learning design

Three diverse students laughing and collaborating on a hands-on tech project at a SparkNC learning space.

Competency-Based Education

First-Year Insights into Building a Truly Learner-Centered Approach with SparkNC

Guest Author

Oct 25, 2024

SparkNC offers a learner-centered, competency-based education in high-tech fields across North Carolina, empowering students with flexible, industry-relevant learning experiences.

Diverse students learning in flexible spaces—indoors and on grass—including wheelchair users, using varied approaches and technologies.

Future of Learning

How We Lead the Change Is the Change: Horizon 3 Leadership

Guest Author

Oct 17, 2024

The journey towards equitable, innovative H3 learning ecosystems demands new forms of leadership that embrace uncertainty, nurture belonging, and co-design solutions with communities.

Image of personalized learning enabled by AI.

EdTech

How Generative AI Can Enable & Accelerate H3 School Transformation

Guest Author

Oct 10, 2024

America’s education system was a groundbreaking effort to help a growing nation thrive in the 19th century. Now, 200 years later, the world has changed; the horizon looks drastically different. Collectively, we need to redesign our education system to enable all of our children — and, by extension, our…

Garden City Elementary School exterior featuring colorful green and red facade, American flag, and accessible entrance

New Pathways

The Life of a Future-Ready School: Video Visits of Garden City School

Guest Author

Oct 8, 2024

Explore how Garden City School in Cranston, RI, redefines public education with innovative design and a future-ready learning environment.

Educators working on school concepts of the future

Learning Design

Why We Need More New Schools (Even with Enrollments Down and Closures Ahead)

Tom Vander Ark

Aug 15, 2024

A landscape of innovation in US K-12 education reveals traditional, efficiency, and future-ready models, highlighting new learner-centered ecosystems.

Students work collaboratively at grouped tables in a modern classroom while a teacher circulates and a document displays on a projector screen.

Learning Design

Here are our design principles. What do you think?

Getting Smart Staff

Aug 13, 2024

Getting Smart promotes equitable innovations in learning through values, goals, and design principles to ensure transformative education experiences.

Learner-Centered

How Many Teachers Can a Building Be?

Guest Author

Jul 16, 2024

When we design our schools, we make a concrete commitment to the kind of teaching and learning we hope to see happen inside them

Three smiling boys standing together outdoors near a floating structure with solar panels on a river.

Equity & Access

Floating Microschools: Adaptive and Mobile Learning Environments

Nate McClennen

Jun 24, 2024

Mohammed Rezwan talks about microschools globally, and how he used rafts to solve the education accessibility dilemma in Bangladesh.

Jeffco Open School building exterior with red and brick facade, bare winter trees, and a concrete walkway leading to the entrance.

Equity & Access

Jeffco Open School: A Journey of Six Learner-Designed Passages

Tom Vander Ark

Jun 17, 2024

Students at the Open School work closely with their advisors to develop a personalized course of study and take personal, social, and intellectual risks to discover the joy of lifelong learning.

Whiteboard covered in colorful sticky notes organized under "Themes" and "Ideas" during a collaborative brainstorming session.

Equity & Access

12 Shifts to Move from Teacher-Led to Student-Centered Environments

Kyle Wagner

May 21, 2024

Kyle Wagner observes 12 fundamental shifts that can take a classroom from being a teacher-led experience to an engaging student-led one.

	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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