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NHLI | New Hampshire Learning Initiative
All Students Deserve a Quality Education
/ July 1, 2020
Together and Stronger in the 603
This spring when the NHLI team met to discuss our summer conference, we knew it would be challenging to hold a conference this summer and that if we did hold a conference, we would need to be sensitive to the needs of educators who had a lot of uncertainty circling around them. My first thoughts were that educators would need to step away for a few weeks after the school year and just decompress, rather than think about any new professional learning.
Then as the weeks of quarantine stretched on, we started to hear from teachers and leaders that what they needed was some time to hear from fellow educators about what worked during remote learning as well as what innovative ideas were out there. The links and resources were helpful they told us, but they needed the collegiality of their peers. We heard from many educators that they also needed normal conversations and to focus on ideas that went beyond the current reality and look to a future to when we are past this crisis.
Leaders asked us to facilitate conversations and to create a learning community, where ideas could flow and where they could share challenges that could be discussed together. This group identified several areas of need across districts; support to help students and teachers with the trauma of this time, assessment strategies that went beyond standardized measures to identify what students needed, grading philosophy and student-centered reporting systems that employed feedback for learners, teachers identified the need to learn more about instructing students in building self-direction, and leaders identified the need to extend and support learning communities within schools.
Our conference was designed with these needs in mind. We have built a virtual experience that can’t take the place of in-person interactions, but we hope the flexibility of recorded sessions and access to outstanding experts nationally and from New Hampshire will be helpful. But mostly, we hope the teachers and leaders from our state presenting and sharing will help deepen the learning community already so strong across the districts in New Hampshire. We are in this together.
Ellen Hume-Howard
Executive Director
Ellen Hume-Howard has served as NHLI’s executive director since 2017. In this role, she leads NHLI to assist New Hampshire schools and districts to deepen their innovative practices in education and improve learning for all students. In addition to managing a staff of five, she also works directly with teacher leaders and administrators to support competency-based and personalized learning, assessment design, and competency-based instructional practice.
Since 2014, Ellen has worked with state and national experts to design a competency assessment program using performance assessment for state accountability. Initially called PACE, the program was a first-of-its-kind accountability and assessment. In 2022, NHLI launched NH PLACE (Performance Learning and Assessment Consortium for Educators) to support performance learning and assessment.
Before joining NHLI, Ellen worked as the director of curriculum for the Sanborn Regional School District, and guided the district’s research, design, and implementation of a nationally recognized K-12 competency-based learning system.
Ellen received her undergraduate degree in English from the University of New Hampshire, a master’s degree in Education and a CAGS in Educational Leadership.
Ellen and her husband Kip live on the New Hampshire Seacoast.
Categories: Competency-Based Learning (CBL) Personalized Learning Remote Learning Student Agency WSP (Work Study Practices)