Georgia schools are at the forefront of preparing students for the future, navigating through the complexities of modern education. The release of the 2023 College and Career Ready Performance Index offers a deep dive into the state’s educational achievements, presenting a mixed bag of results across various levels of schooling. This comprehensive assessment sheds light on the readiness of Georgia’s students for their next academic or career steps.

Understanding the College and Career Ready Performance Index

In the ever-evolving landscape of education, Georgia schools are setting benchmarks in preparing students for the future. The 2023 College and Career Ready Performance Index has revealed insightful data on how students across the state master content essential for their next academic steps and beyond. According to the Augusta Chronicle, Georgia’s schools have shown varied performance levels in content mastery, with elementary schools averaging a 64.7% success rate, middle schools at 60.9%, and high schools at 65%. Oconee County and Jefferson City emerge as frontrunners, showcasing exceptional performance across all school levels.

The Critical Area of Student Readiness

Despite the achievements, student readiness for the next educational or career phase remains a pressing concern. The Index not only evaluates academic performance but also considers factors like literacy, attendance, and pathway completion critical for student development. This area demands attention from educational leaders and policymakers to craft strategies that enhance student preparedness across Georgia. Among the varying performances, districts like Oconee County and Jefferson City stand out for their exemplary educational outcomes. Their success across elementary, middle, and high schools exemplifies the potential within Georgia’s educational system to achieve excellence. However, the struggle of lower-performing districts underscores the need for targeted interventions and support to uplift all students.

Embracing EdTech for Future Readiness

The Future Ready Curriculum emerges as a vital resource for Georgia’s educational institutions, offering a strategic pathway to bridge existing disparities in college and career preparedness. Tailored to meet the dynamic needs of the modern workforce, Find Your Grind aligns with the Workforce Ready Career Pathway. It emphasizes literacy, attendance, and pathway completion, providing a comprehensive approach to preparing students for future challenges. By adopting such innovative curricula, Georgia can ensure that its students are academically prepared and equipped with essential skills for lifelong success.

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In this series, we focused on the essentials of ESSER funds, highlighting how these resources can be pivotal for schools aiming to adopt innovative curricula like Find Your Grind, designed to prepare students for a rapidly evolving world. We then shifted the spotlight to the top ESSER funding applications, presenting strategic approaches that ensure investments directly support comprehensive, future-ready education solutions. Now, in Part 3, we’re expanding our exploration into the broader grant landscape, guiding LEAs on how to harness various grant types to further enrich their educational offerings, especially in fostering social and emotional learning among students.

Four prevalent categories of educational grants are often utilized by local educational agencies (LEAs) to supplement their general fund expenditures. These include: Competitive Grants, Formula Grants, Continuation Grants, and Pass Through Grants.

• Competitive Grants: Requiring an application process, these grants require LEAs to submit an application, with some requiring more effort and time than others (competitive vs. non-competitive). Local, state, and federal entities provide these grants, and based on the category, they can be applied towards acquiring the Find Your Grind curriculum.

• Formula Grants: State and federal agencies distribute formula grants automatically, such as funds for Title programs or Special Education. The allocation of these funds is determined by a specific formula. Funds from Title I, IIA, and IV can be allocated for training and curriculum associated with social and emotional learning (SEL). Furthermore, designated portions of special education funding are required to be invested in programs backed by evidence, like the Find Your Grind platform.

• Continuation Grants: Grants that extend over several years through renewal or the redistribution of funds are known as continuation grants. The awarding of some of these grants depends on previous achievements, making the gathering of data on effective results crucial. Such information can assist in maintaining the funding for your Future Ready Curriculum over an extended period.

• Pass-Through Grants: Distinctive in their structure, these grants involve forming a partnership with another local or state entity that assumes the role of the principal grant recipient. In these scenarios, local educational agencies (LEAs) initially cover expenses with their own resources, subsequently claiming reimbursements from the primary grant holder. This approach is beneficial as it shifts a portion of the compliance obligations onto the primary grantee, thereby granting LEAs additional capacity to focus on service delivery.

Understanding and navigating the landscape of grants offers LEAs a strategic approach to enhancing their educational programs. By leveraging these diverse funding streams, LEAs can significantly enrich their curriculum offerings, particularly in areas such as social and emotional learning (SEL), ensuring a comprehensive and impactful educational experience for students.

Granting Educational Excellence

In this comprehensive series, we’ve explored essential aspects of funding for your Future Ready Curriculum, covering ESSER funds and various grant opportunities available to local educational agencies (LEAs). As you navigate the landscape of educational funding, Find Your Grind is here to support you every step of the way. Our team is dedicated to helping you implement innovative curricula and enrich your educational offerings. Schedule a consultation with us today, and let’s work together to empower your students for success in the future.

The landscape of professional development (PD) for educators, as highlighted by Laura M. Desimone, has undergone significant transformation over the years, moving beyond the criticized “one-shot” workshops of the 1970s-1990s towards a more structured and evidence-based approach. Historically, PD evaluation was predominantly based on participant satisfaction, lacking a comprehensive synthesis of research to guide its development. The turning point came in the early 2000s when a concerted effort to amalgamate research findings led to the identification of five key features essential for effective PD. These include a focus on content, opportunities for active learning, collective participation, coherence with educational mandates and beliefs, and sufficient duration for practice and feedback. This evolution reflects a deeper understanding of how to foster educational excellence, emphasizing the need for PD that is not only engaging but also impactful, aligning with the priorities of middle school and high school students keen on college and career readiness.

Challenges and Innovations in Professional Development

Recent studies, particularly through randomized control trials in the 2000s and 2010s, have aimed to measure the efficacy of PD with mixed results. These findings highlight the complexity of translating teacher learning into student achievement. Key factors such as principal support, PD customization, and teacher buy-in have emerged as critical to the success of PD programs. Moreover, the diversity in PD activities, in terms of intensity and complexity, underscores the importance of matching PD efforts with the specific goals they aim to achieve. As we continue to explore the nuances of professional development, the focus shifts towards ensuring these practices lead to meaningful student learning outcomes. This ongoing journey underscores the necessity for a collaborative and reflective approach to PD, one that resonates with educators dedicated to advancing college and career readiness among students, inviting readers to consider how innovative educational strategies can be effectively taught to educators while being transformative for student success.

A New Era of Future-Ready Professional Learning

Integrating an innovative Future Ready approach to PD development for educators signifies a progressive transformation aimed at helping educators equip students for the impending future. The Future Ready Educators program is at the forefront of this shift, meticulously designed to meet the demand for transformational learning experiences.Combining the essential elements of effective PD with a keen focus on the future, Find Your Grind offers an array of learning modules that are both accessible and pertinent. The Future Ready Educators program aligns with the theoretical foundations of educational progress and extends its impact by incorporating the five essential features that guarantee thorough readiness for both educators and students.

• Content: The program focuses on providing educators with content that is directly relevant to preparing students for the future, including future-ready skills, career exploration, and self-discovery. This ensures that the content is not only current but also aligned with the needs of students as they navigate an ever-changing world.

• Opportunities for Active Learning: Find Your Grind emphasizes active learning through engaging instructional strategies and best practices that educators can implement in their classrooms. This includes hands-on activities, interactive discussions, and practical applications of the concepts taught, which encourage educators to actively participate in their learning process.

• Collective Participation: By fostering a Future Ready Community, the program encourages collective participation among educators. This community provides a platform for ongoing conversations, sharing of best practices, and collaboration among educators, which enhances the learning experience and promotes a sense of belonging and collective growth.

• Coherence with Educational Mandates and Beliefs: The program is designed to align with educational mandates and the core beliefs of educators regarding the importance of preparing students for the future. By integrating future-ready skills and concepts into the curriculum, Find Your Grind ensures that the program is coherent with the broader goals of education systems and the personal teaching philosophies of educators.

• Sufficient Duration for Practice and Feedback: The Future Ready Educators program offers a comprehensive learning experience that allows for sufficient time for practice and reflection. Educators are provided with ongoing support and resources, enabling them to implement what they’ve learned, practice new strategies in their classrooms, and receive feedback. This ensures that educators have ample opportunity to refine their skills and adapt their teaching practices to better prepare students for the future.

Through its targeted content, active learning opportunities, emphasis on community, alignment with educational principles, and dedication to practical application, Find Your Grind is shaping the next generation of educators ready to inspire and lead students in the ever-evolving landscape of the 21st century.

Watch Now: Future Ready Educator Videos

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Release date: Jan 25, 2024
Length: 16 minutes
Featuring: Angie Oberg
Topic: “Truly Fostering Students’ Authentic Love of Learning and Reading”

Angie Oberg, an educator from Minden, Nebraska, is a traveler, concert-goer, reader, thinker, and educator with over 30 years of experience. Her teaching journey evolved from traditional lectures to fostering critical thinking. She emphasizes process over results, encouraging students to ask questions and engage in group discussions. Angie’s Back Shelf Library initiative boosted student engagement in reading, allowing them to choose from a diverse collection of young adult novels. Her classroom promotes student agency, growth, and a love for learning, emphasizing curiosity and exploration over data-driven metrics. As she nears retirement, Angie hopes more educators can provide students with personalized, nurturing learning experiences that inspire curiosity and self-discovery.

An overview of what Find Your Grind’s Curricula Options has to offer (and what’s new: Spanish!!)

We’re on a mission to meet students wherever they are in their learning journey, whether it’s on a path toward being high school valedictorian, toward a life of traveling, or to the skate park (or all three!). We want to see students succeed in finding their own path that meets their life and career goals (even if they haven’t thought that far ahead yet). We are here to support them! To meet more students where they are, we’ve expanded our languages to include Spanish! This means students can read Find Your Grind’s content in both English and Spanish and all videos have English and Spanish caption options.  

Students can now be confident in their comprehension of the content rather than spending time trying to pay attention to vocabulary and sentence structure. We prioritize learning outcomes and 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. 

As we continue to become more accessible, we focus on our Find Your Grind outcomes-based learning key principles and remember our inclusiveness to all students:

How does this framework benefit students? 

Spanish-speaking students can now benefit from Find Your Grind’s curriculum more than ever. Find Your Grind’s curriculum is inclusive. Spanish-speaking and multilingual students have the opportunity to understand the lifestyle-first mindset, discover and develop their skills and passions, and match those to the post-high school pathway that truly aligns with their goals. How else does this framework benefit students? 

• Self-awareness: Students discover and learn about their own strengths and values.
• Empowerment: Students are empowered to make their own discoveries and choices about their future.
• Hope: Students are given hope for the future with actionable and attainable steps to achieve their goals.
• Positive social and behavioral outcomes: Students develop positive social and behavioral skills.
• Long-term results: Students become confident and set goals so they can succeed and develop the skills and knowledge they need to be successful in their lives and careers.

Transform your classroom

Transform your classroom and teaching experience with Find Your Grind. Our instructional design patterns combine microlearning, gamification, and professionally produced videos, created exclusively for Gen Z (now offered in two languages: Spanish and English). Check out Find Your Grind’s Multi-Year Curricula Options and the topics we cover. 

Find Your Grind offers multi-year or semester-long curriculum options. Each unit provides independent student learning time and is designed for students to spend additional time exploring Find Your Grind’s robust library of mentors, careers, lifestyles, skills, and industry pathways. Ultimately, Find Your Grind is designed to fit your unique needs — whether it is used as the primary curriculum for your class or a supplemental resource. 

Interested in learning more or chatting with one of our team members? Contact us now.