Capturing What Matters: Redefining Student Assessment for Lifelong Success

April 18, 4:00 pm ET

Resources:

• Slide deck
• What is the International Big Picture Learning Credential?
• International Big Picture Learning Credential Explainer Video
• International Big Picture Learning Credential Brief
• Tracking the Transitions of Big Picture Learning Graduates to University
• Student/teacher resource for creating online portfolios

The question of how to effectively assess student learning is a perennial one. We know the limits of standardized tests, and we also know the value that an assessment credential can provide. Students, parents, educators, employers and postsecondary providers want information on the wide range of skills, knowledge and dispositions young people acquire during their formal education.

Join us to hear from speakers who are engaged in rethinking assessment to capture important aspects of student learning. We'll learn about the International Big Picture Learning Credential (IBPLC), developed in partnership with educators and students to capture the range of learning outcomes that matter for lifelong success. Hear what it took to create and validate a learning credential that is designed from a learner-centered set of principles and is now being accepted for university entrance requirements as well as by employers in Australia. Hear about pilot work to bring the IBPLC approach to the U.S. and what it will take to design more student-centered assessments across the nation.

This event is intended for members and other education grantmakers.

There is no cost to attend this Grantmakers for Education program. Registration closes 15 minutes prior to the program time. Thank you for your patience; we review each registration in advance.

About the Speakers

Dr. Andrea Purcell
Program Director and School Coach
Big Picture Learning

Andrea Purcell is a Program Director and School Coach for Big Picture Learning. She graduated from UC Santa Cruz and went on to investigate culturally relevant and compatible education in a PhD program in Educational Psychology at the University of Hawaii. Andrea has worked for over 20 years in public schools in Los Angeles as a Middle School Advisor and Classroom Teacher, the Founding Principal of a Primary Center, and the Principal at a Big Picture High School.

Dr. Bo Stjerne Thomsen
Chair of Learning Through Play and Vice-President
LEGO Foundation

Dr. Bo Stjerne Thomsen is the Vice-President and Chair of Learning through Play in the LEGO Foundation. The function of the Chair is to be the expert at the highest level to the executive leadership on how children and adults learn through play, and providing consultation at the bilateral, regional and multilateral levels to international partners, leaders and advocacy. He is a spokesperson representing the LEGO Foundation and the LEGO Brand Group at international foras, and advising leadership teams across the LEGO entities, in order to attain the overall LEGO Brand Vision of Learning through Play.

Dr. Elliot Washor
Co-Founder
Big Picture Learning

Elliot Washor, Ed.D. is the co-founder of Big Picture Learning. He is also the co-founder of The Met Center in Providence, RI.

Elliot has been involved in school reform for more than 50 years as a teacher, principal, administrator, video producer, and writer. He has taught and is interested in all levels of school from kindergarten through college, in urban and rural settings, across all disciplines. His work has spanned across school design, pedagogy, learning environments, new forms and new measures for learning, and is supporting others doing similar work throughout the world. Elliot’s interests lie in the field of how schools can connect with communities to understand tacit and disciplinary learning both in and outside of school. Elliot is deeply committed to imagining Big Picture Learning as a ‘do-think-do’ organization, and persistently pushes the boundaries of its design in order to continually innovate practice and influence in the world of education especially for those youth living in communities furthest from opportunity.

At Thayer High School in Winchester, N.H., Elliot’s professional development programs won an “Innovations in State and Local Government Award” from the Ford Foundation and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He has been selected as an educator to watch in Rhode Island and has recently been selected as one of the Daring Dozen – the Twelve Most Daring Educators in the World by the George Lucas Educational Foundation. His dissertation on Innovative Pedagogy and New Facilities won the merit award from DesignShare, the international forum for innovative schools.

Viv White
Co-Founder and CEO
Big Picture Learning Australia

Viv White AM is co-founder and CEO of Big Picture Education Australia (BPEA), a non-profit company established in Australia in 2006, whose core business is ‘re-imagining education’ in response to a rapidly-changing world. Big Picture’s innovative and internationally recognised design for personalised, student-driven learning is being implemented in over 40 schools around Australia. BPEA is Australia’s only international reform and redesign Network.

In 2018 Viv was appointed to the Order of Australia for her services to education and to the reengagement of young people in learning for life.

Viv’s dynamic public speaking skills, combined with her networking and advocacy with government and education systems, has seen the Big Picture design for learning create breakthrough opportunities for thousands of young people around Australia. For example, in 2017 she established a new pathway to tertiary education, known as the Graduation Portfolio, which sees Big Picture graduates negotiate entry to a network of over 12 universities around Australia without requiring an ATAR. Prior to leading BPEA, Viv was CEO of the Victorian Schools Innovation Commission and CEO of the Australian National Schools Network. She has a thirty-year history of international work in educational reform, research, policy and practice. Viv taught primary and secondary education for 13 years, worked in tertiary research for five years as a research fellow at Macquarie University and Victoria University, and served as an adjunct professor at the University of Western Sydney.

Viv is a Fellow of the Australian Council of Education and was admitted in 2014 to the Australian Businesswomen’s Network Hall of Fame.

She is currently working with the University of Melbourne on establishing a system of micro-credentials for Big Picture secondary students that will measure and accredit achievement.