New Hampshire Learning Initiative

How might we shift the roles of students and teachers to personalize and deepen learning?

New Hampshire is a national leader in creating conditions that support student-centered learning, from developing an accountability system built on teacher-created performance assessments to embracing a more holistic understanding of student success with the state’s Work Study Practices (Collaboration, Communication, Creativity, and Self Direction). But how can schools translate these policies into rigorous, student-centered learning experiences? The New Hampshire Learning Initiative is working with schools on Collaborative Learning Design, in which teachers work together with students to co-create instructional units that deeply integrate curriculum material, formative assessment, and end-of-unit performance assessments. By more deeply integrating all of these elements of the learning process and asking students to show what they’ve learned through exhibitions, Collaborative Learning Design is cultivating learner agency while students master core content.

Prototypes & Artifacts

• ELP's Defense Implementation Quality Criteria

Presentations of Learning

Website

• https://nhlearninginitiative.org/

Press

• Goodbye, ABCs: How one State Is Moving Beyond Grade Levels and Graded Assessments (Ed Surge, May 16, 2017)
• New Hampshire Pilot Eliminates Grades in K-8 (The Journal, June 1, 2017)
• A "School in Need of Improvement" Reinvents Itself by Focusing on What Matters Most (Ed Surge, June 19, 2017)
• Connecting the Dots: Aligning Efforts to Support Teachers and Students in New Hampshire (Competency Works, May 8, 2017)
• Following Their Lead: Some Thoughts About Student-Led Assessment (Center for Assessment, June 15, 2018)
• Co-Designing Learning WITH Students: A Snapshot at Souhegan High School (Ed Week blog, October, 11, 2018)
• How Can Student and Teachers Co-Design Learning? (Ed Week blog, July 8, 2019)

Blogs

• Our Quest to Personalize Competency-Based Learning in New Hampshire (EdWeek, January 9, 2018)

Student Voices

Presentation of Learning