Kicking off a Performance-based Assessment Learning Network with Loudoun County School District

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”

— Socrates

This past week we kicked off the Performance-based Assessment Learning Network in Loudoun County School District! Through this network, we'll be working over the next seven months with educators to deepen their practice in using performance-based assessment (PBA) as the tool to measure deeper learning. Here’s how we’ve designed our journey for this learning network.

In Loudoun, under the leadership of their Superintendent, Dr. Eric Williams, they’ve taken on ensuring that all students have access to deeper learning, giving themselves the goal of accomplishing this across the entire district by 2020. Why deeper learning? Well they’ve identified that their goal for all students is that they make meaningful contributions to the world, and that means they need to be knowledgable, critical thinkers, communicators, collaborators, creators, and contributors. And to get there, they need to have the chances to address authentic and challenging problems.

Many teachers in Loudoun have already had project-based learning (PBL) 101 training through the Buck Institute for Education and now this next phase will support the assessment practices that are crucial to ensuring meeting the intended student growth outcomes of a project.

We are thrilled to begin this work with such a motivated, innovative, and fun group of educators! Check out some of what we did this first week!

ON MONDAY WE KICKED OFF THE PBA COACHES STRAND - WHERE WE’LL BE USING A TRAIN THE TRAINER MODEL TO BUILD IN-DISTRICT CAPACITY TO DO THIS WORK OVER TIME.

ON THURSDAY MORE THAN 250 EDUCATORS JOINED US TO KICK OFF THE DESIGN OF THEIR PERFORMANCE-BASED ASSESSMENT.

A PARTICIPANT'S SKETCH FROM ONE OF OUR CONTENT SESSIONS. PARTICIPANTS SELF-ASSESSED WHERE THEIR UNDERSTANDING WAS ON PERFORMANCE-BASED ASSESSMENT AND THEN PARTICIPATED IN ONE OF FOUR CONTENT SESSIONS PERSONALIZED TO THAT LEVEL OF LEARNING.

A PARTICIPANT SKETCHED OUT SOME OF HIS IDEAS OF HOW THE JOURNEY OF PERFORMANCE-BASED ASSESSMENT WILL LOOK FOR HIM AND HIS STUDENTS.

We can't wait to continue the journey of performance-based assessments with Loudoun educators!