insights to collective next steps, often ending with a why statement that captures what they want their schedule to make possible for learners. It’s a simple but powerful way to build momentum: to notice the cracks in the fence, and decide, together, how to widen them to create a more meaningful learner experience.

�� Download the Pushing the Edges protocol to try with your own team.

We partner with schools and districts to begin pushing on the edges. If you’re ready to find places to push that are low-risk high reward we are here to help!

Your Fall Learning Flight Plan

�� LAST CALL! ��

✈️ November 5 – COACHING FOR VIBRANT LEARNING (9am–3pm)

COACHES + BUILDING & DISTRICT LEADERS:

You spend your days feeding others…but who’s feeding you? This session is your refill. We will spend the day exploring:

What’s fueling, and draining, your current coaching cycles
What kind of nourishment those you serve might need
How to create low-lift, high-impact moves that energize both you and your team

�� sign up here

✈️ November 12 – KDE: Designing Local Accountability Systems (9am–12pm)

DISTRICT + SCHOOL LEADERS, TEACHERS, AND COACHES:

Ready to reimagine what accountability can look like when it’s locally designed and learning-centered? Join us to explore:

What “success” truly means for your students, schools, and district
How to design vibrant learning experiences that demonstrate growth
Ways to build a community-owned system that reflects your local story

This interactive session co-hosted by the KDE Division of Innovation and UK Next Gen , features the new KDE Local Accountability Design Guide & Toolkit .

�� sign up here.

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✈️ December 9 – Designing Defenses of Learning (9am–3pm)

COACHES + BUILDING & DISTRICT LEADERS:

Whether you’re launching defenses for the first time or ready to reimagine the ones you have, this session is your design lab. We’ll spend the day exploring:

What makes a defense truly learner-centered
How to design prompts, artifacts, and reflection arcs that spotlight growth
Ways to bring students, staff, and the community into the experience

You’ll leave with a defense model that’s bold, doable, and ready to showcase the strengths and journeys of your learners.

�� sign up here

Coaching for Vibrant Learning

Tue, 28 Oct 2025 19:08:28 GMT

Coaching for Vibrant Learning

Vibrant learning doesn’t stop at the classroom door. It grows in the spaces where teachers gather, plan, and learn together. If we want students to experience curiosity, creativity, and agency, then our educators, and the coaches who support them need those same sparks in their own learning. This week, we’re spotlighting districts who are turning coaching into a living model of what we want for every learner.

Bullitt County Public Schools is building a culture where coaching thrives. Each month, instructional coaches gather not just for logistics, but for learning- diving into authentic practices aligned to their Graduate Profile while cultivating genuine community. From exploring design for real-world learning to keeping joyful traditions alive (like embedding holiday celebrations into meetings), Bullitt’s coaches model what it means to blend purpose, connection, and culture.

Allen County Schools is investing in leadership that learns together. Across the year, school and district leaders, including coaches and principals partnered with our team to strengthen the conditions for vibrant learning. Together, they experienced immersive lessons, unpacked the Transformations framework, and used protocols like the Bullseye Idea to explore how system-level supports empower teachers to “hit the mark.” Through this process, teams mapped the unique conditions, structures, and supports surrounding their instructional model, ensuring that what happens across the system mirrors the vibrant, learner-centered experiences they want in every classroom.

By investing in the learning of our leaders, we’re not just strengthening instruction, we’re nurturing a culture where curiosity, reflection, and growth flow in every direction. That’s what parallel pedagogy looks like in action: when the way we teach, learn, and lead all move together toward something more vibrant.

Bullseye Idea:

A strategy to help systems and schools align what they value with what they do.

In Allen County, leaders didn’t just study their instructional model, they stepped inside it. During their partnership sessions, they used the Bullseye Idea to explore how system-level supports empower educators to “hit the mark.” Together, they mapped the unique conditions, teacher supports, and district structures that bring vibrant learning to life, revealing where alignment was strong and where new possibilities could grow.

The Bullseye Idea helps teams see how the system itself can model the very Transformations we want for students: coherence, creativity, and agency. It’s a simple visual strategy that sparks deep conversations about how we teach, lead, and learn together.

✈️ Explore the Bullseye Tool Here

Want to experience this kind of alignment firsthand? Join us November 5 for Coaching for Vibrant Learning (9am–3pm) a day designed to refill your cup and reimagine what coaching can do when it’s rooted in vibrancy.

Your Fall Learning Flight Plan

✈️ November 5 – COACHING FOR VIBRANT LEARNING (9am–3pm)

COACHES + BUILDING & DISTRICT LEADERS:

You spend your days feeding others…but who’s feeding you? This session is your refill. We will spend the day exploring:

What’s fueling, and draining, your current coaching cycles
What kind of nourishment those you serve might need
How to create low-lift, high-impact moves that energize both you and your team

�� sign up here

✈️ November 12 – KDE: Designing Local Accountability Systems (9am–12pm)

DISTRICT + SCHOOL LEADERS, TEACHERS, AND COACHES:

Ready to reimagine what accountability can look like when it’s locally designed and learning-centered? Join us to explore:

What “success” truly means for your students, schools, and district
How to design vibrant learning experiences that demonstrate growth
Ways to build a community-owned system that reflects your local story

This interactive session co-hosted by the KDE Division of Innovation and UK Next Gen , features the new KDE Local Accountability Design Guide & Toolkit .

�� sign up here.

�� Flyer

✈️ December 9 – Designing Defenses of Learning (9am–3pm)

COACHES + BUILDING & DISTRICT LEADERS:

Whether you’re launching defenses for the first time or ready to reimagine the ones you have, this session is your design lab. We’ll spend the day exploring:

What makes a defense truly learner-centered
How to design prompts, artifacts, and reflection arcs that spotlight growth
Ways to bring students, staff, and the community into the experience

You’ll leave with a defense model that’s bold, doable, and ready to showcase the strengths and journeys of your learners.

�� sign up here

From PLCs to Real-World Relevance

Mon, 20 Oct 2025 18:58:49 GMT

From PLCs to Real-World Relevance

In Rowan County Schools , transformation is happening one PLC at a time. Rather than treating high-quality instructional resources (HQIRs) as fixed scripts, teachers are reimaging them as launchpads for community-connected learning.

Grade-level PLCs gather not only to unpack their HQIRs, but to ask a bigger question: “Where does this connect to our community?” Together they look for ways to extend the unit into the community or amplify it with digital tools. These “simple shifts”, small design choices build toward the five Transformations : Personal, Learner-Led, Real-World, Learner-Owned, and Collaborative.

Across grade levels, those shifts are easy to spot:

2nd Grade – Pollination Collaboration: Partnering with the Rowan County Senior High School Civil Engineering class, second graders explored pollination through hands-on STEM learning. Older students built bee boxes and shared design insights, while elementary learners connected their EL module to real-world engineering and ecology.
3rd Grade – Schools Around the World Simulation: Students read about education across cultures, then turned their playground into a global learning space, building “classrooms” on a bus, under a tent, and beside a picnic table to experience how school looks different around the world.
3rd Grade – The CES Unloved Books Podcast: A reading strategies lesson evolved into a student-produced podcast that gave learners a public voice and an authentic audience. They even presented their project at the state STLP competition.
7th Grade – Epidemics Unit: Students in an EL module on Patient Zero created their own digital campaigns to explain how information (and misinformation) spreads, connecting literacy and science through storytelling.

Across every example, the pattern is clear: Rowan’s PLCs are incubators for transformation. Through intentional coaching and collaboration, Rowan County is proving that vibrant learning isn’t about replacing resources, it’s about reimagining how they connect to the world students live in.

A Toolkit for Designing with integrity:

Using HQIRs to bring The Transformations to life.

Rowan County’s story reminds us: transformation doesn’t always start from scratch, sometimes it starts with just a new lens. Their instructional coach used PLC time to help teachers look at the lessons they already have and ask, “What small shift could make this more authentic, connected, and alive for our learners?” That same idea is also captured in our HQIR Case Studies Tool .

This PLC-ready resource helps teams study side-by-side examples of HQIR lessons, the original version and a simple-shifted version redesigned through The Transformations . Each case comes with reflection prompts, design questions, and a process teams can use to plan their own shifts.

Whether your next PLC is 15 minutes or a full block, this tool makes it easy to practice designing with integrity over fidelity, shaping high-quality resources into vibrant learning.

✈️ Explore the HQIR Case Studies here .

We partner with schools to bring these moves to life, in PLCs, faculty meetings, co-teaching cycles, and custom PD sessions. If you’re ready to simple shift your HQIR we are here to help!

Your Fall Learning Flight Plan

✈️ November 5 – COACHING FOR VIBRANT LEARNING (9am–3pm)

COACHES + BUILDING & DISTRICT LEADERS:

You spend your days feeding others…but who’s feeding you? This session is your refill. We will spend the day exploring:

What’s fueling, and draining, your current coaching cycles
What kind of nourishment those you serve might need
How to create low-lift, high-impact moves that energize both you and your team

�� sign up here

✈️ November 12 – KDE: Designing Local Accountability Systems (9am–12pm)

DISTRICT + SCHOOL LEADERS, TEACHERS, AND COACHES:

Ready to reimagine what accountability can look like when it’s locally designed and learning-centered? Join us to explore:

What “success” truly means for your students, schools, and district
How to design vibrant learning experiences that demonstrate growth
Ways to build a community-owned system that reflects your local story

This interactive session co-hosted by the KDE Division of Innovation and UK Next Gen , features the new KDE Local Accountability Design Guide & Toolkit .

�� sign up here.

�� Flyer

✈️ December 9 – Designing Defenses of Learning (9am–3pm)

COACHES + BUILDING & DISTRICT LEADERS:

Whether you’re launching defenses for the first time or ready to reimagine the ones you have, this session is your design lab. We’ll spend the day exploring:

What makes a defense truly learner-centered
How to design prompts, artifacts, and reflection arcs that spotlight growth
Ways to bring students, staff, and the community into the experience

You’ll leave with a defense model that’s bold, doable, and ready to showcase the strengths and journeys of your learners.

�� sign up here

Michelle Gross, KY Teacher of the Year

Mon, 13 Oct 2025 18:51:45 GMT

Michelle Gross, KY Teacher of the Year

If you’ve ever met Michelle Gross, you know: her brilliance shows up quietly, in the deep relationships she builds, the authentic learning experiences she designs, and the humility she carries into every room. Now named Kentucky Teacher of the Year, Michelle still does what she’s always done, use math to empower, connect, and inspire.

Her 7th graders don’t just calculate square footage, they design dream homes. They research floor plans, draw to scale, estimate mortgage payments, and present their blueprints to real architects and designers. In her Ratios Recipe Project, they scale recipes to feed a crowd (or just one) and bring their math to life in the kitchen. Every unit in Michelle’s classroom is a chance to do something meaningful with math, and that meaning sticks. As one student shared, “I’ll look back at this when I build my actual house.” That’s what happens when learning is personal, real-world, and learner-owned.

Michelle, one of our longtime Teacher Navigators, is a master of the quiet shift. Her classroom hums with the kind of learning we want more of: joyful, rigorous, relevant, and real. She reminds us that when we trust students with the good stuff, work that matters to them, the math (and everything else) lands deeper.

Want to learn more about Michelle’s Dream House Project?

�� Read the full story here.

Strategy Spotlight: Make it Real (literally)

Michelle’s Dream House project didn’t end with a test, it ended with blueprints, physical models, and presentations to real architects. That’s the Real-World Transformation in action.

This week, we’re pulling two go-to strategies from the Real-World section of our Transformation Strategy Deck to help you bring that same energy into your own classroom:

These are just two of the 60+ vibrant learning strategies in our deck.

Want a deeper look? Let’s talk.

We partner with schools to bring these moves to life, in PLCs, faculty meetings, co-teaching cycles, and custom PD sessions. If you’re ready to make learning more real, we’re here for it.

✈️ November 5 – COACHING FOR VIBRANT LEARNING (9am–3pm)

COACHES + BUILDING & DISTRICT LEADERS:

You spend your days feeding others…but who’s feeding you? This session is your refill. We will spend the day exploring:

What’s fueling, and draining, your current coaching cycles
What kind of nourishment those you serve might need
How to create low-lift, high-impact moves that energize both you and your team

�� sign up here

✈️ December 9 – Designing Defenses of Learning (9am–3pm)

COACHES + BUILDING & DISTRICT LEADERS:

Whether you’re launching defenses for the first time or ready to reimagine the ones you have, this session is your design lab. We’ll spend the day exploring:

What makes a defense truly learner-centered
How to design prompts, artifacts, and reflection arcs that spotlight growth
Ways to bring students, staff, and the community into the experience

You’ll leave with a defense model that’s bold, doable, and ready to showcase the strengths and journeys of your learners.

�� sign up here

Your Fall Learning Flight Plan

Vote. Learn. Lead.

Mon, 06 Oct 2025 18:40:21 GMT

Vote. Learn. Lead.

What happens when you give kids the power to choose their own learning path? At Gutermuth Elementary School , Special Area has become the answer. Instead of being told where to go, 4th and 5th graders pull out their devices every three weeks to vote on their next unit, casting ranked choices after watching short teacher-made “ promo videos .” The result: buzzing excitement before units even begin.

The system behind it is both structured and flexible. Each teacher designs a three-week unit; from podcasting to LEGO engineering to photography. Student votes are gathered through Google Forms , and the teacher team works to give everyone a first or second choice. When a unit overfills, they spin the Wheel of Names to keep things fair.

The learning itself is hands-on and capped with authentic exhibitions. In the one of the first units Picture Perfect , students explored techniques like rule of thirds, light filters, and symmetry before creating photography portfolios, six-word stories, and a gallery exhibition where they shared their best work with peers and staff . Each unit also includes a “ Profile of a Learner ” artifact, so by year’s end, every learner has a collection of 12 authentic demonstrations of growth.

And the impact? Engagement is high, behavior issues are rare, and teachers are energized. As the teacher leading the charge Cindy Hundley shared: “The kids are so well-behaved because they are doing what they are interested in. If you don’t like coding, don’t pick coding.” What started as a bold idea is now a learner-led system that proves choice isn’t just a perk, it’s a powerful pathway to ownership.

✈️ For more information check out Cindy Hundley's presentation HERE

Playing with Time

Gutermuth's Special Area redesign is a powerful example of the Learner-Led Transformation in action. By giving students real choice in their units, they created a structure where ownership, motivation, and engagement all rose naturally. It’s a reminder that when learners help decide the “what” and “how,” the energy in the room shifts.

But you don’t need to rework an entire block to bring that same spirit into your classroom or school. Sometimes, the key lever is time. How we organize minutes, hours, or weeks can either limit choice or unlock it.

That’s why we created the Learner-Led Menu: Playing with Time. It highlights six practical ways teachers and leaders can carve out space for student choice, from one-day immersions to weekly blocks to passion project cycles. Think of it as a menu of entry points: small shifts you can try right away, or bigger experiments you might pilot with a team. Each option is a way to make the Learner-Led Transformation visible and doable in your own context.

✈️ Explore the full Learner-Led Menu: Playing with Time here.

Your Fall Learning Flight Plan

COACHES + INSTRUCTIONAL LEADERS:

✈️ November 5 – Coaching for Vibrant Learning (9am–3pm)

Why settle for coaching that feels like compliance? This day is built for instructional coaches, team leads, and anyone who supports teachers —giving you the tools and energy to make coaching joyful, impactful, and impossible to ignore.

�� sign up here

COACHES + BUILDING & DISTRICT LEADERS:

✈️ December 9 – Designing Defenses of Learning (9am–3pm)

Whether your school is launching defenses for the first time or ready to reimagine the ones you have, this day is for you. Together we’ll design (or redesign) defenses of learning that center growth, reflection, and student voice. Through inspiring examples and a collaborative design sprint, you’ll leave with a model ready to showcase the strengths and journeys of your learners.

�� sign up here

Snapshots of Collaboration & Communication

Mon, 29 Sep 2025 18:33:14 GMT

Snapshots of Collaboration & Communication

Last week, educators from across the region came together to explore one big question: What does it really mean to bring the Profile of a Learner to life? In a full-day design session, teachers, coaches, and leaders dug into the Learner Profile Playbook, unlocking practical tools and strategies to make communication and collaboration daily habits in the classroom .

Through hands-on mini-lessons, rapid-fire design sprints, and vibrant team huddles, participants experienced the Playbook from the learner’s perspective. They wrestled with real “tough calls” educators face every day, like how to honor different communication styles without labeling them “less than,” or how to make collaboration energizing instead of exhausting . By stepping into the plays themselves, educators didn’t just hear about strategies, they practiced them, reflected, and imagined how they could adapt them for their own classrooms.

The day closed with a collective sense of momentum: a toolkit of ready-to-run plays, a deeper understanding of the Transformations that anchor learner-centered design, and a renewed commitment to shaping student experiences that are personal, collaborative, learner-led, real-world, and learner-owned .

Plays that Stick

During our Learner Profile Playbook PD, one challenge kept surfacing: students often have powerful ideas, but without the right structures, those ideas get lost, either in scattered collaboration or unclear communication. To tackle this, we turned to two strategies from the Playbook that help learners launch with clarity, whether they’re working as a team or crafting a message.

Project Huddle: Goal Check

Every strong project begins with clarity. Goal Check helps teams pause at the start of any collaboration to answer one essential question: What are we trying to accomplish together? By co-creating a one-sentence “By the end of this project, we will…” statement, learners align their efforts and establish a shared north star .

✈️ Explore the full Project Huddle: Goal Check play.

Message Distiller

Big ideas lose power if they can’t be expressed clearly. Message Distiller teaches learners to boil down their thinking by running it through three lenses: What’s the big idea? Why should it matter? Can I say it in one clear sentence? The result is sharper, more memorable communication, whether in a pitch, PSA, or presentation .

✈️ Explore the full Message Distiller play.

This preview is only the beginning. If you would like to bring these tools and others to life in your district, school, PLC, or team we would love to partner with you to co-design a session that fits your needs.

Your Fall Learning Flight Plan

COACHES + INSTRUCTIONAL LEADERS:

✈️ November 5 – Coaching for Vibrant Learning (9am–3pm)

�� sign up here

COACHES + BUILDING & DISTRICT LEADERS:

✈️ December 9 – Designing Defenses of Learning (9am–3pm)

�� sign up here

After the Tassle

Mon, 22 Sep 2025 16:27:24 GMT

Ready for the Real-World

Bullitt County is charting a bold course toward transformational learning. As part of their journey to build a Community-Based Accountability Model, one message from families and community members has been clear: graduates must be ready for the real world.

Enter After the Tassel . This program connects seniors with meaningful work experiences, linking local businesses hungry for fresh ideas with students eager to gain skills and purpose. Internships, mentoring, and real-world projects give learners a launchpad while strengthening community connections.

It’s more than career prep. It’s a system-wide commitment to Personal and Real-World Transformations , where every student can graduate with confidence, opportunity, and a pathway forward.

Together with business partners, families, and educators, Bullitt County is proving that when schools and communities align, both the future workforce the future of learning get stronger.

Connecting Learners to Mentors

Bullitt County’s After the Tassel program is a bold vision for connecting students with paid internships and real-world learning before graduation. Is your district interested in giving learners more real-world, work-based experiences but not sure where or how to start?

That’s where this resource from Learner-Centered Collaborative comes in: Connect Learners to Mentors . It offers practical, scalable ways to deepen professional-mentor connections, whether through community partnerships, professional mentors, or even virtual networks that extend beyond your town’s borders.

Think of it as a toolkit for building the bridge between classrooms and careers. Whether you’re just beginning or ready to expand, these strategies can help you design experiences that spark confidence, purpose, and real-world readiness. And, as always, we’re happy to be your thought partners on the journey.

Your Fall Learning Flight Plan

�� WE HOPE TO SEE YOU AT THE CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT SUMMIT!

We’re teaming up with the Kentucky Department of Education and UK Next Generation Leadership to introduce the new Local Accountability Design Guide —a resource with tools, strategies, and ideas to support your district’s journey toward local accountability.

�� September 22 | 1:15–2:15 PM

�� September 23 | 1:45–2:45 PM

DISTRICT LEADERS: READY TO REWRITE YOUR STORY OF SUCCESS?

✈️ September 29 – Local Accountability Cohort Kickoff (9am–12pm)

Current systems only tell part of the picture, and it’s time for more. This cohort is designed for superintendents, district teams, and leaders who are ready to move beyond compliance and shape a richer narrative of learning .

�� sign up here

COACHES + INSTRUCTIONAL LEADERS: THIS ONE’S FOR YOU.

✈️ November 5 – Coaching for Vibrant Learning (9am–3pm)

�� sign up here

Elevating Authentic Learning at Bullitt Central

Mon, 08 Sep 2025 16:16:17 GMT

Elevating Authentic Learning at Bullitt Central

When Algebra II turns into amusement-park design, magic happens.

At Bullitt Central High School, Mr. Jackson’s students used matrices to create food stands and gift shops for an imaginary park, tailoring designs to their own interests. His creativity earned him the school’s Transformational Lesson of the Week —complete with a championship belt.

Behind the fun is something bigger: a leadership team committed to making vibrant, what Bullitt County refers to as ‘transformational’ , learning the norm. Bullitt Central’s Transformational Learning Leadership Team is building a culture where lessons like this aren’t one-offs but everyday practice. By elevating teachers and students in visible ways, they’re:

showing the community what authentic, transformational learning looks like,
celebrating innovation as a team value, not just an individual win,
creating momentum that spreads across classrooms and subjects.

The belt is playful, but the message is serious: when leadership lifts up vibrant learning, it becomes part of school culture.

Visiting Classrooms with Fresh Eyes

At Bullitt Central, a championship belt lifted up the kind of learning we want more of. How else might we ensure these kind of learning experiences are the norm? One answer: classroom visits designed not for compliance, but for celebration and noticing.

This week we’re sharing a preview from our Field Guide for Transformational Learning Observations . One of the tools inside, Transformation Bingo, turns a learning walk into a playful way to spot the five Transformations in action. Instead of filling out a checklist, you’re filling in squares with the moments that matter: a student asking a powerful question, peers pushing each other’s thinking, or a teacher making real-world connections come alive.

Just like we empower students with choice, this guide empowers educators to choose how they observe, reflect, and celebrate. If you’d like to bring the full tool to life in your school or district, we’d love to partner- whether that means customizing it for your building, planning a site visit with your educators, or co-designing a learning walk with your leadership team. Reach out, and let’s keep elevating and celebrating the kind of learning that deserves the spotlight.

Classroom observations are just one tool instructional leaders have to fuel authentic learning experiences. Join us November 5 as we explore tools and moves for Coaching for Vibrant Learning . See details in What's on Deck!

Your Fall Learning Flight Plan

CALLING ALL LEADERS WITH A PORTRAIT OF A LEARNER!

✈️ September 22 – The Learner/Graduate Profile Playbook (9am–3pm)

A profile on paper isn’t enough—it’s time to make it real. This full-day, high-energy session is built for principals, coaches, educators and leadership teams who are ready to turn words into action and equip their teachers to bring collaboration + communication to life for their learners in everyday experiences.

�� sign up here sign up here

DISTRICT LEADERS: READY TO REWRITE YOUR STORY OF SUCCESS?

✈️ September 29 – Local Accountability Cohort Kickoff (9am–12pm)

Current systems only tell part of the picture—and it’s time for more. This cohort is designed for superintendents, district teams, and leaders who are ready to move beyond compliance and shape a richer narrative of learning.

�� sign up here

COACHES + INSTRUCTIONAL LEADERS: THIS ONE’S FOR YOU.

✈️ November 5 – Coaching for Vibrant Learning (9am–3pm)

�� sign up here

Reimagining Writing at Williamsburg

Tue, 02 Sep 2025 16:07:37 GMT

Reimagining Writing at Williamsburg

How do we design writing experiences that feel relevant, human, and joyful for today’s learners? At Williamsburg Independent School ’s Jacketpalooza, educators took on this challenge in our session, Not Your Grandma’s 5 Paragraph Essay, exploring how simple shifts can bring new life to writing.

The session began with educators reflecting on their own most meaningful writing moments. From there, they surfaced the five Transformations that spark vibrant learning and considered how small design changes can move writing beyond the page and into the real world. One example: instead of a generic “how-to” essay, learners might ask, “How can we make our littlest learners feel welcome?” After empathy interviews with current kindergartners, they create guides—videos, pamphlets, or infographics—for incoming families at Kindergarten Camp. These shifts deepen critical thinking while positioning students as creators with a genuine audience.

Educators also dug into shifts in the writing process itself:

Idea Generation – How can we help learners connect to their writing and think freely?
Drafting – How can writers draft with less pressure and more purpose?
Revision – How do we make revision about voice and vision, not red ink?
Collaboration – What does it look like for peers to act as sounding boards and co-creators?
Publication – How can students share their work beyond the classroom walls?

The takeaway? Reimagining writing doesn’t require an overhaul. Even small, intentional shifts at each stage can spark more joyful, authentic, and sustainable writing for both learners and teachers.

Not Your Grandma's Guide to Vibrant Writing

Are you asking the same kinds of questions Williamsburg teachers wrestled with: How do we make writing more relevant, more human, more joyful especially in the age of AI? Ready to try a few simple shifts in your own classroom? We’ve pulled together a free preview of our resource, Not Your Grandma’s Guide to Vibrant Writing , so you can explore some first steps.

In these opening pages, you’ll find the five Transformations that spark vibrant learning, a table of contents of all the moves, and the first three “launch” strategies designed to help writers get started with energy and authenticity. Say It Out Loud First invites students to speak their ideas before they write, capturing their real voice and letting the words flow more naturally. Ask Your Own Question gives learners the chance to frame their own inquiry, so their writing begins with genuine curiosity rather than compliance. And Draft in the DM asks writers to jot down their thoughts as if texting a friend, lowering the stakes and surfacing the heart of what they really want to say.

This preview is only the beginning. If you would like to bring this tool to life in your district, school, PLC, or team we would love to partner with you to co-design a session that fits your needs.

Your Fall Learning Flight Plan

✈️ September 22 – The Learner/Graduate Profile Playbook (9am–3pm)

�� Make collaboration & communication the heartbeat of your classrooms

Your Learner Profile can be more than a poster on the wall. In this full-day deep dive, teachers, coaches, and school/district leaders will:

Design powerful learning for collaboration + communication
Walk away with ready-to-run lessons and strategies
Profile or no profile—you’ll leave with tools to transform teaching and learning, because a profile isn’t the goal, the learning it sparks is.
�� Sign up here

✈️ September 29th - Local Accountability Cohort Kickoff (9am-12pm)

�� It’s time to rewrite the story of success

Current systems only tell part of the picture. This kickoff invites educators, coaches, and leaders to:

Learn alongside districts breaking free from compliance-only measures
Explore real prototypes + models that are working now
Build the foundations for scalable, community-powered accountability
�� Sign up here

✈️ November 5 – Coaching for Vibrant Learning (9am–3pm)

�� Coaching that’s joyful, energizing, and impactful

Why settle for coaching that feels like compliance? This day gives coaches and leaders the chance to:

Learn protocols + frameworks that bring joy to coaching
Build feedback routines that motivate teachers
Walk away with tools, inspiration, and a plate full of fresh ideas ��️
�� Sign up here

From Classrooms to Playgrounds

Mon, 25 Aug 2025 00:05:10 GMT

From Classrooms to Playgrounds

Carroll County High School launched its first Project-Based Learning unit of the year by inviting students to step into the role of hometown heroes. Their challenge: design a model of either a new playground or a mini golf course for the community. To ground their ideas in the real world, learners visited local sites—General Butler State Park and the new accessible playground at Camp Kysoc—while also hearing from Magistrate Scott Nab about how young people can shape county government and civic life.

This is a powerful example of the Real-World and Learner-Led Transformations in action. Students aren’t just studying government and civic engagement in theory—they’re grappling with authentic questions that matter in their own backyard, making decisions about what to create, and seeing the pathways for their voices to influence their community. By blending field visits, civic connections, and design challenges, Carroll County is giving learners an early glimpse of how their creativity and agency can fuel real impact.

Making Learning Visible

In Carroll County , high schoolers are designing new playgrounds and mini golf courses for their community, authentic projects that blend creativity, problem-solving, and civic voice. With great project-based learning often comes a culminating exhibition: a chance for students to showcase not just the product they built, but the process and learning that shaped it.

Exhibitions of Learning make this public celebration possible. Think of them as gallery-style events where learners invite peers, families, and community members to engage with their work, ask questions, and reflect together. And while exhibitions often grow naturally out of rich PBL experiences, they don’t require one. Any unit, a science investigation, a history project, even a math challenge can end with an exposition, turning private assignments into public contributions.

We’re excited to share our Exhibitions of Learning one-pager — an invitation to make learning visible in your classrooms and schools. The guide highlights purpose, practical tips, and launch steps so you can design experiences that spotlight student growth, voice, and pride in authentic ways.

This strategy is part of a larger vision—a System of Performance Assessments designed to elevate student voice, deepen reflection, and make learning visible across the year.

Your September Learning Flight Plan

✈️ September 22 - The Learner/Graduate Profile Playbook (9am-3pm)

Ready to move your Profile of a Learner from words on a page to real impact in your classrooms? This full-day session will take you deeper into the Learner Profile Playbook to:

Learn practical ways to design for two essential skills in any profile: collaboration and communication.
Leave with ready-to-run lessons, embedded strategies, and tools that make these skills visible, intentional, and powerful in your classroom.
�� Sign up here

✈️ September 29th - Local Accountability Cohort Kickoff (9am-12pm)

How do we design systems that tell a complete story of student, school, and community success? Join our OVEC Local Accountability Cohort to:

Learn alongside districts reimagining accountability
Explore real models and prototype tools
Turn bold aspirations into sustainable, scalable systems
�� Sign up here

✈️ Personalized elevatED studios Partnerships

Ready to reimagine the learner experience for your school or district? Check out some of our Partnership Snapshots for inspiration on how we might co-design a more vibrant future for your learners!

Building Collaboration from Day One

Mon, 18 Aug 2025 23:55:39 GMT

Collaboration shows up in nearly every Profile of a Learner. But it doesn’t just happen because students sit in groups. Without intentional design, group work can quickly slide into uneven participation and missed opportunities to grow the skill.

This summer, educators at Old Mill Elementary and Elizabethtown Independent Schools took on the challenge of teaching collaboration intentionally. Guided by the Transformation Framework , they explored how to design learning so collaboration is meaningful, builds on learners strengths, and gives space for reflection and ownership.

They worked from a simple game plan: inputs (standards plus the Transformations ), plays (strategies and tools that bring those inputs to life), and outputs (the standards and learner profile skills students develop, like listening deeply, navigating perspectives, and moving ideas forward).

Their work centered on practical entry points from the new Collaboration Learner Profile Playbook:

Mini-Lessons – teaching a single collaboration move (like active listening or shared decision-making) before students start a task.
Plays – weaving collaboration strategies into authentic content.
Equipment Room – tools and organizers to ensure balanced participation and reflection.

These educators left with concrete ways to help students not just do group work, but learn how to collaborate with purpose and confidence from day 1.

Our Learner Profile Playbook is packed with ways to teach essential skills, like collaboration , with the same intentionality we bring to content.

Conflict Playbook is one of those Plays. Run this play when you spot conflict or tension emerging in a pair or team, instead of letting discomfort derail collaboration.

When tension rises, call a Conflict Time-Out and guide learners through the play:

Step 1: What’s the Rub?

Each team member names the tension from their perspective, brief and without blame:
“What feels stuck or off right now?”

Step 2: Common Ground Check

Refocus on the shared goal:
“What are we actually trying to accomplish together?”

Step 3: Choose a Play Call

The team selects one conflict resolution strategy from the menu below:
Swap & Explain: Each person restates the other’s viewpoint to show understanding
Pick & Test: Try one idea for 10 minutes—then reassess
Third Voice: Invite a neutral peer or teacher to help suggest a merge or alternate solution
Quick Write: Everyone writes their thinking silently first, then shares
Vote & Commit: If truly stuck, take a quick team vote and move forward together

Step 4: Make the Next Play

“What’s our next step, and who’s doing what?”

Challenge Mode (Optional Upgrade):

Team Choice Menu: Let each team customize their Conflict Playbook—choose 3 favorite play calls and give them team-specific names (e.g., “Lightning Round” or “Silent Think”).
Weekly Retrospective: Add a brief “How did we handle conflict this week?” question to team journals or project reflections.

�� Access the full play here: Conflict Playbook

✈️ September 22 - The Learner/Graduate Profile Playbook (9am-3pm)

Ready to move your Profile of a Learner from words on a page to real impact in your classrooms? This full-day session will take you deeper into the Learner Profile Playbook to:

Explore more Plays (like the Conflict Playbook) you can run right away
Learn practical ways to design for two essential skills in any profile: collaboration and communication.
Leave with ready-to-run lessons, embedded strategies, and tools that make these skills visible, intentional, and powerful in your classroom.
�� Sign up here

✈️ September 29th - Local Accountability Cohort Kickoff (9am-12pm)

How do we design systems that tell a complete story of student, school, and community success? Join our OVEC Local Accountability Cohort to:

Learn alongside districts reimagining accountability
Explore real models and prototype tools
Turn bold aspirations into sustainable, scalable systems
�� Sign up here

✈️ Personalized elevatED studios Partnerships

RISE STEM Academy for Girls Is Leading on Two Fronts

Mon, 11 Aug 2025 20:04:40 GMT

If we want transformational classrooms, what kind of leadership does that require?

At RISE STEM Academy for Girls , that question is fueling two bold commitments: designing vibrant, learner-centered experiences and building the kind of leadership that can sustain them. Last week, we had the privilege of partnering with RISE to launch their brand new Guiding Coalition—a team of educators stepping into shared instructional leadership for the first time.

Together, we facilitated a full-day leadership retreat where the team:

Defined a shared vision for instructional leadership at RISE
Discovered what makes learning transformational
Named the conditions that make feedback useful and sustaining transformational learning
Prototyped bold, doable ideas to move learning forward

This is more than a new team. It’s a new direction.

At RISE, leadership isn’t a separate track from teaching and learning. It’s how transformation takes root. And we’re proud to be walking that path with them.

Start the Year with Identity, Voice, and Belonging

This back-to-school season, we’re spotlighting a launch move that does more than break the ice. Getting to Know Me Exhibitions invite learners to share their identity, interests, culture, and goals through low-stakes, high-trust formats like identity maps, artifact museums, and snapshot storytelling. These aren’t just activities- they’re early performance assessments that help every learner feel seen, heard, and valued.

TRANSFORMATION IN ACTION:

Personal : Learners begin by naming what makes them them—centering background, interests, and identity as essential starting points for learning.
Learner-Owned : Learners choose what to share, how to share it, and why it matters—curating early evidence of who they are and how they want to grow.

TRY THE TOOL:

✈️ Start Strong with Getting to Know Me Exhibitions

MAKE IT A SYSTEM:

This launch strategy is part of a larger vision—a System of Performance Assessments designed to elevate student voice, deepen reflection, and make learning visible across the year.

✈️ Explore the Full System Here

notes from the flight deck

Building Toward the Defense: One reflection at a Time

PORTRAIT IN PRACTICE: Teaching the Skills we ask Students to Defend

More Than a Slide Deck: When the Defense Becomes Demonstration

Designing for Impact

Vibrant Learning In Practice: The Power of Relevance

A Place to Start: Transformations and a Tool

Your Spring Learning Flight Plan

Braided Learning:Strengthening What Already Works

Designing Defenses of Learning

Inspiration and Resources for Reimagining High School

Learning from Local Accountability Trailblazers

Learning from Local Accountability Trailblazers

Map Your District’s Local Accountability Landscape

Your Fall Learning Flight Plan

Coaching for Vibrant Learning: Stirring Up Parallel Pedagogy

Coaching for Vibrant Learning: Stirring Up Parallel Pedagogy

Free Tool: Coaching Cards Sample Deck

Your Fall Learning Flight Plan

FullScale Symposium: Pushing the Edges of Competency-Based Learning

FullScale Symposium: Pushing the Edges of Competency-Based Learning

Tool for Reimagining Master Schedules: Pushing the Edges Protocol

Your Fall Learning Flight Plan

Coaching for Vibrant Learning

Coaching for Vibrant Learning

Bullseye Idea:

A strategy to help systems and schools align what they value with what they do.

Your Fall Learning Flight Plan

From PLCs to Real-World Relevance

From PLCs to Real-World Relevance

A Toolkit for Designing with integrity:

Using HQIRs to bring The Transformations to life.

Your Fall Learning Flight Plan

Michelle Gross, KY Teacher of the Year

Michelle Gross, KY Teacher of the Year

Strategy Spotlight: Make it Real (literally)

Your Fall Learning Flight Plan

Vote. Learn. Lead.

Vote. Learn. Lead.

Playing with Time

Your Fall Learning Flight Plan

Snapshots of Collaboration & Communication

Snapshots of Collaboration & Communication

Plays that Stick

Your Fall Learning Flight Plan

After the Tassle

Ready for the Real-World

Connecting Learners to Mentors

Your Fall Learning Flight Plan

Elevating Authentic Learning at Bullitt Central

Elevating Authentic Learning at Bullitt Central

Visiting Classrooms with Fresh Eyes

Your Fall Learning Flight Plan

Reimagining Writing at Williamsburg

Reimagining Writing at Williamsburg

Not Your Grandma's Guide to Vibrant Writing

Your Fall Learning Flight Plan

From Classrooms to Playgrounds

Making Learning Visible

Your September Learning Flight Plan

Building Collaboration from Day One

RISE STEM Academy for Girls Is Leading on Two Fronts

If we want transformational classrooms, what kind of leadership does that require?

Start the Year with Identity, Voice, and Belonging