Competency-based education is an educational approach that focuses on mastery of an expanded set of competencies—rather than seat time—as a measure of student learning. This brief explores how states and districts can define learner competencies that reflect the full range of knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary for students to achieve ...
The Minnesota Department of Education is developing several learning goals in the new Social and Emotional Learning Framework. The framework outlines five competencies for social and emotional learning: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. ...
Apprentice retention is a dynamic process that is affected by multiple factors that change over time. This brief, Improving Apprenticeship Completion Rates, summarizes the findings of our review of studies on apprentice retention and provides recommended strategies to mitigate factors negatively affecting attrition. ...
This research brief, the second from the Back on Track study, describes the role of in-class mentors in the online classrooms and examines whether students benefited from additional instructional support from their in-class mentors.
U.S. businesses are facing challenges filling so-called “middle-skills” jobs in trades, telecommunications, health care, IT, and similar professions. Career and Technical Education (CTE) is an existing and promising pathway that can address this gap.
Teachers are the number-one factor in student learning, so preparing and supporting high-quality teachers of computer science is critical. AIR is working with states, districts, and teachers to implement and test three promising strategies to strengthen teacher preparation and development:
Parents, teachers, schools, districts, states, and especially students all want schools that prepare graduates to thrive in the 21st century. In this blog post, Anne Mishkind asks what it means to be "college and career ready."
Given persistent failure rates and mounting student debt, how prepared students are to enter and succeed in college is suddenly everyone’s business. According to Mark Schneider, in this blog post, ACT data shows many students ready to leave for college are not ready academically in at least one area. ...
In his final State of the Union address, President Obama said, “We live in a time of extraordinary change… and whether we like it or not, the pace of this change will only accelerate.” In this blog post, AIR’s Peter Cookson says the key to dealing with this change is ...
At 21, many foster youth “age out” of financial benefits and supports from the child welfare system—before they even finish college. Given the challenges they face, it’s not surprising that only 3 to 10 percent of them earn undergraduate degrees compared with 34 percent of young adults who weren’t in ...