This episode will explore elements of culturally responsive teaching, supportive environments, and the actions that educators and leaders can take to create a space where students belong, feel valued, and thereby are more likely to take risks, make mistakes, and build a sense of self-efficacy that will serve them well in their academic journeys and in their lives beyond school.

This session examines elements of student ‘voice and choice’ as critical enabling elements needed to build in students that kind of self-efficacy that will help them thrive and meet their full potential as learners.

Learn how Nebraska Department of Education partnered with NWEA® to co-create a new, student-centered approach to statewide assessment by integrating district and state measures using an adaptive through-year assessment model. This comprehensive approach streamlines testing, prioritizes student engagement, provides timely instructional feedback, and accurately measures student performance over time.

When district and state assessments feel disconnected, value and purpose are questioned. Faced with challenges, Alaska DEED partnered with NWEA® to create an innovative statewide assessment system that would enable districts to continue administering MAP® Growth while reducing overall testing and increasing the value of summative tests. Learn how Alaska shifted from a stand-alone summative test to a balanced system focused on teachers and students.

Teachers have tremendously complex jobs and a constantly shifting ecosystem of expectations, yet despite shifts across so many other areas of educational practice, building student agency remains a key desired classroom outcome that educators generally recognize as an area of need. This conversation will give teacher voice to the importance of student agency, varied practitioner views on the opportunities and challenges related to building student agency, and a frame for the season that will prepare listeners to hear about topics ranging from supportive environments and goal setting to meeting the unique needs of students with disabilities and emergent bilinguals.

Learn more about the Assessment Empowerment Professional Learning Suite and the Responsive Learning Cycles Professional Learning Suite—experiences designed and led by veteran educators to drive instructional change.

In this collection of Teach. Learn. Grow. posts, Erin Beard, content design coordinator on NWEA’s professional learning team, offers validation, information, strategies, and tools educators can use in any kind of learning space to support their students in social-emotional learning and overcoming toxic stress and trauma.