As an organization, Digital Promise is working to ensure historically and systematically excluded learners are:
These goals, coupled with our strategic measurement framework and underpinning organization goals, enable Digital Promise to accelerate our impact—bringing us closer to a future where education closes opportunity gaps, diminishes differences in outcomes, and prepares learners to be global citizens who will shape the world for the better.
The League of Innovative Students (LOIS) supports high school students in becoming catalysts for education change. The Spring 2024 cohort—made up of 43 brilliant student leaders hailing from districts in the League of Innovative Schools— concentrated on transforming edtech products, creating culturally responsive classrooms, and designing a student-centered Challenge Map.
At the heart of LOIS is a belief in and commitment to the power of student voice and leadership. We recognize that students should not merely be recipients of education but active contributors to the ongoing dialogue, research, and design of the future of the education landscape.
Using the Learner Variability Navigator (LVN), the Learner Variability Project (LVP) is piloting a strength-based whole child approach to writing individualized education programs (IEPs) in several schools nationwide to encourage mindset shifts and create a sense of belonging for students with learning disabilities and ADHD. To that end, the LVN has been updated to include more research-based resources and strategies to better understand and address the needs of students with learning disabilities.
LVP is also represented on the International Forums of Inclusion Practitioners (IFIP) and their Parent Advocate for Inclusion working group designed to increase parent and community engagement in creating a more collaborative and connected education system, and on the Jacobs Foundation’s working group on learner variability. The goal is to develop a global understanding and use of learner variability in classrooms worldwide.
The YouthMADE Festival Amplify Grants are $500 stipends for students participating in the YouthMADE Festival to expand or amplify a student-led project. Ten grantees were selected from Brazil, India, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Nigeria, and the United States.
The YouthMADE Festival Community Awards are community-powered recognition for students who participated in the YouthMADE Festival. Teachers, mentors, family, friends, and members of the community nominate students and share what they appreciate about the students and their event or project shared at the YouthMADE Festival.
The Ciena Solutions Challenge, a global design challenge by Digital Promise and Ciena, invites middle and high school students to design solutions addressing the Sustainable Development Goals. This year the Ciena Solutions Challenge awarded $2,500 Sustainability Awards to 20 student teams and $500 awards to an additional 18 teams to help students sustain and scale their projects.
The Adult Learning and Learning and Employment Innovations initiatives merged to form Pathways Research and Design. To guide the development of people-driven, research-enabled products, this merger bridges research on adult learning that elevates the experiences and perspectives of learners and workers with inclusive design practices that inform solution development.
Digital Promise is dedicated to elevating the voices of learners and workers who have been historically and systemically excluded from education and employment opportunities. To ensure that programs, products, and promising practices are truly designed with learners in mind, we collaborate with workforce and technology leaders and practitioners.
“With specific attention toward the pursuits and unique journeys of adult learners and workers, our focus has not changed. Our approach, however, is advancing.”
– Dr. Jhacole LeGrand-Dunn, Senior Director of Pathways
Haiti’s learners face a variety of challenges and obstacles to accessing the education that is their right.
Digital Promise’s pilot program in Haiti is promising to change that. Facilitated in partnership with Model School Network, Anseye Pou Ayiti, Summits Education, and Blue Butterfly, this pilot employs blended learning, technology, and hyper-local community involvement.
In an article for the World Economic Forum, Jean-Claude Brizard reflected on successes and lessons learned from this project, and outlined ways in which this model might be employed to support learners in similar educational contexts around the world.
Within the Pathways and Credentials team, the Credentials initiative has made significant strides in enhancing the Digital Promise Micro-credential Platform and program. We have expanded our ability to serve historically and systematically excluded learners through our suite of credentialing products, partnerships, and services. For the Micro-credential Platform, we have launched several features that support assessors in providing more efficient and timely feedback to learners while also engaging in deep user research to understand K-12 learners, postsecondary learners, and users who have earned 11 or more micro-credentials on our platform.
In “Shifting Education with Learning Pathways: Becoming Your Portrait of a Graduate,” Digital Promise introduces the Portrait of a Graduate model, which provides a useful framework to inform the preparation of learners to thrive within an ever-changing world and build the essential skills they will need to succeed personally and professionally. A Portrait identifies the broad skill sets that students must develop and apply across subjects and throughout learning, work, and life to reach their full potential.
Learn how the integration of Portrait Mindsets, Skill Sets, and Practices through Integrated Learning Pathways presents an opportunity to make fundamental shifts to how school leaders and policy makers envision and leverage teaching and learning systems to better prepare students for a successful future.
2023 Annual Report