Giving Compass' Take:

· Schools are meant to prepare kids for their future, but many graduating students lack the skills they need to be successful. Getting Smart provides four ways schools can promote accountability and encourage self-management skills.

· How can schools create an academically challenging environment to promote student growth?

· Read more about accountability in school.

Graduation may be the culmination of many years of academic work, but in the grand scheme of students’ lifetimes, it’s just the beginning. Students will need to master much more than core academic subjects to thrive in college and career.

Schools are exploring ways to cultivate highly sought after “soft skills” students can put to good use in whichever career path they choose (think time management, problem-solving, self-control, grit, productive struggle, to name a few). Encourage students to polish their self-management skills with these four opportunities for autonomy:

  1. Positive attendance - Positive attendance helps students learn effective time management
  2. Flexible scheduling - The opportunities flexible scheduling offers can be motivational since students have more time to pursue interesting subjects and take ownership of their learning paths.
  3. Living portfolios - In a world where everyone has credentials, the professional portfolio has emerged as a differentiator. Beginning with early childhood education, digital badging helps lay the groundwork for meaningful representation of work completed.
  4. Student-led parent-teacher conferences - Instead of leaving kids out of conferences, keep students involved in these important discussions. Rather than being talked about as a third party by authority figures, then finding out what was discussed later, students may shine if they’re given the chance to invite parents and navigate the discussion.

Read the full article about student accountability by Erin Werra at Getting Smart.