Even before moving to moving to blended and personalized learning, CICS West Belden was a high-performing elementary school in Chicago. However, in staffwide conversations, the team realized they needed to keep pushing to help students develop all of the skills they needed to succeed, beyond just test scores.

To elucidate their "why," staff rallied around three major reasons for change:

1. Despite strong scores, educators were feeling like student growth was stagnating. They needed to find a way to meet each student’s needs more effectively, individually.

2. Leaders wanted to increase student engagement and ownership around learning, which meant they needed greater flexibility and opportunities for students to make choices and have input.

3. Teachers were excited and ready to grow their skills and approaches.

West Belden used these as jumping off points for designing their new approach for change (the “how” [process], as well as the “what” [outputs]) and to engage their community along the way.

This slide deck provides an overview of this journey, and covers topics such as mindset, culture, and the design thinking process.

Explore More

Making AI Guidance Actionable for Teachers, Students, and Families

By starting with stakeholder input and pairing policy with tailored supports, United Charter High School Humanities II created a clear,...

Building Teacher Leadership Through an AI Ambassador Program

Launching an AI Ambassador program empowers teachers to lead context-specific, sustainable AI integration efforts across schools. By...

Driving EdTech Systems: Uxbridge Public Schools

Uxbridge Public Schools is located in western Massachusetts and participated in the EdTech Peer Learning Cohort facilitated by The Learning...