New Designs for School
New England high schools: Apply now to visit a student-centered district and high school in Arizona this spring
NGLC Team
Next Generation Learning Challenges
in USA
Topics
We’ve all had the experience of truly purposeful, authentic learning and know how valuable it is. Educators are taking the best of what we know about learning, student support, effective instruction, and interpersonal skill-building to completely reimagine schools so that students experience that kind of purposeful learning all day, every day.
Assemble a team of educators, students, and partners, win a grant, and learn from seeing real innovation in action.
Applications are due by February 7.
High school. We hear so many ideas about how we could be doing high school differently. Advisory. AP and dual enrollment. Portrait of a Graduate. Mental health supports and making school buildings safe. College prep. Career pathways. Project-based Learning. Interdisciplinary research. Presentations of learning. Grading for equity. Internships. Block scheduling. Competency-based learning. Standards-based grading. Community and industry partnerships. And more!
Maybe your high school has a rich history with one or more of these learning innovations. Maybe you’re just getting started with a few of them. Maybe you simply know your high school needs to do something different.
With so many different, exciting opportunities to rethink high school, where should you start? How can you make sense of competing initiatives? What’s the most important priority?
If you are in New England and interested in rethinking the high school experience, we invite you to apply for the Spring 2025 Innovative Schools Learning Excursion, offered in partnership with the Barr Foundation. Gather a team of educators, students, and other partners to explore the highly innovative Sunnyside Unified School District and Desert View High School in Tucson, Arizona, April 28-May 1, 2025. Join us to explore what’s possible for your school and students and inspire your high school community to get started.
Applications are due Friday, February 7, 2025. Mini-grants, determined at $1,400 per team member, are provided to support team participation, travel, and learning.
Read on to learn about Sunnyside and Desert View, the hosts who are partnering with us to design the learning excursion. Then download the program overview for more details about the experience, the application process, and the link to the application form.
Desert View High School
Desert View High School is one of two large comprehensive high schools in Sunnyside Unified School District, serving over 2,000 students. In line with the district’s learning culture for all, the high school is a place where all members of the community, students, teachers, and staff, see themselves as learners, actively engaged in learning.
Learner agency is a cornerstone of the learning experience, and goes beyond choice toward ownership, motivation, independence, and contribution to learning. Participants in the Learning Excursion can observe learner agency through formative assessment practices in particular, where students use evidence to inform their learning, while they are learning it. For instance, Learning Ambassadors are a student organization that explores how student agency and formative assessment impact their learning. The group was built to explore the impact of making pedagogy clear to students and providing them a seat at the “instructional table.” In its third year, the group has helped co-design and co-facilitate teacher professional learning on student agency, mentor elementary students, and work with peers to influence classroom practices across the district.
Participants will also gain insight into the school’s comprehensive approach to professional development, evidence-based instructional practices, and structures like Freshman Academy, College & Career Academies, and dual enrollment.
Sunnyside Unified School District
Sunnyside Unified School District serves just under 14,000 students and families. The district’s mission is to develop students with a strong sense of identity, purpose, and agency, so that they leave the district as effective learners who act with purpose to achieve the conditions they desire in their own and others’ lives. The district’s Profile of a Graduate provides coherence and clarity about a common purpose, and participants will see how everyone in the district—youth and adults—live out the profile’s competencies every day: Knowledge for Learning, Knowledge for Impact, Creative Confidence, Critical Consciousness, and Self and Social Awareness.
A “learning culture for all” guides the district’s efforts to transform learning in support of the Profile of a Graduate. A learning culture for all means that everyone is a learner, creating coherence across their work including teacher professional learning, school leadership moves, and student learning experiences. That’s when the district has observed the most growth and change.
As the chief academic officer, Pam Betten, explains, “If adults are not authentic, then kids won’t be either.”
A student at Winooski High School guides participants in the Spring 2024 Vermont Learning Excursion, sharing her perspective and experience as they explore the school’s learning spaces.
NGLC Learning Excursions Are More than a Site Visit
Our Innovative Schools Learning Excursions are a team-based learning experience. The host sites open their doors so participants can observe learning and engage in meaningful conversations with their educators, students, and partners. They provide inspiration for what’s possible and insights into strategies and practices to improve learning. NGLC facilitators help teams deepen their knowledge of next generation learning and apply what they learn to their own vision for teaching and learning.
A student and teacher discuss learning innovations during the Spring 2024 Vermont Learning Excursion.
Participating teams need to include at least two students and at least one administrator. Teams may have up to nine members and may also include teachers and other school and district staff, parents, school board/committee members, and community partners. Teams get support from NGLC to build effective working relationships across the multiple roles represented. As our research in school transformation concludes, a diverse team of partners doing work that matters for their community and for their students is truly transformational. The participation of students has been a real highlight in recent learning excursions! And when teams return from Arizona, they will have plans in hand to invite their broader school communities to take active steps in rethinking high school.
Learning Excursion participants sit in on a Harkness discussion at Harwood Union High School in Vermont last April.
New and returning teams from New England that are interested in redesigning the public high school experience are invited to apply.
All photos by Brian Ambrose for NGLC.
NGLC Team
Next Generation Learning Challenges
A dedicated team moving the mission of NGLC forward, helping to bring next gen learning to today’s students.
