Responsive Education Alternatives Lab

BDEA has been working with competency-based assessment and experiential learning since our founding seventeen years ago.  By constantly testing and refining our work over the course of our history, BDEA has developed processes, materials, and a fully realized infrastructure for supporting proficiency-based pathways.  The core elements of this infrastructure include:  a set of competencies across all content areas aligned to the Massachusetts curriculum frameworks; a template for creating content-specific rubrics; a strategy for developing scope and sequence in content areas that build to the competencies; a range of assessments that allow students to demonstrate what they know and can do; and a strategy for differentiating instruction so that all learners achieve competence. 

In 2011, we refined our teaching and assessment practices to align with the Common Core Standards; trained our teachers to design and deliver workshops on aligning proficiency based pathways to the Common Core; and launched the school’s Responsive Education Alternatives Lab (REAL).  This year, with the addition of our new, resource-based web site, we are launching the REAL Learning Network, and another summer institute. As the name REAL implies, our methods share process and demonstrate for participants and educators how proficiency-based pathways allow all schools to be “responsive” to multiple levels of educational needs.

Please click here to find out more about the 2013 Summer Institute.

Clicking the link below will give you access to the REAL brochure.