Digital Promise Global

The Digital equity team works to advance powerful learning in schools and districts across the u.s. by advocating against and solving for inequities in broadband access, the inequitable distribution and use of powerful technology in schools, and by creating initiatives, establishing partnerships, and influencing policy at the state and federal levels that address the Digital learning gap at scale. Its flagship program is verizon innovative learning schools (vils). In 2022 vils launched its 9th cohort of schools, expanding the program to a total of 561 schools. The Digital equity team also hosted a series of conversations with the u.s. department of education's office of educational technology focused on identifying broadband adoption barriers, promising strategies to navigate adoption barriers, and success stories/examples.

Learning sciences research focuses on the why, what, and how of learning, in and out of school. In 2022 Digital Promise was awarded two prime research grants from the national science foundation, both continuing Digital Promise's work on computational thinking pathways in schools in rural communities. Digital Promise was also awarded a grant from the us department of education, institute for education sciences. Digital Promise continued to work on numerous nsf and us department of education research grants that were awarded in previous years as well as a multi-year project to evaluate the impact of higher ed courseware enabled teaching practices and implementation supports on the course completion rates of black, latinx and indigenous students; and students from a low-income background.

Powerful learning is a set of principles guiding educators to design learning experiences that engage the hearts and minds of learners. Powerful learning is personal and accessible, authentic and challenging, collaborative and connected, and inquisitive and reflective. In 2022 work included publishing an individual education program guidebook. The guidebook provides resources and strategies to write strength-based and whole child ieps that provide learners with the tools they need to meet their potential. Digital Promise continued its youthmade (youth making, activism, art and design in education) festival, celebrating youth creativity and innovation by inviting students, educators, advocates, and organizations around the globe to host and join events showcasing youth-led work around the globe. Digital Promise also continued its micro-credential work, with more than 20,000 micro-credentials earned and published a paper, "micro-credentials for social mobility in rural postsecondary communities: a landscape report". Digital Promise's report, "learning transition design principles for learning and employment records: co-designing for equity," shares insights from collaborative work with historically and systemically excluded learners and workers and their recommendations regarding opportunities and challenges, which culminated in the design principles that support learning, career, and life transitions.

Through Digital Promise's networks, we surface and spread insights and innovations among education participants. The league of innovative schools is a national network that connects and supports the most forward-thinking leaders in education. League members represent more than 150 districts in 38 states serving more than 4.4 million students. In 2022, Digital Promise hosted convenings for league members in cincinnati Ohio, hosted by the lakota local schools and middletown city school districts, and in los angeles, California hosted by compton unified school district and el segundo unified school district. Edcamps are free public events that leverage the knowledge and experiences of attendees by allowing educators to collaboratively determine topics for discussion the day of the event. Edcamps were hosted throughout the country in 2022. In 2022 Digital Promise also expanded its Global work, the Global cities education network is network of of international city education systems designed to collaboratively identify, examine, and adapt internationally benchmarked solutions to common problems of practice. In 2022, gcen members convened in estonia and australia to explore locality education systems discussing topics such as social emotional learning and building equitable education systems. Finally, with local partners, Digital Promise launched a Digital equity project in haiti.

Since its launch in 2020," the center for inclusive innovation (cii)has engaged over 30 districts in 7 initiatives. In 2022 the center's work spanned priority topics that include adolescent engagement in writing, student-led professional development on mental health and racial trauma, culturally relevant socratic circle discourse, teachers of color recruitment and retention, data equity and interoperability, cybersecurity pathways for opportunity youth, and equitable school systems transformation. Based on the in-depth pilots of the inclusive innovation model with four community-district teams, Digital Promise researchers conducted cross-project studies on: the role of context expertise, the role of student voice, capacity building, racial equity, and the nature of outcomes in inclusive innovation. The teams comprise students, family members, teachers, school leaders, district administrators, and other community members who interact with and support youth. The cii published a series of papers, emerging findings from inclusive innovation: an equity-centered r&d model, that presents our learnings from 2021 to 2022.