Learning Model: Design Principles

How: Learning Model

Getting Smart Resources

Getting Smart’s Learning Design Principles

Getting Smart’s Learning Design Principles is a framework developed by the education advocacy and research organization Getting Smart to guide educators and school designers in building innovative, learner-centered learning environments. The resource outlines core principles that inform how schools and learning experiences should be structured, addressing elements such as personalization, equity, real-world relevance, and competency-based progression. It serves as a practical reference for school leaders and instructional designers who are moving away from traditional, one-size-fits-all models and need a coherent set of ideas to anchor their redesign efforts. For practitioners navigating education transformation, this resource matters because it translates broad innovation goals into actionable design commitments, helping teams align their decisions about curriculum, culture, and structure around a shared vision of what powerful learning can look like.

New Pathways Handbook: Getting Started with New Pathways

The New Pathways Handbook from Getting Smart is a practical guide designed to help schools and districts launch and implement New Pathways, an approach to redesigning high school around meaningful, real-world learning experiences. The handbook outlines core design principles that guide the development of these pathways, offering school leaders and practitioners a structured framework for rethinking curriculum, student engagement, and postsecondary preparation. It provides actionable starting points for teams navigating the early stages of model adoption, making it particularly useful for those new to competency-based or work-integrated learning designs. For educators committed to moving beyond traditional schooling structures, this resource offers a grounded entry point into systemic transformation that connects student learning to career, community, and purpose.

Digital Promise Powerful Learning Design Principles

Digital Promise
Digital Promise’s Powerful Learning Design Principles is a research-backed framework developed by Digital Promise that outlines the core conditions and instructional approaches that make learning experiences genuinely effective for students. The resource articulates specific design principles—such as ensuring learning is relevant, social, and challenging—that educators and school leaders can use to evaluate, build, or redesign learning experiences across contexts and subject areas. It bridges learning science research and classroom practice, giving practitioners a shared language and concrete criteria for assessing whether instructional design truly supports deep student engagement and understanding. For leaders pursuing systemic learning innovation, this framework serves as both a diagnostic tool and a design guide, helping teams move beyond surface-level change toward coherent, evidence-informed transformation of teaching and learning.

High Tech High Design Principles

High Tech High
High Tech High’s Design Principles outline the foundational commitments that drive one of America’s most closely studied project-based learning schools, organized around equity of access, authentic work, collaborative design, and teacher as designer. The resource articulates the specific structural and philosophical choices HTH made to create schools where students engage in intellectually rigorous, publicly exhibited work connected to real-world contexts. For practitioners and school leaders, it serves as a concrete reference point for understanding how values translate into institutional decisions — from how teachers are hired and given autonomy, to how schedules and assessments are structured. It matters because HTH has demonstrated measurable outcomes in college access and engagement for a diverse student population, giving these principles credibility beyond theory. Leaders exploring innovation can use this resource to interrogate their own school’s design logic and identify where structural changes, not just instructional tweaks, may be necessary to drive genuine transformation.

EL Education Design Principles

EL Education
EL Education’s Design Principles resource outlines the foundational beliefs and structural commitments that define the EL Education model, a comprehensive K-12 approach rooted in the legacy of Outward Bound and developed over three decades of school design work. The resource articulates core principles around student achievement, character, and crew culture, explaining how high academic expectations, meaningful work, and authentic assessment interconnect to drive both mastery and identity development. Practitioners gain a clear framework for understanding why EL schools are built the way they are, with explicit attention to how curriculum, instruction, culture, and leadership all align under shared values rather than operating as isolated initiatives. For school leaders pursuing coherent, whole-school transformation rather than piecemeal reform, these principles offer a tested philosophical spine that can anchor instructional decisions, professional development, and school culture conversations. This resource matters because transformation efforts frequently stall without a unifying model, and EL’s design principles provide

Big Picture Learning Design Principles

Big Picture Learning
Big Picture Learning’s Design Principles outline the foundational commitments that define the Big Picture Learning school model, a network-based approach that has reimagined secondary education around personalized, interest-driven learning. The resource details core principles such as learning in and through the real world, rigorous individualized learning plans, authentic assessment, and strong advisory relationships that place each student at the center of their educational experience. It provides practitioners and school leaders with a clear framework for understanding how Big Picture schools structure time, relationships, curriculum, and accountability differently from traditional schools. For those exploring learning innovation, this resource matters because it offers a coherent, research-informed philosophy that has been tested across hundreds of schools globally, giving leaders concrete language and conceptual anchors for redesigning systems around student agency, relevance, and equity.

	Beginning	Piloting	Implementing
From Fixed Standards to Competency-Based Mastery	BeginningFrom Fixed Standards to Competency-Based Mastery Beginning	PilotingFrom Fixed Standards to Competency-Based Mastery Piloting	ImplementingFrom Fixed Standards to Competency-Based Mastery Implementing
From One-Size-Fits-All to Adaptive Learning	BeginningFrom One-Size-Fits-All to Adaptive Learning Beginning	PilotingFrom One-Size-Fits-All to Adaptive Learning Piloting	ImplementingFrom One-Size-Fits-All to Adaptive Learning Implementing
From Prescribed Knowledge to Innovation & Inquiry	BeginningFrom Prescribed Knowledge to Innovation & Inquiry Beginning	PilotingFrom Prescribed Knowledge to Innovation & Inquiry Piloting	ImplementingFrom Prescribed Knowledge to Innovation & Inquiry Implementing
From Subjects as Silos to Transdisciplinary, Real-World Learning	BeginningFrom Subjects as Silos to Transdisciplinary, Real-World Learning Beginning	PilotingFrom Subjects as Silos to Transdisciplinary, Real-World Learning Piloting	ImplementingFrom Subjects as Silos to Transdisciplinary, Real-World Learning Implementing
From Schools as Self-Contained to Schools as Embedded in Communities	BeginningFrom Schools as Self-Contained to Schools as Embedded in Communities Beginning	PilotingFrom Schools as Self-Contained to Schools as Embedded in Communities Piloting	ImplementingFrom Schools as Self-Contained to Schools as Embedded in Communities Implementing
From Standardized Testing to Meaningful Assessment	BeginningFrom Standardized Testing to Meaningful Assessment Beginning	PilotingFrom Standardized Testing to Meaningful Assessment Piloting	ImplementingFrom Standardized Testing to Meaningful Assessment Implementing
From Institutional Ownership of Student Data to Student-Controlled Learning Wallets	BeginningFrom Institutional Ownership of Student Data to Student-Controlled Learning Wallets Beginning	PilotingFrom Institutional Ownership of Student Data to Student-Controlled Learning Wallets Piloting	ImplementingFrom Institutional Ownership of Student Data to Student-Controlled Learning Wallets Implementing

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Learning Model: Design Principles

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