Why We Developed This Guide
This Guide was developed to offer strategies and activities to successfully complete the essential steps in planning and implementing a proficiency-based learning system in your high school. A series of info briefs to be released once per week beginning in late January, the Guide outlines key issues and strategies for successful implementation.
The Great Schools Partnership and its professional staff are supporting proficiency-based learning in Maine and beyond, including all New England states, Florida, Georgia, Colorado, California, Maryland, and Illinois. From our many years in diverse school settings, we’ve distilled the foundational steps needed to implement a high quality proficiency-based system. Further, we’ve worked with schools to address issues ranging from school transcripts to data management systems to quality instruction. This Guide provides links to free resources developed by Great Schools Partnership staff and tested in hundreds of schools. We are confident that these resources will be useful to your work.
You Can be Ready for September 2017
We know there is no one particular pathway to implementation, as each district is unique, but given essential steps to follow, supported by practical suggestions and quality resources, districts can build a local model that is equitable, personalized, and rigorous for all students. With districts just eight months out from required implementation for incoming 9th graders, we recommend adapting and building on the good work of others for much of your work so that your district is able to focus more energies on developing solutions to issues unique to your context. Not having to create everything from scratch will enable you to take the time to collaboratively develop key components of your system, ensuring appropriate flexibility and shared ownership while meeting the Fall 2017 deadline. With an organized and thoughtful launch, ongoing development will continue in your next phases of implementation.
The steps we recommend and the resources we provide are grounded in the PBL Simplified Model we have created and assume a general level of familiarity with it.
Topics
| Briefing Title | Release Date |
|---|---|
| Steps to Proficiency: In this brief, we outline the ten steps districts can follow to implement proficiency-based learning in their schools | January 31, 2017 |
| Assessing Multiple Pathways: Recognizing Student Learning in Career and Technical Education Programs and Other Experiences | February 7, 2017 |
| Transfer Students: Assessing and Recognizing the Prior Learning of Transfer Students | February 14, 2017 |
| Ensuring Success for Students With Disabilities | February 21, 2017 |
| Verification of Performance Indicators | February 28, 2017 |
| Verification of Graduation Standards | March 7, 2017 |
| Assessing Maine’s Guiding Principles | March 14, 2017 |
| The Report Card: Communicating Student Learning in Proficiency-Based System | March 21, 2017 |
| Revising the High School Transcript | March 28, 2017 |
| District Policy Considerations: Revising local policy to support a proficiency-based learning system | April 4, 2017 |
| Planning Backward: Unit Design in a Proficiency-Based Learning System | April 11, 2017 |
| Communication and Community Engagement | April 18, 2017 |
| Selecting a Learning Management System | April 25, 2017 |
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