Illuminating Standards—One Piece of Student Work at a Time

This story originally appeared in Education Week.

Just last week over 50 educators gathered at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) for a highly unusual film festival--probably the only one of its type in the world! What made these films so unique? Each featured complex and impressive student work done in American K-12 public schools along with the voices of young people and/or their teachers talking about what they did to create that work and what they learned in the process.

Over three hours, 17 short videos were shown, all made by Harvard graduate students. The videos aim to answer this question:

• What can a close look at specific pieces of student work reveal and illuminate about the real meaning of Common Core or other standards, like the Next Generation Science Standards?

That question is at the heart of the Illuminating Standards Project, a multi-year study that my co-teacher, Ron Berger, Chief Academic Officer at Expeditionary Learning, and I have been conducting in collaboration with our students at Harvard...

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