I’m a high school English teacher, and one of the questions I’ve been wrestling with is what assessment should look like when a student can ask AI to produce a polished answer in seconds. One answer for us has been surprisingly old-fashioned: talk to the student. Our students complete one-on-one verbal assessments with a teacher to demonstrate that they understand their core content standards in our personalized, competency-based learning option called Empower[Ed]. The permeation of AI...

This week, a team of administrators from Arizona spent the day at Empower[Ed], Bismarck Public Schools' personalized, competency-based learning program. Afterward, NDPLN asked what surprised them, what would be hard to replicate, and what they'd tell a colleague back home. Three things stood out enough to share. 1. You Don't Need the Whole Model to Start The most useful line from the visit wasn't praise, it was practical. One visitor put it plainly: "I am not sure how we could replicate the...

We asked a group of Empower[Ed] juniors and seniors, students nearing the end of their K-12 journey, three simple questions. What was missing for you in a traditional classroom? What would your last few years have looked like without this option? And what do you want a school leader to know? Their answers make the case better than we ever could. What Was Missing Almost every student named the same thing in different words: pace, freedom, and personalization that a traditional classroom...