The Shadow a Student Challenge is a fun, illuminating, and supportive journey where educators come together to empathize with their students and take new kinds of action at their school. Educators and researchers have long known that shadowing can lead to powerful observations and insights to drive change. The Shadow a Student Challenge provides methods and a network to help educators achieve Deeper Learning for all students.

The project’s free workbook supports educators through four key steps:

• Prep – Create learning goals for Shadow Day, choose a student, and start questioning assumptions.
• Shadow – Spend the entire day shadowing a student, capturing observations along the way.
• Reflect – Reflect on observations, question them, and draw connections to opportunities for action.
• Act – Create a “hack” based on Shadow Day findings, a small experiment for making changes at school.