Shifting to Student-Driven Learning for Greater Academic Achievement, Personal Growth, and Success in Life After Graduation

Originally published on DATIA K12.

Students are more than letter grades and test scores. They are unique individuals with their own goals, skills, and needs—deserving an educational journey that supports all three. When success is defined only by report cards, deep learning and curiosity are often overshadowed by the pursuit of an A.

Research shows that greater student agency strengthens a growth mindset and supports the transfer of classroom knowledge into real-world skills. To cultivate lifelong learners, districts must rehumanize the school experience, shifting the focus from standardized assessments and one-time snapshots of progress to helping each student design their own graduation road map and define personalized learning milestones.

In 2017, Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS), which serves 96,000 students in Louisville, Ky., launched its renowned Backpack of Success Skills (the “Backpack”), enabling students to archive digital learning artifacts, such as presentations, videos, and essays, that reflected their talents and growth.

As successful as the Backpack initiative was, in 2024 the district recognized an opportunity to iterate and improve. While certain aspects of the work were implemented district-wide, each of the district’s 150 schools developed their own measures of success. The early data system was not able to effectively track progress across schools, resulting in evidence of student growth that was anecdotal, highlighting success stories while hiding potential problems.

Ensuring sustainability and re-centering equity required JCPS to systematize the framework so it held equal value across every school. That meant developing a shared knowledge base, creating district-wide resources, and providing professional learning for all educators. It also had to align with the Kentucky Department of Education’s (KED) Portrait of a Learner vision, which focuses on the development of durable competencies and academic mastery, as well as the state’s revised local accountability measures.

Two years ago, JCPS relaunched the Backpack as Journey to Success. From the start, stakeholders set out to identify key competencies and priorities to anchor the program and establish districtwide rubrics and accountability measures. Central to this effort was providing teachers the tools to better assess overall student progress in transition and interim years without compromising students’ self-efficacy. Just as important, the process had to be seamless for them, enabling easy data entry while streamlining the information they had already collected.

JCPS partnered with Otus to bring assessments, data, and progress monitoring into one centralized platform and define measurable outcomes. This transparency helped the district better understand how Journey to Success supports students’ needs and goals:

• Through a central “Gallery” on the Otus platform, students can upload artifacts that meet high-quality work indicators as evidenced by key rubrics representing one of Journey to Success’ five Success Skills competencies, such as “Effective Communicator” or “Emerging Innovator.” In some instances, an artifact may be a curriculum-based project, such as a photo of a robot built in engineering class. In another, it could be an essay highlighting the on-the-job experience a student gained through one of JCPS’s CTE partners. The Gallery also allowed students to tag specific skills they learned and add reflections on their experience.

• Students have the ability to demonstrate their growth through Milestone checkpoints each year, whether it’s a Mini-Defense, Student-Led Conference, or Exhibition of Learning. In the transition years of fifth, eighth, and twelfth grades, students also present Defenses of Learning to a panel of educators, community partners, and family members to showcase their growth in key competency areas. Through its partnership with Otus, JCPS was able to implement common rubrics that systematize data collection and provide meaningful feedback to students.

• Since data is now completely streamlined, every student has access to an equitable, consistent learning experience regardless of the school they attend. JCPS is a large and highly transient district – when students moved from School A to School B in the past, their data often stayed behind and evidence of their Journey progress was lost. Today, Otus serves as their “digital passport,” ensuring their progress is never lost when they move on to the next grade or completely change schools.

In the first year of the Journey to Success, students demonstrated their readiness for future challenges as measured by JCPC’s Defense of Learning rubrics. Eighty percent of fifth grade students met “Ready” or “Excelling” criteria for demonstrating who they are as a person and their next steps to achieve their future goals. Among eighth graders, 82% were “Ready” or “Excelling” in their ability to reflect on how their learning journey helped them develop knowledge of content skills and standards as demonstrated through their artifacts.

“Ready” and “Excelling” results were even more impressive for the district’s graduating seniors:

• 91% of students could reflect on their learning journey
• 85% of students were able to analyze how their skills can be applied personally and academically
• 92% of students included their next steps for future goals

The success of the program was also reflected in strong graduation and postsecondary readiness rates. During the 2024-2025 school year, the district’s graduation rate rose to 89.2%, and the postsecondary-readiness rate climbed to 84% - marking steady improvement over the past three years. The graduation rate for Black students rose to 90.8%, nearly matching their white peers, with a gap of just 0.1 percentage points, compared with a three-point difference three years ago.

Early data both validates the work of the district and lays out a plan for what’s next. Using the Otus platform, JCPS is positioned to collect, monitor, and analyze data year over year and truly capture a picture of a student’s Journey to Success with measurable goals, authentic artifacts, and a clear vision of the value of a JCPS education. When a JCPS student graduates, they are equipped with the right skills and motivation to take on the world ahead.

For districts considering similar competency-based frameworks, the lesson is clear: start with shared definitions of success, align rubrics across schools, and ensure educators can capture and use evidence without adding workflow burden.