Giving Compass' Take:

• Getting Smart reports on how educators at the Austin Independent School District emphasize the impact that great teacher-student relationships have on achievement.

· What approaches do the Austin ISD team take that set it apart from other districts? And what can philanthropists dedicated to education initiatives take away from "How I Know," with its integration of online tools?

· Read more about social emotional learning and the future of education.

Learning science research, such as that articulated in Turnaround for Children’s recently released report Key Findings and Implications of the Science of Learning and Development, underscores that most human development is rooted in relationships.

Applying that finding on a daily basis, the Austin ISD team emphasizes the importance of relationships as a common thread that helps the district integrate efforts around two of their key focus areas: formative assessment practice and Social Emotional Learning (SEL).

AISD is part of a three district collaborative project: How I Know: Designing Meaningful Formative Assessment Practice. #HowIKnow was created in an effort to improve and impact formative assessment practice for teachers and students. Even prior to joining the project, AISD had been emphasizing the connections between formative assessment and Social Emotional Learning, and they are now advancing these ideas — and their formative assessment practice — even further through a focused professional development process ...

As Dell Foundation project lead Cheryl Niehaus points out in a recent blog, there is a learning progression for teachers regarding the ten dimensions of formative assessment. The three PD focus areas for Austin align with the three formative assessment dimensions that are foundational to the entire practice:

  • Learning Goals,
  • Criteria for Success, and
  • Eliciting Evidence of Student Learning

Read the full article about social emotional learning by Mary Ryerse at Getting Smart.