Growing Learner Agency and Dispositions

Deeper Learning Pathway: Curriculum & Instruction

Session 1: Learner Agency

  • Intended Audience: Leaders of SRSN Districts and State and Regional Organizations, Principals, Instructional Coaches, Teachers

  • Description: Moving toward learner agency can feel like an enormous shift in thinking and doing. However, a few “evergreen” practices and enabling conditions provide a clear pathway to making the shift happen. Join the session to explore:

    • the enabling conditions that exist in your classroom or school and provide the foundation for learner agency.

    • three “evergreen” practices that enable students to take greater ownership of their learning.

    • a wide variety of examples and models of success.

MO Framework CBL Elements to be discussed:

  • 1. Students are empowered daily to make important decisions about their learning experiences, how they will create and apply knowledge, and how they will demonstrate their learning.

  • 2. Assessment is a meaningful, positive, and empowering learning experience for students that yields timely, relevant, and actionable evidence.

  • 3.Students receive timely, differentiated support based on their individual learning needs.

  • 4.Students progress based on evidence of mastery, not seat time.

  • 5. Students learn actively using different pathways and varied pacing.

  • 6. Strategies to ensure equity for all students are embedded in the culture, structure, and pedagogy of schools and education systems.

  • 7. Rigorous, common expectations for learning (knowledge, skills, and dispositions) are explicit, transparent, measurable, and transferable.

  • 8. Students engage in Real World Learning experiences that support high school, college, career and workplace

Session 2

  • Intended Audience: Leaders of SRSN Districts and State and Regional Organizations, Principals, Instructional Coaches, Teachers

  • Description: This session will build upon the previous to explore more deeply the enabling conditions that are foundational to the work of competency-based learning, rooted in agency. Join us to dive deeper into:

    • Identify a Vision for Learner Agency - Vision

    • Build Relationships Grounded in Learner Agency - Relationships

      Develop Clarity: Align Vision, Goals, and Learning - Clarity

Guest Expert

Kara Vandas

Kara Vandas
Core Collaborative
Author Consultant

Kara Vandas is an educator with an enduring passion for empowering learners. She began her career in education at an alternative school for youth at-risk. Kara spent several more years in the classroom in public education as a middle and high school educator and then transitioned to coaching and professional learning positions that allowed her to support teachers and leaders K-12. Her current role as an author and consultant takes her around the world to partner with schools and school districts.

Kara is a co-author of several books, including Learner Agency: A Field Guide for Taking Flight, Amplify Learner Voice through Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Assessment, and the best- selling Clarity for Learning: 5 Essential Practices that Empower Students and Teachers. She holds

a Master’s degree of Education in Curriculum and Instruction from Regis University, and presents nationally and internationally at conferences, with a focus on learner agency and efficacy. Kara and her family live in Castle Rock, Colorado, where they enjoy the outdoors and spending time with family and friends.

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