As many districts welcome learners back to school, we know you are still facing complexities surrounding the months ahead. As you plan for the best approach to support and serve learners and educators, as well as where and how to invest ESSER dollars, we have a few helpful resources we want to bring back to the forefront.

In the spring of 2020, when many districts across the state were forced to close their doors, Educate Texas, Getting Smart and the Learner Centered Collaborative, partnered to create the Texas Learning Exchange (TxLx) project. TxLx facilitates the creation and sharing of resources, solutions, and best practice models that can help districts and campuses accelerate learning for students impacted by the pandemic.

Now and throughout the year, we hope you can use these resources to plan for welcoming learners back, supporting the whole child, and continuously reflecting and reiterating on practices all year long.

School and District Leaders

• School Instructional Supports Guide: This resource is focused on school and learning design with equity at the center; whole child outcomes including social-emotional learning, learner-centered teaching, and leadership strategies; and maintaining relationships and community. Whether you’re operating in person, hybrid, or fully online, you’ll find this resource valuable.
• Texas Learning Solutions Case Studies: Check out these world-class learning systems that can be adapted and scaled by any district. Case studies are meant to inspire model design and implementation as you look to improve a current model or start something new.
• New Learning Models Library: This is a resource library for leaders to find a diverse framework for dimensions to innovate on. These models are found in various states and cities across the nation and include innovation opportunities that are not district specific but instead are school or program based. These will provide inspiration for districts as you start your innovation strategy.

Technology Leaders and Team

• Edtech Leadership Guide: This resource provides resources and guidance for education technology leaders to make effective changes in a thoughtful way during an open-ended season of change and to practice effective edtech leadership.

Educators

• Open Education Resources Library. A rich resource library developed to support pre-K-12 educators and leaders. The OER library features hundreds of open materials, including open textbooks, modules, extra support materials, assignments, quizzes, test banks, lab activities, games, videos, and more. Each resource is licensed by the creators and authors to permit and encourage adoption, improvement, and retention, and each was vetted against the following criteria:

In addition to providing the resources above, we have published several blogs, hosted and recorded live events, and we will have more content coming soon as we kick off a district coaching project this Fall.

Calling this project the Texas Learning Exchange is not just a title, but an encouragement. As we pay attention to what’s happening in the field, we wish to include more examples of overcoming obstacles to give all learners a better chance at attaining an education that empowers them to be successful in their higher education plans, whether in the workforce, college, or in service to our state or country.

As you dive into the resources above, we’d love any insights, feedback, and best practices you have that may support others in Texas and nationwide. Send us a note here so we can get in touch and find ways to highlight your work.