Work in Action
DesignEd partners with schools and districts to design and facilitate strategic professional learning and coaching that honor educators' current knowledge while fostering a deeper understanding of how to design accessible, engaging, and relevant learning environments for all students.
Individual Schools
School Districts
Education Organization
On-Going Professional Learning
Colorado Early Colleges, Windsor, CO.
Designing Learning Experiences Accessible to All Students.
This ongoing partnership with Colorado Early Colleges, Windsor, CO (CECW) commenced in August 2023. With a significant special education population of 60%, the leadership team recognized the need for targeted and continuous professional development to support educators in creating and implementing accessible learning experiences and assessments for all students.
The initial phase of the project focused on enhancing understanding of neurodiversity and specific learning disabilities, as well as exploring educators' mindsets and beliefs. Subsequent workshops aimed to deepen understanding of intentional and purposeful design of learning experiences through two key frameworks, Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and Understanding by Design (UbD):
By incorporating these frameworks, the school aims to create an inclusive and effective learning environment that caters to its diverse student population, aligning with its mission to provide quality education and college readiness for all students
Impact: The collected data reveals a significant positive impact on the staff's approach to teaching and learning. Key findings include:
Shift in Perspective: 96% of the staff have reported a change in their mindset regarding their students and the design of learning experiences.
Implementation of Strategies: Additionally, 96% of the staff are actively applying strategies learned from the workshops, indicating a strong commitment to integrating new methods into their teaching practices..
Multiple Workshops
Pope Valley Elementary School, Napa, CA.
Creating a Culture of Learning
Pope Valley Elementary School is a one-school district, with 4 educators supporting 50-60 K-8 students.
The two workshops, occurring about 2 months apart, focused on building community and a culture of learning. One of the workshops was designed for both students and educators to participate.
The creation of ‘mini-art’ was used as the vehicle to deepen understanding of how to build a positive learning culture, modeling the creation of a positive and supportive learning environment where all learners can thrive.
These workshops laid the foundations for meaningful collaboration, meaning-making, and visioning for a positive learning environment where all students feel a sense of belonging.
This collaborative project is ongoing and is made possible by the strategic visioning and active participation of the school leaders.
One-Day Workshop
Punahou School, Honolulu, HI.
Designing Accessible Assessments
Supporting the long-term goal of the school: ‘To make all learning accessible to all learners’, this one-day workshop was designed to deepen understanding of the what, why, and how of accessible assessment. The specific focus was on deepening understanding of the potential barriers to accessing assessments - both within the task and the method of demonstration - and how providing multiple modalities of assessment can remove these barriers, providing equitable and accessible assessments for all learners.
Participants engaged in individual reflection on current practices, small group meaning-making of content, and a design challenge to identify multiple modalities of assessment for specific learning targets; how students can demonstrate what they know, understand, and can do. A gallery walk served as a vehicle for making thinking visible. Participants set goals for applying what they learned as a result of the workshop, making their thinking visible for the school leadership team to provide targeted follow-up support .
Instructional Coaching
Stevenson Elementary School, Mountain View, CA
Project-Based Learning Planning
As part of a multi-year partnership with this school, the leadership team created the structure for team-based coaching over the course of two years.
The coaching focused on supporting educators as they collaborated to design grade-level projects. Previous school-wide workshops had deepened their understanding of Project-Based Learning, Learner Agency, and Inquiry-Based Learning, and this was a natural progression in the support provided.
Each grade-level team participated in two cycles of coaching each year to help with the review and revision of project plans, with a specific focus on the quality of learning targets, specificity of the criteria for success, and alignment of the product(s) that would act as the summative assessment through which students would demonstrate their learning.
School-based instructional coaches played an active role in these sessions, with the intention of building internal capacity to continue the coaching support as a regular support structure for all educators.
“There’s nothing like a dream to create the future. ”
Join us for as many sessions as your schedule and resources allow. Whether you participate in one session or several, your commitment to professional growth is valued and impactful. Participation in the full Learning Cycle is encouraged but never required—all workshops are designed to provide value as stand-alone experiences as well