Research

Research Topic 1: How can executive function and learner agency be intentionally developed in elementary school settings?

Current Model Under Investigation: Red Bridge Work Habits

Why Work Habits?

Red Bridge seeks to develop a sense of agency in every child as the foundation for academic and life success. Our definition of student agency is being able to set meaningful goals and having the will and skill to achieve them.
At Red Bridge, we don’t only teach academic content (the ‘what’), we also teach the skills and habits to be an effective learner (the ‘how’). Work Habits are the ways in which people learn - the skills of how to learn. Some of the Work Habits we teach include focus, goal management, and self-knowledge.
Work Habits lessons introduce and practice skills needed for agentic, self-directed learning. By teaching these skills and habits explicitly, we level the playing field between students who may come to these skills more naturally and those who need intentional instruction. In an agentic environment like Red Bridge, students have opportunities to apply their learnings from Work Habits lessons every day, across content areas and instructional blocks.

sample work habits lesson

How might you consider using this curriculum?

Work Habits lessons are available as mini-lessons and as standard-length lessons. They can be taught at any time of day that works for you. The mini-lessons typically range from 10 to 15 minutes, and are designed for daily schedules where time is tight, and there may be a small SEL block available for this type of instruction. Standard-length lessons are around 30 minutes long and may be used in schools with more flexible schedules.
During the lessons, teachers use a variety of strategies to support habit development, including direct instruction, discovery learning, adult modeling, live narration, supported practice, high-quality feedback, questioning, and regular opportunities to track and reflect on habits.
Work Habits lessons are not seen as standalone lessons, but rather build on themselves and recur in more complex formats. They are connected to learners’ lives and should be revisited as needed.
Each lesson has prompts for how teachers might observe learners practicing these habits as well as how they might reinforce habits in the moment throughout the day. Teachers check in with learners on an ongoing basis as an opportunity to support learners’ metacognitive thinking around their habit development, strengths, areas for growth, and more. Throughout the day, and over the course of the year, teachers also model and provide high-quality feedback to learners on work habits as learners build and apply them to various contexts.

Aligned system elements support the successful integration of Work Habits into your school or district. Here are some things to consider:

Behavior Management: Staff view behavior as a form of communication, and can connect student behavior to what we know about the brain. Students are encouraged to fix their own mistakes/problems as part of a system of logical consequences. External rewards and punishments, star charts and stickers are not conducive to building student agency.
Curriculum: The model works best when the curriculum is flexible, supports customized learning pathways, and allows learners to drive their learning in developmentally appropriate ways.
Instructional approach: Instruction should invite learners to share their wonderings and ideas, encourage goal-setting and metacognitive reflection, model learning strategies and habits in action, and put learners in the driver’s seat.
Assessment approach: The model works best with regular formative, learner-engaged assessment practices, where, over time, learners are supported to take the lead in monitoring their growth and progress toward learning targets and habits. Learners not only track progress toward these targets, but also set goals, create plans, make adjustments, and reflect on their progress along the way.
School community & culture: Rituals and routines that foster belonging and connectedness among members of the learning community are prioritized as they create a supportive context (e.g., relationships, resources, opportunities) for agency to flourish.
Adult roles: All adults hold the pervasive belief in the importance of fostering agency in young children and are masterful at creating learning experiences that empower learners to own their learning. The model also relies on a staff culture where each adult feels safe, seen, and deeply supported.
Schedule & use of time: Schedules hold space for agency-rich practices as well as purposefully embed opportunities for goal-setting, reflection, and learner decision-making throughout the day.
Continuous learning & improvement: Systems and processes are used to understand and measure progress toward cultivating learner agency and the skills that underpin it.

Learn more about the Early Agency Model inspired by Red Bridge practices & curriculum here.

Research Topic 2: How can assessment systems increase student ownership of learning while maintaining rigor?

Current Model Under Investigation: Red Bridge Learning Credits

Why Learning Credits?

Learning Credits are grounded in well-established learning science, particularly research on metacognition, feedback, and student agency. Metacognition (students’ ability to monitor their understanding, regulate effort, and set goals) is consistently associated with strong gains in achievement. When learners have opportunities to reflect on what they know and how they know it, they are better able to drive their own progress.
Decades of research also show that timely, specific feedback is one of the most powerful influences on learning. Yet in most school settings, structural constraints, such as class size, schedules, and grading demands limit how often students receive actionable feedback. As a result, assessment is often separated from learning rather than used to advance it.
Our approach re-centers assessment as a formative, student-driven process. Through Learning Credits, students decide when they are ready to demonstrate mastery and are required to articulate how they know they’re ready, strengthening metacognition and motivation.
Learning Credits enable a mastery-based approach to learning. Unlike traditional tests, students may practice toward and retry a Learning Credit at any time. Students are not limited in their learning by a failed attempt.

How do Learning Credits Work?

Learning Credits are individual credits/badges that students can earn for demonstrating a level of proficiency for a particular skill. Learning Credits exist for academic and non-academic areas.
Students select Learning Credits that they want to work to earn. When they feel they know the skill deeply and are ready to be tested, they sign up for an assessment.

If they are successful, students receive a physical learning credit that they can track in a binder or an online digital portfolio as their unique learner profile comes together.
If they are not successful, they can try again after they’ve spent additional time working to master the skill.

Students can earn an array of learning credits based on their particular interests and strengths. Some credits are foundational and required of all students to graduate. Other credits are advanced and optional.
Fluency credits require students to demonstrate ease of process, whereas concept credits require students to demonstrate depth of understanding and are multi-modal.

You can read more about this approach to mastery-based learning in Chapter 3 of the book Mastery by Tony Wagner and Ulrik Christensen.

Interested in using these in your classroom? Get in touch! info@redbridgesf.org

Research Topic 3: How can learner agency be measured in a reliable and meaningful way?

Current Model Under Investigation: The Red Bridge Agency Measurement Framework

At Red Bridge, agency is not viewed as a personality trait or a fixed characteristic. We define agency as a learner's ability to set meaningful goals and develop the will and skill to achieve them. While many schools seek to cultivate agency, fewer have systems for measuring how it develops over time.
One of Red Bridge Education's central research questions is whether learner agency can be measured in ways that are both practical for schools and meaningful for learners. To investigate this question, Red Bridge has developed a multi-instrument framework designed to capture different dimensions of self-regulated learning, executive function, and learner independence.

How does the framework work?

Rather than relying on a single survey or observation tool, Red Bridge gathers evidence from multiple sources over time.

Goal Tracker

Students document progress against specific Character Habits and Work Habits with written reflections on how habits were demonstrated, offering a window into developing metacognitive skills and self-awareness over time.

Work Tracker

Teachers independently document weekly observations of student work completion and work habits, creating a parallel record that enables direct comparison of student self-assessment and teacher observation of the same behaviors and time periods.

Work Plans

Students at all Autonomy Levels plan and manage their own learning time across subject blocks, tracking task completion and adjusting when plans need to change. These records provide evidence of executive function and self-regulation in action.

Autonomy Level Promotion Process

Students seeking advancement participate in a structured protocol administered twice per year: self-assessment against Work Habit indicators, written reflections, peer feedback, teacher observations, and an evidence portfolio. Together, these sources provide a multi-perspective picture of learner independence and readiness for increased autonomy.

Why use multiple measures?

Research suggests that complex constructs such as agency and self-regulation cannot be captured fully through a single instrument. Red Bridge's approach investigates whether combining multiple sources of evidence creates a more accurate understanding of how learner agency develops over time.

By examining patterns across these instruments and comparing them with academic outcomes, the school is investigating questions such as:

Which indicators are most strongly associated with learner independence?
How does agency develop across different stages of childhood?
Do increases in agency predict stronger long-term academic outcomes?
Can schools identify early signs of growth or plateau and intervene more effectively?

Continuous Learning and Improvement

Data generated through this framework informs both school improvement and ongoing research. Findings contribute to the refinement of instructional practices, the development of new tools and supports, and broader efforts to understand how schools can intentionally cultivate learner agency.
The framework is currently being integrated into our Learning Progression Platform, where longitudinal academic and behavioral data can be analyzed together to support future research and continuous model improvement.