A Year of Learning with ALP
We are deepening our work to #rethinkassessment by pursuing this essential question in the 22-23 school year.
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What can we learn together about how assessment for learning relates to learner belonging, equity and liberation?
Unlike years past, many of these opportunities will be co-designed and co-facilitated with members of the ALP community. The year of learning will include opportunities to lead and participate in:
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Topical Learning Groups: These are self selected small groups that work together for a few months to pursue a shared topical inquiry. Previous learning groups looked into topics such as: defenses of learning and formative assessment’s relationship to equity.
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Topical Webinars: Less of a time commitment than a learning group, folks may provide or join one-hour webinars on topics you are about related to our year-long essential question.
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Microgrants: Join the team that will help us design the microgrant program for the next two years, help us with selection or apply for funds yourself.
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Storytelling: Work with a storytelling partner to help capture, package and share important stories of learning.
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In-person Convening: Feb 14-17 in Tucson Arizona with longtime AFL member Sunnyside School District.
We are gathering with 200 educators, system leaders, community organizers, and young people from around the country in Tucson, Arizona. The purpose of this convening is to deepen into the relationship between assessment and equity, connecting our national learning community working to #rethinkassessment with the wisdom and work on the ground in Tucson and surrounding communities.
To be graceful and COVID responsible guests, participation is capped at 200 which means there may be more ALP community members who wish to attend than can be accomodated. We have created this interest form to gather information from the community about how they would like to engage in the 22-23 year of learning. Included in this form is the opportunity to tell us you would like to attend the convening. If interest exceeds capacity, we will make invitations with a priority of ensuring the diversity of the group that attends in terms of race, gender, geography, and position in the education system. Ensuring a diverse group will help us challenge typical dynamics of positional or identity-related power, leading to more complex and valuable learning. It will also ensure the group that attends is connected to all parts of the much larger ALP community enabling broad sharing of learning from the convening.
The cost to attend is only $850 and includes all programming and food during the convening. Travel and hotel are not included.
The Tucson Learning Excursion
at a Glance…
Tuesday, Feb. 14:
Most participants will arrive at the conference hotel, Loews Ventana Canyon, in the afternoon. The experience officially kicks off in the evening with a welcome reception and orientation to the place we are convening and the community we hope to cultivate with one another over the following three days.
Wednesday, Feb. 15:
We’ll spend most of the day reconnecting as a community, connecting our individual identities, inquiries, and insights to a shared ALP learning agenda. Expect a mix of mainstage provocations, small group discussions, topical workshops, peer-to-peer consultancies, and unstructured space to connect. We will also meet our “crew” a group of folks with whom we have affinity with whom we will be invited to make sense of learning and shared experience throughout the gathering. We will also get into our Learning Excursion groups and prepare for our time immersed in Sunnyside and Tucson learning environments. Start your day with optional morning wellness activities, and end the day with opportunities to go explore Tucson through a group hike or dine arounds.
Thursday, Feb. 16:
What can we learn together from Tucson about how assessment for learning relates to learner belonging, equity and liberation? The main event of the convening takes place on Thursday morning when we head out in small groups to explore a big idea or question in the context of a local school or community organization. These are not your everyday “show and tell” site visits. Experiences will be led and designed and led by pairs of local leaders and ALP lead learners, and topics will combine assessment in concrete practice with inquiries about belonging, agency, student voice, indigenous knowledge systems and lifeways, students with disabilities, English Language Learners, family engagement, and more. The afternoon will be divided between synthesizing learning from the learning excursions, connecting with our crew who will have participated in a mix of learning excursions, and more opportunities for ALP community members to share learning or engage in problems of practice.
Friday, Feb. 17:
In our final morning together, we will prepare and share presentations of learning from excursion groups and then move toward collaborating for the future. Participants will reflect on what they are carrying home and identify ways that microgrants learning groups, storytelling and other ALP activities can support future learning. Programming will end at 12pm mountain time.