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prefrontal cortex, which is the region controlling inhibition of impulses and the ability to plan, reflect, self-monitor, and make good decisions, doesn't fully develop until the early 20s. This means that while the limbic system or "emotional brain" is working at close to full capacity by early adolescence, the areas of the brain that could temper those feelings and impulses are still in the process of being constructed.

Neuroscience Should Inform School Policies

Consequently, key secondary school reform efforts need to emphasize learning activities involving metacognition, goal-setting, planning, working memory, reflection on one's learning, and frequent opportunities to make responsible choices.

Classroom teaching that focuses largely on delivering content through lectures and textbooks fails to engage the emotional brain and leaves unchanged those prefrontal regions that are important in metacognition.

Locking students into a set academic college-bound program of courses takes away their ability to make decisions about what most interests them (a process that integrates the limbic system's motivational verve with the prefrontal cortex's decisionmaking capacity).

Neuroscience research tells us that the teenage brain is exquisitely sensitive to environmental influences. This neuroplasticity makes it vulnerable to a wide range of societal dangers—traffic accidents, drug abuse, suicide, violence. But it also makes it acutely sensitive to the influence of teachers, for good or for ill.

“Sometimes the best things going on are happening in your own building, and you might miss them because you’re doing your own thing,”

teachers meet regularly outside of class time to examine their students’ coursework as a team.

“The reason we look at student work is to help teachers become better teachers,”

“are better able to guide and facilitate a deeper level of student learning.”

community of learners who use planned, peer-to-peer feedback to help raise student outcomes throughout the school.

Each three-hour teacher lab focuses on a specific instructional topic that teachers choose to explore together, such as student engagement strategies.

To encourage more teacher collaboration in your school, you’ll want to consider: Time: Where will you find time within the regular school day for teachers to step outside their own classrooms and learn together? Structure: How might a protocol or specific observation prompt help to focus the learning experience? Who will play a lead role in facilitating the teacher experience and encouraging reflection? How will you capture takeaways? The National School Reform Faculty publishes a number of protocols for professional learning, such as this one for looking at student work. Follow-up: How are teachers applying what they learn together? How do students benefit as a result of teacher collaboration?

1. Learning is a Positive, Inclusive Experience

Students set and pursue individualized learning goals and have in-person and online academic support options.

Reassessment is an academic norm.

Students pursue their passions.

Conflict resolution is built on restorative justice, not traditional disciplinary techniques.

2. Students Lead Learning

A common thread: Culture and program should be deeply connected, specifically in how communities support student agency.

Every student and adult in the community creates, pursues, and updates a Learning Plan; every student has an advisor; and public exhibitions of learning that involve school and community members are the standard summative assessments.

3. Professional Culture is the Foundation of School Culture