NC DIGITAL LEARNING PROGRESS RUBRIC
FOR DISTRICTS AND CHARTERS
Instructions for Use
The transition to a digital-age education system that fully harnesses the power of
modern technologies will impact all aspects of education, including the content students
learn, the methods teachers use, where and when learning takes place, what resources
are required, and how success is defined and measured. While there are many different
implementations of digital learning, when we look across effective models and
examples, we see many commonalities. These essential elements make up the NC
Digital Learning Progress Rubric.
The Friday Institute for Educational Innovation at NC State University, in partnership
with the NC State Board of Education and NC Department of Public Instruction, is
developing the North Carolina K-12 Digital Learning Plan (http://ncdlplan.fi.ncsu.edu/) to
accelerate the State’s progress in providing the personalized, digital-age education K-12
students need to be successful in college, in careers, and as productive citizens.
As part of this plan, the Friday Institute has produced the NC Digital Learning Progress
Rubric, to serve as a roadmap to support North Carolina’s educators and communities
in the transition to digital-age teaching and learning. As an update of the NCLTI rubric,
this rubric is designed to help district or charter teams reflect on their current stage of
development in digital learning and track their progress moving forward.
At the request of the NC State Board of Education, rubric results from every district and
charter school will be collected and used to gauge the current status of our statewide
transition to digital learning; and, prioritize resources and sequence recommendations
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for the NC Digital Learning Plan. At the local level, districts and charters can use the
findings from the rubric to identify and address areas of greatest need and as a tool for
advocacy.
About the Rubric
This rubric contains five major areas: Leadership, Professional Learning, Technology &
Infrastructure, Content & Instruction, and Data & Assessment made up of twenty-five
corresponding key elements.
The rubric is designed with the Target column defining the “schools of tomorrow” that
have fully transitioned to digital learning. Based on initial feedback, many districts will
rate themselves as “Early” or “Developing” in most categories. The revised rubric also
now includes language that is more accessible for a wider range of users (e.g., asking
about user experience rather than about specific numerical metrics about bandwidth per
student).
Major Areas
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Leadership – Educators, leaders, and other personnel throughout the system have an
understanding of the characteristics of digital learning and are well versed in the
teaching and learning strategies that support those environments. Leadership has
established a shared vision and policy to support a sustained digital teaching and
learning environment. Teamwork and collaboration are essential features of all
interactions across the system. District leaders ensure that vehicles for collaboration,
both organizational and technical, are readily available for all district initiatives.
Professional Learning – Professional learning experiences for educators and
administrators should be targeted on effective, research-based strategies and standards
for implementing digital learning in the classroom. The professional development
program should be timely, relevant, ongoing, and job-embedded. Participants should
have the opportunity to evaluate the professional development activities, and the impact
of technology professional development should be assessed using data on classroom
practice and student learning. Educators must have sufficient time to revise curriculum
and instructional materials and/or to review new curriculum and materials aligned with
college- and career-ready standards. Ongoing support needs to be created for
educators to work with their peers to review student performance data, determine how
to adjust instruction to support students and opening levels of deeper understanding,
and provide additional support for students not yet on track to meet the new standards.
Content & Instruction– Through a more flexible, consistent, and concentrated
approach to academic content design and accessibility, educators have robust and
adaptive tools to customize the instruction for groups of students or on a student-tostudent basis to ensure relevance and strong understanding of complex issues and
topics. Providing multiple sources of high-quality academic content offers students
much greater opportunities to reflect on their own work, think critically, and engage
frequently to enable deeper understanding of complex topics. Educators collaboratively
develop new content and seek resources for use in classroom instruction.
Technology Infrastructure & Devices– A digital-age teaching and learning
environment requires a reliable and high functioning infrastructure along with technology
tools that support district and school instructional and programmatic goals. School
wireless networks must provide ubiquitous coverage and there must be adequate
bandwidth within the school and between the school and the Internet. Instructional tools
including learning management systems, classroom management systems, and
assessment management systems link educators, students, and parents to each other
and to data and content resources. Devices in the hands of all teachers and students
provide the window to the content and tools. A technical support model maintains
performance, security and availability of the infrastructure, and provides software and
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hardware maintenance services. Technical approaches must also address outside of
school access to content and applications.
Data & Assessment – Assessment, data, and data analytics are critical aspects of
digital learning. A personalized, learner-centered environment uses technology to
collect, analyze, and organize data to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of
learning. Data is one of the building blocks of diagnostic, formative, and summative
assessments—key elements in a system where learning is personalized, individualized,
and differentiated to ensure learner success.
Using the Rubric
1. Identify a representative team of the district or charter school stakeholders
that includes leadership, principals, teachers, support staff, parents, and
students. Your district or charter school improvement team, or Media,
Technology Advisory Committee (MTAC) would be ideal standing committees to
engage in this process.
2. Each team member should complete the rubric separately. Provide each
member of the team with the electronic or paper version of the rubric and ask
them to rate where the district or charter school currently falls in each key
element, to the best of their knowledge. Some team members may not have
enough information to complete all of the items. All bullets in each indicator rubric
cell must be present to rate your district or charter in a category level. For
example, if the district/charter only matches one of the two bullets listed in the
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Advanced category, then you should move your district/charter score to
Developing.
3. Meet and come to consensus on the overall rating. For any given key
element, it is not unusual that some schools are farther along the continuum than
others. As teams review results, we recommend identifying and choosing the
rating that is most representative of the district or charter as a whole. Once the
team has come to consensus on each item, submit your results at
http://go.ncsu.edu/ncdlrubric. Each district and charter school should only
complete one submission. You will need to provide your district name, and name
and email of respondent so that a confirmation and summary of your responses
can be sent back.
4. Begin planning the district’s digital learning transition. Consider how the
items in the rubric can help you prioritize goals and resources for the district or
charter school strategic plan.
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