7/2015

The goal of the Birth through Grade Three (Birth-Third) Learning Hub is to support communities in their efforts to improve young children’s learning and development. This website tracks, profiles, and analyzes Birth-Third initiatives with the aim of promoting learning, exchange, and knowledge-building across communities.

Building Capacity and Knowledge Across Communities.  An underlying premise of the hub is that the more Birth-Third leaders know about the work of other communities, the better able they will be to design and implement effective strategies. Recent work on education reform in high-performing countries and regions emphasizes the importance of building capacity across communities, capacity built by developing knowledge, relationships, networks, and regional collective commitment. Through case studies, analysis, guidance documents, tools, videos, and collaboration with technical assistance providers, the Learning Hub promotes sharing of promising practices and collaborative problem-solving directed towards common problems.

Real-Time Action Research. In recent years both the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Aspen Institute have released concept papers based on years of research on community change and innovation at scale—innovation at the community-level. These papers–Networked Improvement Communities and Building Knowledge About Community Change–call for action research in service to community change that is applied, timely, informed by practitioner perspectives, and formative in nature. Consistent with the messages of these reports, the Learning Hub aims to synthesize findings across Birth-Third partnerships and provide analysis–informed by the research literature–of common trends, patterns, challenges, and innovations. See this page for a description of Birth-Third strategies. Key topics of interest include the following:

• Strategy and Planning and Plan Management
• Standards and Curriculum
• Assessment and Data-Driven Inquiry
• Effective Teaching Strategies
• Developmentally-appropriate Practice
• QRIS
• English Language Learning
• Professional Learning Communities
• Coaching and Professional Development
• Home Visiting
• Parenting
• Special Needs
• Transitions and School Readiness

Source: The Birth Through Third Grade Learning Hub