The Learning Accelerator Partners With Colorado To Promote Student-Centered Learning

• By Christopher Piehler
• 04/24/15

The Learning Accelerator, a nonprofit that supports the implementation of blended learning, has formed a new partnership with the state of Colorado. The Learning Accelerator, the Colorado Department of Education and The Colorado Education Initiative (CEI) are launching a project to make student-centered learning available to every child in the state. Over time, The Learning Accelerator plans to invest in a portfolio of innovations, share lessons and resources, and ultimately make successful strategies available for replication across the country.

The partnership is launching a community engagement initiative to explore the priorities and educational competencies that parents, community members and educators believe that students should achieve before graduation. The initiative will take place at Mesa County Valley School District 51 and Archuleta School District 50. (Colorado is already home to one of The Learning Accelerator’s national blended learning demonstration sites, Greeley-Evans School District 6.) The lessons learned from the community engagement sessions will help shape the initiative’s plan for the state.

Gretchen Morgan, executive director of choice and innovation at the Colorado Department of Education, said, “What is most exciting about the work of the districts in this project is they are engaging the primary consumers of their local education systems: students, parents, postsecondary and local industry, to learn from them about the competencies that matter most.”