Teaching Self-Directed Learning Skills

Educational Leadership Staff

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Curriculum Assessment

Need help structuring and assessing self-directed learning projects? Building Essential Skill Today (BEST), a group of researchers and teachers across four New Hampshire school districts, has developed a free collection of rubrics and tools to support K–12 educators in this work. The toolkit includes rubrics, self-assessments, self-direction road maps, action plans, and reflections, all designed to develop students' independent-learning skills. Educators can use the rubrics, developed from the Essential Skills and Dispositions Framework, to guide learning and give students feedback-related success criteria and next steps for learning.

EL’s experienced team of writers and editors produces Educational Leadership magazine, an award-winning publication that reaches hundreds of thousands of K-12 educators and leaders each year. Our work directly supports the mission of ASCD: To empower educators to achieve excellence in learning, teaching, and leading so that every child is healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged.