Learning Model: Experiences

How: Learning Model

Getting Smart Resources

Place-based Education

Place-based Education from Getting Smart is a resource exploring how learning can be grounded in the local environment, community, and culture as the primary context for student experiences. It examines instructional models that move learning beyond the classroom walls, connecting curriculum to real-world places, problems, and people that are meaningful to students’ lives. The resource offers frameworks, examples, and insights into how schools can design experiences that build civic engagement, environmental awareness, and deeper content understanding simultaneously. For practitioners and school leaders, it matters because place-based approaches address persistent challenges around student engagement and relevance while also building community partnerships and anchoring learning in authentic purpose—key levers for meaningful education transformation.

Designing for Learning Primer

Transcend Education
The Designing for Learning Primer is a foundational resource from Transcend Education that guides practitioners and school leaders through the principles and practices of intentional learning experience design. It offers a structured framework for rethinking how students engage with content, skills, and each other, moving beyond traditional instructional defaults toward purposeful, coherent learning environments. The resource helps educators examine the design choices embedded in their current models and develop the conceptual vocabulary and practical tools needed to build something more aligned with how students actually learn. For leaders pursuing school transformation, it matters because sustainable innovation requires more than adopting new programs — it demands a deeper capacity to design and iterate on learning experiences with clarity and intention.

4 Steps to Design an AI-Resilient Learning Experience

MIT
This MIT resource outlines a four-step framework for designing learning experiences that remain meaningful and rigorous in an era where AI can complete many traditional academic tasks. It guides practitioners through rethinking assessment and activity design so that the core of learning — critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and sense-making — cannot simply be outsourced to generative AI tools. The resource sits within a broader model focused on designing experiences rather than delivering content, pushing educators to shift from task completion as evidence of learning toward deeper engagement that AI cannot replicate. For school leaders and practitioners navigating AI integration, this framework offers a practical, principled starting point for future-proofing curriculum design without resorting to AI bans or surface-level restrictions. It matters because it moves the conversation from compliance and control toward genuine pedagogical transformation grounded in what humans uniquely bring to learning.

Understanding by Design Framework

McTighe and Wiggins
The Understanding by Design (UbD) framework, developed by Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins, is a curriculum planning approach centered on “backward design” — starting with desired learning outcomes and assessments before determining instructional activities and experiences. The framework guides educators through three stages: identifying desired results, determining acceptable evidence of learning, and then planning learning experiences that build toward those goals. For practitioners and school leaders, UbD offers a structured methodology for moving away from coverage-driven teaching toward purposeful, meaning-focused instruction that prioritizes transfer and deep understanding. Its emphasis on designing coherent learning experiences around authentic performance tasks makes it particularly relevant for schools pursuing inquiry-based, competency-driven, or project-based models of education. As a foundational model in instructional design, UbD provides a common language and planning architecture that supports school-wide alignment and sustained pedagogical transformation.

Gold Standard Project-based Learning Design

PBL Works
PBL Works’ Gold Standard Project-Based Learning Design is a research-backed framework that defines the essential elements of high-quality project-based learning, distinguishing it from less rigorous “dessert projects” that lack depth or intentionality. The resource outlines seven key design elements—including challenging problem or question, sustained inquiry, authenticity, student voice and choice, reflection, critique and revision, and public product—alongside key teaching practices that educators need to implement PBL effectively. For practitioners and school leaders, this framework serves as both a quality benchmark and a practical design tool, enabling teams to audit existing projects, build new ones with fidelity, and align professional development efforts around a shared, evidence-based standard. Its significance for education transformation lies in its ability to shift instruction from passive content delivery toward active, meaningful learning experiences that develop the deeper competencies students need beyond school.

Design-thinking

d.school
The d.school’s design-thinking resource introduces educators and school leaders to a human-centered problem-solving framework developed at Stanford University, offering practical methodologies for approaching complex challenges in teaching and learning. It guides practitioners through core design-thinking phases—empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test—with a focus on designing meaningful experiences rather than just delivering content. The resource provides tools, facilitation guides, and real-world examples that help educators reframe how they understand student needs and co-create solutions with their communities. For those pursuing learning innovation, it matters because it shifts the paradigm from top-down curriculum delivery to iterative, responsive design that centers the lived experience of learners. This makes it particularly valuable for school leaders looking to build cultures of creative problem-solving and adaptive thinking across their organizations.

Unlocking Student Potential: Aurora Institute’s Virgel Hammonds on the Power of Competency-Based Education

Carnegie Foundation
This resource from the Carnegie Foundation features a conversation with Virgel Hammonds of the Aurora Institute exploring competency-based education (CBE) as a model for redesigning how students progress and demonstrate learning. It examines how CBE shifts the focus from seat time and standardized pacing to mastery of skills and knowledge, allowing students to advance when they are ready rather than on a fixed schedule. Practitioners and school leaders will find practical framing around how CBE challenges traditional grading and promotion structures, and why that shift is central to creating more equitable and responsive learning experiences. The resource matters because it connects a clear theoretical case for competency-based approaches with the broader work of systemic education transformation, making it relevant for leaders actively rethinking school models, credentialing, and student agency.

	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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