Our take on outcomes-based learning. 

Why we value outcomes-based learning 

Find Your Grind’s framework for outcomes-based learning drives the learning of knowledge and its impact through experiences and self-reflection. It is designed to guide learners to create opportunities for themselves in their lives and in the world of work. The outcomes-based learning framework engages learners by providing relevance through self-discovery concepts and career exploration.

Find Your Grind prioritizes learning outcomes to focus on intended goals and align teaching, learning, and assessment to maximize the likelihood that learners will achieve their desired outcomes and become future-ready.  We believe it’s critical to design learning experiences that are functional and user-friendly. We focus on how these experiences work and why we’re creating them in the first place. 

To help guide us, we live by our Find Your Grind Learning Design Principles:  

• Relevant – relatable, it resonates with users current and aspirational selves and reflects user experience research and insights
• Intuitive – direct and obvious, easy to follow, easy to use, and easy to apply the message
• Engaging – no experience is any longer than it has to be, and users stay engaged because of efficiency
• Inspiring – promote agency for our users’; models strategies for inspiring solution design and application of concepts as life strategies
• Insightful – promote learning as something novel; be it a new concept, new perspective, or new insight 
• Applied – reflective and action-oriented; promotes exploration, experimentation, iteration, and adaptation

Where are the Learning Outcomes?

We have designed the Find Your Grind experience to measure learning by defining outcomes for each unit and activity. The learning outcomes can be found under each Unit Title as both students and educators explore the curriculum and classwork experience. The completion and collection of badges measure progress toward each outcome.

We are solution designers who help our learners design their futures.

Advantages of FYG outcomes-based learning

For learners, effective learning outcomes: 

• make it easier for learners to set learning goals
• tell learners what they should know and what they should be able to do
• tell learners what is important
• help learners focus and not waste their time
• help learners make relevant connections

For educators, effective learning outcomes: 

• organize content
• provide an opportunity for reflection on the content – is the content relevant and valuable?
• develop intentional lesson plans
• help in choosing the best teaching strategies
• give clear direction for assessment development 

Risks without outcomes-based learning

Experiences without outcomes lead to:

• unclear direction for teaching and learning
• lessons without value 
• confused learners
• failure to reach all learners at their learning level and style
• learners who memorize but don’t internalize content
• the educator’s inability to assess learners’ understanding

Outcomes drive the impact and learning of content

Learning outcomes are a crucial part of the design of Find Your Grind learning content. The outcomes drive learning forward by engaging learners through groundbreaking and relevant content that builds knowledge and skills. The learning outcomes encourage learners to forge concepts, see pathways, and create opportunities through self-discovery and career exploration.  

Examples of Find Your Grind Learning Outcomes:

• Identify your passions and interests and compare and contrast how they align with your current and desired lifestyle
• Describe the positive and negative aspects of career disruption and how you can prepare for it
• Demonstrate the ability to write an elevator pitch
• Explain changes in the future of work related to automation
• Apply the Find Your Grind Funnel, critical thinking, and self-reflection to embark on a mindset commitment for self-discovery and career exploration

Summative Assessments 

All learning outcomes are assessed in the unit summative assessment badge at the end of the units. Each question is tied to one of the learning outcomes assessing and motivating learners to be the navigator of their own journey as well as providing you a benchmark. 

Are Find Your Grind’s Future Ready Indicator (FRI) and Future Ready Framework outcomes-based?

YES, they are! Contact us to find out more about our outcomes-based learning and Future Ready Framework.

Through immersive training sessions and forward-thinking initiatives, the Future Ready Educator professional development program equips educators with the tools and insights necessary to foster a dynamic learning environment that empowers students to explore their passions and chart their paths. Explore the most recent program implementation with firsthand testimonials from our community of educators like yourself, committed to student empowerment. Enhance your understanding of Find Your Grind methodologies and the impact of our Future Ready Curriculum on student outcomes.

Fostering Student Success

Stemming from a pandemic-era partnership forged with the Ventura County Office of Education (VCOE), Director of Expanded Learning, Sonia Lopez Mercado, embraced Find Your Grind as a solution to enhance engagement and social-emotional learning (SEL) for middle school students in Rio School District’s after-school programs. Under Sonia’s visionary leadership, Rio School District students have been preparing for both life and career, honing essential power skills through SEL and restorative justice practices. Moreover, Rio School District has diligently curated diverse opportunities for students to explore various career paths and artistic endeavors, ranging from agriculture to hip-hop dance.

Empowering Educators

Recognizing the significance of professional development, particularly for many of Rio School District’s younger after-school coordinators embarking on their inaugural teaching experiences, Sonia spearheaded a comprehensive Future Ready Educator training day. Through this immersive session, coordinators embraced pivotal Future Ready concepts such as lifestyle clarity, supplemented by the Lifestyle Assessment, and a strengths-based approach to career planning, equipped to guide student exploration on the Find Your Grind platform confidently.

I think it’s a very appropriate program for kids of this generation. I think we don’t know exactly what jobs are going to be available, but the kids will always have their values. They’ll always have their skills.

-Sonia Lopez Mercado, Director of Extended Learning, Ventura County Office of Education

Through this collaborative partnership, Rio School District is paving the way for student success and holistic development. With a commitment to preparing students for the future, the Future Ready Educator professional development program by Find Your Grind offers educators the tools and resources needed to create dynamic learning environments. Our program provides in-person and on-demand training sessions designed to equip educators with engaging pathways and personalized curricula, ensuring students are future-ready. Become a Certified Future Ready Educator today and level up your expertise with educator badges, insights, and bite-sized learning modules tailored to enhance instructional strategies.

Are you an educator or administrator & want to learn more? Schedule your personalized demo now.

In an article released by co-founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute last month, Michael Horn identifies six trends to monitor in the K-12 space this year.¹ Taking a quick look at the six trends, it’s abundantly clear that all of these trends have a common root problem – schools are failing to prepare students for an unknown future. 

Trend 1 – Rise of Homeschooling

Why are parents choosing to remove their kids from public schools? They aren’t confident that schools are preparing them for their future.

Trend 2 – Parent Power

“Many of the microschools that have popped up are small co-ops that a single teacher, who is disaffected with their public school, decided to create.”¹

Again, this is a symptom of a system that isn’t evolving to serve the true needs of the students.

Trend 3 – Education Savings Accounts (ESA)

With policies in place in 13 states, ESAs enable families to shop for services that they feel are right for their child (read, will prepare them for their future!).  

Trend 4 – Challenges for Traditional School Districts

“What’s behind many of these struggles is a one-size-fits-all mindset that clashes with education pluralism and parents’ more active desires for customized support and schooling models to ensure that their children make progress.”¹

Traditional school districts need to evolve, and many want to, but being weighed down by old school thinking, policies and funding makes it very difficult to prioritize the right things.

Trend 5 – Portrait of a Graduate and Rethinking Assessment

These are largely aspirational measures around competencies that all students should demonstrate by the time they graduate. The fact that there is no required evidence of competencies is a missing piece, and one that needs to evolve if districts are serious about being certain that their students are equipped to succeed after graduation.

And that brings us to the final trend identified…

Trend 6 – CTE for All

There is a growing realization that the “college-for-all” movement of the last several decades has not served all students well. Many students who start bachelor’s degree programs do not complete them. When they leave college with student debt, the outcomes are horrendous. There is a growing recognition that we need to bring back career and technical education, but that it must not repeat the mistakes of vocational education, which was often a tracked system based on race. Instead, the path forward should be to make sure all students experience meaningful work-based learning as part of their middle and high school experiences. These experiences can help them start to learn about different career options; build their sense of what they like and dislike about them; understand what it takes to do certain careers—the path, the time, the money; and build social capital so they can go out and seize the opportunities that speak to them.

Michael Horn

The symptoms of the problem are clear, but how can schools adapt and shift to address the problem in a real, manageable way? Find Your Grind prepares students for their futures. We’re dedicated to fostering an educational landscape where every student can find their path, recognizing that a one-size-fits-all approach to education is outdated. Empowering students to identify how they want to live their lives, and then exposing them to all the possibilities that exist goes beyond just preparing students for the workforce; it’s about igniting passions, unveiling potential career paths, and helping students articulate their preferences, strengths, and areas for growth.

Big problems show themselves in many different ways, as the six trends above demonstrate. Find Your Grind offers a manageable solution that can be implemented within your school day right now. Find out why school districts around the country have already turned to partner with Find Your Grind to make the necessary changes to start to fix this problem.

Are you an educator or administrator & want to learn more? Schedule your personalized demo now.

References

1. Horn, Michael B. “6 trends to watch in K-12 schools in 2024.” Clayton Christensen Institute, 15 Feb. 2024, 6 trends to watch in K-12 schools in 2024

Defining Find Your Grind’s “Future Ready” and its alignment with social and emotional learning—what we really mean when we say “SEL”

Find Your Grind sees “social and emotional learning” as the skills that ultimately contribute to academic, career, and lifelong success. These are the same skills that are critical in times of rapid technological transformation, economic uncertainty, and social change. These future-proofing skills paired with 21st century skills can be applied to all areas of life: at school, at home, at work, and in our communities.

Being Future Ready means…

Being Future Ready means students have met these outcomes to prepare for life, no matter what pathway and lifestyle they choose.

Being labeled “Future Ready” means students have expanded from developing just social and emotional skills and have been exposed to as many career opportunities that are aligned to their own skills and life plans as possible. Through exposure and exploration of new pathways, skills, lifestyles, industries and future-proofing skills (i.e., SEL), students are able to identify how their skills and talents will empower them to thrive in the future of work and the industries and careers they can be successful in.

This future ready plan sets students on a path of self-determined, self-paced, personalized learning that builds confidence, intuition, and expertise through investment and reinvestment in new or increasingly complex knowledge and skills through relevant skills and competencies. 

And over time, students’ interests, knowledge, skills, confidence, attitudes, actions, improvements, and interactions regarding their goals and mission mutually reinforce one another, encouraging continued reinvestment. 

With educators investing in students’ personal career paths, providing opportunities for exploration, and developing their future ready skills, educators, teachers, and schools as a whole, can be more proactive and forward-thinking in preparing students for the future and the future of work.

Find Your Grind’s Alignment to Social and Emotional Learning

Find Your Grind believes that social and emotional learning is a process of continuous improvement, a journey toward your better self. Social and emotional learning and Find Your Grind’s Theory of Change describe the mindsets, skills, attitudes, and feelings that help students and adults succeed in school, career, and life. We align with the CASEL Framework and its five broad, interrelated competency areas.

Find Your Grind Future Ready Competencies

Find Your Grind’s Theory of Change and Future Ready Framework are grounded in four competencies: self awareness, social awareness, career awareness, and action awareness—a future-proofing blend of both SEL and 21st century skills to achieve a future ready fluidity path. We guarantee students are more future-ready when they complete Find Your Grind’s curriculum experience.

Self Awareness

Students will demonstrate their understanding of their personal strengths, skills, values, and behaviors through communication and life planning

Social Awareness

Students will understand how they fit into the world around them. They will be able to communicate how they relate to other people, groups, and situations and with respect to diverse perspectives and feelings of others

Career Awareness

Students will identify how their skills and talents align with the industries and careers they can be successful in and will be empowered to thrive in the future of work

Action Awareness

Students will demonstrate the ability to set actionable steps, explain progress, and will be open to support and feedback while on the path to achieving their goals

Educators face numerous challenges in maintaining student engagement, a task made even more daunting by the pervasive distractions of technology and the growing desire for autonomy among Generation Alpha and Gen-Z students. The traditional classroom model is being tested as students’ attention spans wane and their demands for interactive and meaningful learning experiences increase. This shift calls for a reevaluation of teaching methodologies, particularly the integration of technology in education. The necessity for professional development in this domain has never been more critical, as educators seek to harness the power of digital tools to enrich learning environments and cater to the diverse needs of their students.

The Role of Professional Development in Modern Education

Drawing from the insights published by EdTech: Focus on K-12, it’s clear that the integration of gamification, student choice, and engaging activities can significantly boost student engagement and learning outcomes. These findings highlight a crucial gap in current educational practices— a gap that can only be bridged through comprehensive professional development. Educators must be equipped with the knowledge and skills to integrate technology into their teaching strategies effectively. Such professional development initiatives empower teachers to craft personalized, engaging learning experiences that resonate with the needs and interests of 21st-century learners.

Utilizing the Future Ready Curriculum

A shift towards a Future Ready Curriculum is essential for fostering environments where students are engaged and prepared for the challenges of tomorrow. With Find Your Grind, integrating gamification through its unique career exploration badges addresses the call for more interactive learning modalities. The platform’s commitment to student choice, with over 300 career paths and 16 lifestyle options, ensures a tailored educational journey for every learner. Moreover, Find Your Grind’s method of starting with lifestyle aspirations makes the learning process more relevant and engaging for students. This approach, coupled with engaging activities, including personalized videos, prompts, and reflection exercises, captivates students. The integration of a network featuring over 200 mentors, who offer transparent insights into their career beginnings, significantly enhances the learning journey by linking students directly with seasoned professionals and a variety of compelling stories that both inspire and educate.

Becoming a Future Ready Educator

The transition to implementing a Future Ready Curriculum necessitates a comprehensive professional development strategy. The Future Ready Educators program equips educators with the tools and methodologies needed to navigate the intricacies of modern teaching. It underscores the importance of creating learning environments that are academically rigorous and deeply engaging while staying relevant to students’ future careers. Becoming a certified Future Ready Educator allows for the transformation of teachers’ classrooms into hubs of innovation and inspiration. This shift aligns with Shivar’s recommendations for effective technology integration and ensures that educators are at the forefront of delivering a more engaging, personalized, and meaningful educational experience.

Charting the Future of Education

Recognizing the critical role of professional development in adopting innovative technologies and teaching strategies, educators are encouraged to delve into the resources offered by the Find Your Grind’ curriculum and professional development program.

Are you an educator or administrator & want to learn more? Schedule your personalized demo now.