This document introduces exercises for school designers to fine-tune their definition of student success using the MyWays framework of 20 student competencies. Exercise 1a has participants map their school's definition against MyWays competencies. Exercise 1b has participants create a graphical learning plan for a student by plotting their current competencies and goals. The document provides examples using fictional student "Tia" and introduces Excel tools to facilitate the exercises. The goal is for schools to better define, articulate, and support student success.

1. Exercise 1
Fine-Tuning Your Definition of Student Success
developed by Dave Lash & Grace Belfiore
for Next Generation Learning Challenges
Andrew Calkins, Deputy Director
September 18, 2015 DRAFT
MyWays is supported by a grant
from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
with additional support from
the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
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© 2015 EDUCAUSE
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
Putting MyWays to Work

2. This is the first in a series of MyWays exercise packets.
Exercise 1: Fine-Tuning Your Definition of Student Success
Exercise 1a: Defining and Mapping Your Definition of Student Success
Exercise 1b: Creating a Graphical Learning Plan for Student Success
Quick link to the MyWays Beta Toolbox
Repository for all MyWays overviews, tools, and exercises.
For a detailed listing of Exercise 1 documents, see the last slide in this deck.
Next Packet: Exercise 2 – Learning Design as Rich as Your Definition of Student Success
Putting MyWays to Work
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3. Putting MyWays to Work
The MyWays model, tools, and reports provide a
useful framework for design thinking & model building.
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4. Putting MyWays to Work
The MyWays project is attempting to help grantees and
school designers answer three big questions:
How well are we defining and articulating what success looks like
for students attending our school?
How well does our design for learning and the organization of our
school directly support students' attainment of that richer, deeper
definition of success?
How do we gauge students' progress in developing those
competencies? And: How can we measure and articulate our school’s
overall performance, beyond proficiency in ELA and math?
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The exercises in this packet, 1a and 1b, address the first of these three big
questions—how to define and articulate what student success looks like.
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5. The MyWays model provides school designers, teachers,
parents, and students with a set of 20 student competencies
needed for success in college, career, and life.
5Putting MyWays to Work

6. Organized in four arenas, MyWays serves as a rosetta stone
to translate research from across the broad, multi-disciplinary
student success landscape.
6Putting MyWays to Work

7. 7Putting MyWays to Work
Here’s how
MyWays
aligns with a
few selected
models from
the student
success
landscape.
See a later slide for
more on capability
and agency.

8. 8Putting MyWays to Work
Drilling deeper. This table provides short definitions for each of the competencies. The
forthcoming MyWays Model report provides deeper discussion of the research for the competencies.

9. One issue we researched in depth is the
relationship between a person’s internal
behaviors and dispositions, their learning
and skill development, and their confidence
and effectiveness operating in the real world
—operating in the real world being essential
to success in college, career, and life.
The research suggests that competence
is the union of capability and agency as we
have defined those terms here. Additionally,
the behaviors, skills, and dispositions that
comprise agency (as well as capability)
“are local” in the sense that an individual
might be high-agency in one area, say math,
but low-agency in English, social skills, or
developing a personal roadmap to a new
goal. Or vice versa.
Accordingly, a key takeaway from the
research is the importance of developing
agency within specific competencies, rather
than as a separate ability.
9Putting MyWays to Work

10. Knowledge Skills
Work Study
Practices
Work Study
Practices
Each school or jurisdiction has its own language
and constructs. MyWays is designed to provide a
common frame through which reformers can
connect their work to research and practice
elsewhere. (NH cross-mapped here)
10Putting MyWays to Work
Another feature of MyWays is its emphasis on interoperability
with other frameworks.

11. Exercises 1a & 1b
Fine-Tuning Your Definition of Student Success
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Exercise 1a:
Defining and Mapping Your Definition of Student Success
Exercise 1b:
Creating a Graphical Learning Plan for Student Success
Before delving into the two exercises presented
in this section, we recommend that your design
team members read the Introducing MyWays
overview listed on the last page of this deck.
Discuss it as a group. Seek agreement on what
information will be useful to collect on the
worksheet and spider plots.
This packet is designed to help you begin
working with MyWays and specifically with
the first big question:
How well are we defining and articulating
what success looks like for students
attending our school?

12. 12Exercise 1a. Defining and Mapping Your Definition of Student Success
Exercise 1a.
Like all MyWays tools, this Competency
Correlation Tool is flexible and adaptable to
many purposes. Customize the tool and
exercise to fit your needs!
Here’s Exercise 1a:
Download the Competency Correlation Tool
from the MyWays Beta Toolbox.
Working individually, compare your
school’s model of student success against
the MyWays competencies. (Work on hard
copy, digitally using the Excel template, or
load the template into a Google doc for
collaborative editing.)
Compare worksheets and discuss. Where is
your model strongest? What competencies
do you feel should be strengthened or
added? Come up with a joint analysis and
action plan based on that analysis.

13. 13Exercise 1b. Creating a Graphical Learning Plan for Student Success
“Force visual comparison,” stresses Edward Tufte,
the guru of information visualization. To that end,
MyWays provides two simple spider plot tools: a
detailed plot of all 20 competencies (upper right)
and an arena plot that uses one combined score for
the five competencies in each arena (lower right).
The tools are built in Excel, are easy to use, and
easy to customize. Most importantly, they can be
used to compare almost any two conditions:
contrasting student profiles, the same student at two
points in time, program profiles at schools A and B,
and so forth.
In Exercise 1b, you will use the MyWays
Competency Detail Plotting Tool to generate a
spider plot of an individual student’s current
strengths, needs, and goals across the full set of
MyWays competencies.
First, we demonstrate how this is done.

14. 14Exercise 1b. Creating a Graphical Learning Plan for Student Success
The case of Tia*
A 14-year-old living in Boston, here’s how Tia (black
line) might be compared to an academically “on-track”
student (red line) using the arena-level plotting tool. Any
scale can be used with the tool; in this case, the student
in red is Performing (‘3’) in the Content Knowledge and
Habits of Success arenas with lower scores in Creative
Know How and Wayfinding Abilities.
Tia’s low-income background and moderate dyslexia
have contributed to her lower Content Knowledge score,
but she is a determined child with several strengths in
other arenas that would typically go unnoticed, or at
least, undeveloped in traditional schools.
On the next page, we’ll look deeper at the individual
competencies in each arena using the more detailed
plotting tool.
First though, note the screenshot of the Excel file (right).
The plot is generated automatically by changes in the
‘Enter Data’ table. Easy-to-follow instructions are
provided right on the same page. Plots can be
customized through simple editing of the spreadsheet.
* Tia is a fictionalized composite of two real students in the
Boston area.

15. 15Exercise 1b. Creating a Graphical Learning Plan for Student Success
In this second plot, we have used a more detailed version of the Excel
tool to show Tia’s current level for all 20 MyWays competencies
(black). That profile shows several peaks which figured significantly
in developing the goals and individual education plan represented by
the purple line.
In addition to her Individualized Education Program focused solely on
her dyslexia, Tia’s teachers and parents have helped Tia establish some
learning activities and goals (purple line)
that will cultivate her strengths and
interests while exploring potential career
pathways.
Examples:
• Providing learning experiences in
and out of school to maximize her
strong Social Skills, Communication
ability, and Practical Life Skills;
• Declaring an “academic major”
around her two great loves—young
children and animals—using two
Content Knowledge platforms:
Science, Social Studies, Arts,
Languages and Career-Related
Technical Skills;
• Translating the determination and
hard work Tia has shown in
overcoming her disability and her
family’s financial struggles, along
with Social Skills and self-
knowledge beyond her years, into
more Positive Mindsets, Academic
Behaviors, and Learning Strategies.

16. 16Exercise 1b. Creating a Graphical Learning Plan for Student Success
Exercise 1b.
Read and discuss the Introducing MyWays overview.
Download the Competency Detailed Plotting Tool
from the MyWays Beta Toolbox. Read the
instructions within the spreadsheet.
Customize the exercise to fit your current needs.
Consider plotting a student’s current status and
future goals, or modify the exercise to use the tool
for an assessment of your learning program or goals.
Select one of the scales provided within the
instructions, or use another scale of your own
creation.
For purposes of this exercise, enter values for each
competency (left) based on actual data or your
informed experience. Generate plot(s).
Discuss the plots and new insights. Come up with a
joint analysis and action plan based on that analysis.
Watch for forthcoming MyWays reports and practice
briefings for information on learning design and
assessment design pertinent to the competencies.
Use this simple Excel tool, provided in the
Toolbox, to create a spider-chart graphical
expression of an individual student’s current
strengths, needs, and goals across the full set of
MyWays competencies (or replace them with
your own definitions). Or customize this Excel
charting tool as you see fit.

17. All files associated with these exercises can be found in the MyWays Beta Toolbox.
Related reading
This slide deck
Introducing MyWays overview
Tools
Competency Correlation Tool (for Exercise 1a)
Competency Arena Summary Plotting Tool (for Exercise 1b)
Competency Detailed Plotting Tool (for Exercise 1b)
Forthcoming Reports
The MyWays Model: A Composite of Student Competencies for Success in College, Career, and Life
Foundations of the MyWays Model: A Brief Summary of Student Success Research
MyWays by Design: A Set of Practice Briefings on Learning and Assessment for Broader and Deeper Competencies
Simple Tools for Using MyWays in Your School Community
Resources for Exercises 1a & 1b
Fine-Tuning Your Definition of Student Success
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