Innovative Schools Learning Excursions & Stories
Reimagine How Education Happens with NGLC & Next Gen Schools
Apply for the Fall 2025 Innovative Schools Learning Excursion
New England HS teams interested in better serving multilingual learners can now apply for the Innovative Schools Learning Excursion to DC from NGLC & Barr Foundation. Mini-grants provided. Apply by August 15!
Learn MoreSeeing Is Believing: Connect with students, teachers, and leaders at some of the most innovative schools across the nation.
Participant Isabel Senat gives her take on the value of NGLC Learning Excursions.
Ready to leave the "old normal" behind and create a new future for your students?
Curious about student-centered, experiential, or competency-based learning?
Looking for inspiration for how school can become a place for equity and 21st-century success?
Want to make the time that kids spend in school meaningful, valuable, and even fun?
See next gen learning in action with our Innovative Schools Learning Excursions and Stories.
| Barr High School-Focused Excursions NGLC has been offering Innovative Schools Learning Excursions in partnership with the Barr Foundation since 2016. These experiences are designed for New England-based teams of educators, students, and key partners that are interested in redesigning the high school experience. |
NGLC Learning Excursions NGLC has a long history of providing professional learning support to innovative educators with our national Learning Excursions. For Spring 2026, we are planning to open up these high-impact opportunities for participation by any school in the U.S. that wants to make an investment in staff and teacher development. | |
| Learn More | Learn More & Contact Us | |
| Multimedia Stories Innovative Schools Multimedia Stories are freely available courtesy of the Barr Foundation. In their own words, students, teachers, school leaders, and others describe how their schools' learning design, practices, and culture create student success. Educators can use these first-person stories and real artifacts—tools, student work, and more—to inspire and self-direct their approach to reimagine learning. |
Barr Virtual Sessions Teams from New England with a high school focus participated in an interactive learning experience combining the multimedia stories with virtual sessions with the host schools with support from NGLC to develop and implement a plan for redesigning one or more aspects of their own learning model. | |
| Read and Listen: Blackstone Stories Read and Listen: Vista Stories |
Learn More |
The Value of a Learning Excursion
If there’s one lesson NGLC has learned in our nine years of catalyzing innovation in next gen learning, it’s the truth of the maxim seeing is believing. By seeing the level of transformation and mindset change evident in learning excursion host sites, participants deepen their knowledge of next gen learning with an eye toward strengthening teaching and learning practice in their own community. Each learning excursion provides these benefits:
- Quality time with host sites—Observe innovative learning in action, and interact with school and district leaders, teachers, students, and others to get a deeper understanding of practices, strategies, and experiences with innovative learning designs.
- Connection with peers—Get to know and engage with innovation-minded colleagues who are doing similar work to explore common challenges, share best practices, and get feedback on new ideas to improve learning.
- Support from NGLC—Our experienced adult learning facilitators help participants develop goals that guide their participation and connect what they learn from the excursion to their own school, with personalized coaching along the way.
- An action plan—Participants walk away from all they see, hear, and learn with actions to try and a thoughtful plan to test ideas and spark their community to take the first next step to creating the learning their students need and deserve.
Photo at top courtesy of Ola Elementary School, Henry County Schools, Georgia.