CA Learning Innovation Featured at NEASC Showcase
On April 3, the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) hosted its annual Educator Showcase in Nashua, N.H., bringing together teachers, students, and administrators from across the region to explore innovative teaching strategies.
This year’s theme, Future-Ready Learners: Skills for Lifelong Success, emphasized the importance of equipping students with the knowledge needed for personal and academic growth. Central to this vision is catering to students’ different learning styles through dynamic lesson plans.
Among the session leaders was CA’s Modern and Classical Languages Department Head Carmen Welton, who presented “Self-Pacing in the Modern Classroom: Leveraging Student Autonomy for Buy-In and Differentiated Learning.” She was joined by student Evan Griffith-Ebrahimi ’26, who shared their experience with independent learning. Together, they offered an inspiring look at how self-paced education can transform coursework.
Welton began the session by welcoming participants and introducing the three key pillars of independent learning: self-pacing, blended instruction, and mastery-based learning. Self-pacing allows students to move through course material at their own speed. Blended instruction combines traditional face-to-face teaching with online learning components such as videos, podcasts, and games, among other resources. Mastery-based learning focuses on ensuring that students achieve a deep understanding of learning objectives, with quizzes and check-ins used to assess comprehension.
Welton explained that these methods promote a more tailored learning experience. “My role as a teacher shifts more intentionally to that of a curator or a guide, scaffolding the presentation of new ideas and offering options as to how they might engage those ideas and practice them in various contexts,” she shared.
This is the approach she uses in the majority of her Spanish language and culture classes using the Modern Classrooms framework. In addition to teaching, Welton also works as a colleague-mentor for Modern Classrooms. Through this work, she has had the opportunity to support educators at other schools around the country as they develop their materials into a self-paced, blended instructional model.
In the spirit of self-directed learning, Welton encouraged participants to explore the session content on their terms. Participants could choose to work individually or with a partner, using a progress tracker that guided them through essential and optional activities ranging from watching instructional videos to practicing lesson planning using a template. The room buzzed with excitement as teachers discussed the possibilities.
One task included analyzing a Johns Hopkins University study on self-guided learning with the Modern Classrooms Project. Teachers utilizing this methodology reported feeling significantly more capable of differentiating instruction than their peers, with 89% reporting that they were able to meet students at different levels of understanding, compared with only 44% of comparison teachers. Additionally, 70% of students expressed a desire to take more courses like theirs, compared with 59% of comparison students.
Participants also had the opportunity to read an article from the student paper The Centipede written by Evan. In the write-up, Evan shared one of their favorite aspects of the curriculum is the adaptability it offers: “The flexibility of when assignments are completed allows students to spend more time on concepts that they find difficult, giving them the opportunity to navigate the course content in a way that caters to their specific needs.” Evan also circulated the room to share their reflections on the article and answer questions from conference participants.
After their self-guided learning experience, educators regrouped to discuss what they had learned and ask questions. One teacher asked how they can implement self-pacing in their classroom gradually. While self-paced learning can be applied to entire courses, Welton encouraged educators to begin with small steps. For those new to the concept, she suggested experimenting with a single self-paced project or unit as a manageable way to introduce the strategy.
Another teacher asked how to foster collaboration in a self-paced classroom. Welton said she assigns some tasks that are inherently collaborative and that conversations often arise organically through the students’ curiosity and questions. She also suggested scheduling fixed days to pause self-paced learning to allow for group activities.
To close the session, participants created a word cloud by contributing words describing self-paced learning possibilities. The words included “student empowerment,” “independence,” “choice,” “efficiency,” and “exploration.”
Reflecting on the conference, Welton shares, “I find this kind of peer-to-peer collaborative work incredibly gratifying, and so I welcome any opportunity to share this pedagogy with a broader audience of curious colleagues! The conversations I have in the context of presenting it to others often push me to think through aspects of the model that I either hadn’t considered or have myself struggled with, and so I usually feel I learn as much, if not more, than I share in these sessions.”
The takeaway for participants was that a self-paced curriculum could help students take ownership of their learning. Educators from both public and private schools were left with the sense that providing the right tools and fostering independence could help them set students up for a successful future.
