Hello from the team at Gradient Learning.
We’re excited to share what we’ve been working on for the past 12 months: a major update to the Summit Learning program for the 2024-25 academic year.
Our vision has always been to give you a unified system that makes Whole Student Learning achievable. This update is a step towards delivering on that promise.
It’s based on the invaluable feedback that you have shared with us and the solutions that your peers have codesigned with us in classrooms across the country.
So, what’s new?
Increased Access to Rigorous Curricula & Supports
We want schools to have access to the most rigorous, whole-student-aligned curricula available today so that students can access rich, relevant learning materials every day. That’s why we’re supplementing our 2024 Base Curriculum with externally validated curricula in math, English Language Arts, science, and open-source courses in social studies. All curricula will be preloaded into our platform, and newly implementing schools will receive training and resources from Gradient Learning.
Whole Student Refresh
We are also refining our support of whole student outcomes for our schools. We are prioritizing a set of our Habits of Success, adding aligned assessment tools into courses, refining our dashboards to incorporate those new assessments, and building out a new set of research-based teacher practices that lead to student growth on these prioritized Habits of Success.
Evolved Learning Platform
Lastly, we are evolving our platform to meet our current and future programmatic needs. We’re excited to share that we built a new experience on top of Canvas and are heavily customizing our instance of the platform so it comes pre-loaded with all of our rigorous curricula, our mentoring experience, our whole student dashboard, updated Learning Space, and more.
Towards a Whole Student System
These changes are all part of our evolution towards a complete Whole Student System that brings together everything educators need—in a single, cohesive approach—to deliver on the promise of whole student teaching—where school is bigger than just academics.
Summit Learning is now Gradient Learning
To signify these changes, as well as our organization’s complete focus on Whole Student Learning, we’re changing the name of the program from Summit Learning to Gradient Learning. This will allow for greater clarity between our program and the network of Summit Public Schools, which is a different organization. Going forward, Gradient Learning will serve as both the name of the program and our non-profit organization.
Support and training to get you ready for the New Gradient Learning
We’re excited to roll out this update. And we know that you’ll need some time to dig in, learn and adjust to the program updates. Making that change easier and empowering everyone to get the most out of the new system will be the focus of a range of supports that will begin in January 2024.
While we will be working mostly with school leaders during the spring, we will be sharing periodic updates with our broader community throughout the next several months. We are also excited to see many of you at our next Summer Training, which will take place in Chicago, Ill., from July 14-19, 2024. We’ll be sharing more information about Summer Training in January!
Thank you for coming along with us as we work towards a world where teachers have the tools and support to deliver Whole Student Learning, where schools are reimagined as a community, and where students are able to go into the world—self-aware, confident, and living up to their true potential.