4 Guiding Principles for Learner-Centered Leadership -

4 Guiding Principles for Learner-Centered Leadership

The principles and prompts contained in this handout are designed to support school and district leaders in cultivating learning ecosystems that empower all learners to know who they are, thrive in community, and actively engage in the world as their best selves. Please complete the form below to access the resource. Thank you!

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Building Bridges: How Collaborative State and Regional Innovation Hubs Can Reshape Education R&D

The traditional landscape of education innovation often feels siloed. Researchers conduct studies, edtech startups build tools, investors inject capital, and educators are left at the tail end, hoping something works for their students. This incoherent marketplace, where solutions often lack substantial evidence of their effectiveness and are built without a deep understanding of the…

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Celebrating Bright Spots in Learner-Centered Education: Looking Ahead to What’s Possible

As the school year winds down, we’re taking a moment to reflect on the incredible progress made in the journey toward learner-centered education. Across classrooms, schools, and districts, we witnessed bold steps, powerful moments of growth, and inspiring examples of what’s possible when we center learners by design. Learner Agency in Action This school…

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Can Regional Innovation Hubs Create a More Promising Future for K-12 Education?

Written in collaboration with leaders from AERDF, ALI, InnovateEDU, Leanlab Education, and Learner-Centered Collaborative Throughout history, moments have invited us to rethink how learning happens, who it serves, and what it could become. And yet, many of these opportunities have come and gone without the lasting change they promised. The COVID-19 pandemic is one…

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Leading Through Transition: Leadership Lessons for Summer and Beyond

In education, the rhythm of the year is deeply cyclical. Each year forms a distinct cohort experience for learners, educators, and families alike. When the cohort concludes, there is a natural transition into the unknown. Students move to new grade levels, teachers adapt to new assignments or even new campuses, and leadership teams lay…

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The Learning Experience Design Cycle: A Compass for Designing Deeper Learning

As an English teacher co-leading an interdisciplinary project with a science teacher, I had the privilege of working alongside high school seniors as they explored what it truly means to survive. We called it the Science of Survival. Over the course of the project, learners read stories of survival in fiction and nonfiction, interviewed…

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Reading, Writing, and Rising: Centering Literacy in Learner-Centered Education

By Stephanie Buelow and Charlotte Frambaugh Kritzer, Professors of Literacy at the University of Hawaii at Manoa Literacy is the cornerstone of a learner-centered education—it unlocks the ability to think critically, communicate effectively, and engage meaningfully in a rapidly changing world. Few leaders embody this understanding as powerfully as Dr. Lori Gonzalez. A visionary…

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Debunking the Math Myth: How Learner-Centered Classrooms Deepen Understanding

In a learner-centered classroom, math is about more than numbers and formulas—it’s about curiosity, exploration, and making sense of the world. Picture this: It’s 10:00am in Ms. Kim’s 3rd grade classroom and students are gathered on the rug around a chart. Two students have just finished sharing their strategies with the whole class on…