Giving Compass' Take:

•  The Measuring and Improving Student-Centered Learning (MISCL) Toolkit, developed with support from the Nellie Mae Education Foundation, helps educators assess the effectiveness of student-centered learning online. 

• How can donors help expand access to this tool for educators to use across the nation? 

• Read about the effects of student-centered learning. 

Nearly all K–12 students across the United States have been undertaking remote learning since March. Now more than ever, students are being asked to direct their own learning without an educator physically there to prompt and support them.

This is big concern for educators, and rightly so. Not all students have mastered the capacity for self-regulation; good study habits and the ability to persevere on challenging tasks are skills that need to be learned, as is peer collaboration and online communication. In addition, students should be able to make well-informed choices about their learning and monitor their own progress when working online. The ability to take ownership of one's own learning is a lot to ask from students whose school-day routines have been significantly interrupted. However, some school systems may have built more of a foundation for students to be able to take ownership of their learning compared to others.

We've recently designed and released a new tool to help educators assess how well their high schools have been supporting and laying the foundation for student-centered learning, as well as how much students are engaging in student-centered learning. The Measuring and Improving Student-Centered Learning (MISCL) Toolkit, developed with support from the Nellie Mae Education Foundation, enables high school leaders and teachers to gather information about the extent to which student-centered learning is happening remotely now, and plan for improvements to student-centered learning in the future.

The MISCL Toolkit measures the extent of the following student-centered learning strategies that may be particularly important in the face of remote learning:

  • Is learning personalized?
  • Is learning challenging and helping students master their coursework?
  • Is learning happening anytime, anywhere?
  • Is learning progress being monitored through use of data?
  • Is learning student-owned?

Read the full article about tools for educators to advance remote learning by Julia H. Kaufman and Elizabeth D. Steiner at RAND.