School Redesign in Action 2025

In the State of Washington, a group of 40 schools—the Mastery-Based Learning Collaborative (MBLC)—has been working to design new approaches to teaching and learning in public schools, building systems and practices that are culturally responsive-sustaining and mastery-based. Mastery-based learning, sometimes referred to as proficiency- or competency-based learning, attempts to make schools more equitable by establishing clear learning goals for students, creating more accurate and helpful grading systems, improving systems of support, and putting students in the driver's seat of their own learning. These efforts can be attempted through many different strategies, some more successful than others. In this workshop, we will use the experiences of MBLC schools and a review of research to determine which strategies truly lead to better outcomes for students.

Participants will:

• Explore highly effective practices utilized by schools in the MBLC.
• Discuss strategies, resources, and examples that can be used to center educational equity in mastery-based learning work.
• Analyze why mastery-based learning strategies cannot be implemented without culturally responsive-sustaining methods.

How might we provide feedback to students that builds their thinking and learning? In this session, we will explore the types of tasks we use in math classrooms that allow for students to engage in deep mathematical thinking. Using scoring criteria aligned with the standards assessed in the tasks, participants will score a set of student work and explore next steps for student feedback and instructional planning. While our work will be grounded in secondary mathematics, the strategies are transferable to all content areas and grade spans.

Participants will:

• Use sample scoring criteria to score student work.
• Review a range of student work to provide feedback to students and determine instructional next steps
• Understand how to align a task with learning outcomes

Are you interested in exploring the dynamic world of competency-based education (CBE) in practice? Join us in unpacking the stories of change and design. Educators and students from the ACE Program at Brookline HS (MA), BFA Fairfax (VT), and Chelsea Opportunity Academy (MA)  will share their journeys to CBE. These learning communities represent rural, urban, and suburban settings, and different entry points to CBE with new school designs and transformation from traditional educational practice. Don’t miss this opportunity to learn, engage, and connect around the culture, structures, and pedagogy of CBE in practice.  
 
Workshop outcomes: 

• Participants will deepen their understanding of competency-based education in practice.
• Participants will learn from the specific examples and stories of other learning communities and engage with the idea of multiple pathways to CBE.
• Participants will make connections to their own school redesign in action journeys to date and moving forward.