Schools worldwide have started to transform the way they teach and manage their institutions in light of new technological developments and the deep changes in our society, especially in the context of COVID-19. They have responded to increased heterogeneity in their classrooms by creating and testing new approaches to adaptive teaching, personalized learning, school management, and the use of EdTech. Schools have developed promising and effective approaches that equip students with so-called 21st century skills required to thrive in an increasingly automated, digitized, and complex future.
Highlighting, strengthening, and systematizing such promising approaches of school practitioners and creating evidence around their effectiveness are the main objectives of the School Knowledge and Innovation Learning Lab (SKILL).
Our SKILL program aims to identify, codify, and disseminate evidence-informed school innovations with a specific focus on adaptive teaching, effective use of adaptive learning EdTech and data-driven school leadership.
To maximize our impact, we will work with school aggregators: institutions that group a large number of schools within and across national education systems according to school characteristics and a common objective to create knowledge and practice communities among its member schools.
For each school aggregator, a bespoke Learning Lab will be established to support individual schools or school groups to strengthen their evidence level through iterative, data-driven, structured experimentation, and to facilitate learning exchange with peers via thematic or regional knowledge communities. Cross-pollination between the different Learning Labs of the respective school aggregators will be sought where feasible.
Selected best practices from SKILL will be transferred to our research vehicle SEAL (School Evidence for Adaptive Learning) for testing and uptake at scale.
