June 11, 2026

Dear Educator,

Summer is often associated with a break from school, but for educators, it is also a season of learning, reflection, and preparation. As districts invest in professional learning and leadership development, it’s worth remembering an important truth: teachers create what they experience.

If we want students to collaborate, solve authentic problems, exercise agency, receive meaningful feedback, and engage in deeper learning, then educators need opportunities to experience those same conditions themselves.

We cannot simply tell people to teach differently and expect lasting change. New mindsets and behaviors emerge when people have experiences that challenge assumptions, build belief, and demonstrate what is possible.

Year in and year out, it's amazing to see this come to life in districts across the country. One such example showed up for me this week in Salinas, CA.

With Gratitude,

Professional Learning That Mirrors What We Hope to See in Classrooms

This week I was inspired by the work happening in Salinas Union High School District. Administrators from across the district came together for two days at the SUHSD Leadership Institute to experience their new Instructional Vision in action.

Rather than sitting through presentations about the vision, leaders engaged in a design thinking challenge that helped them make connections between the district’s Portrait of a Graduate and the instructional practices needed to bring it to life.

The energy throughout the experience was contagious. Teams collaborated, created, reflected, and shared their learning through an exhibition that was filled with joy and creativity. Most importantly, site leaders left with plans to communicate that learning and lead similar experiences with their own teams in the coming school year.

System change happens when the experiences we create for adults mirror the experiences we hope to create for students. The parallelism matters. When leaders learn this way, they are more likely to support teachers in learning this way. And when teachers experience these conditions themselves, they are far more likely to create them for young people.

What does professional learning look like in your district? If you're looking for more energy, joy, and actionable sessions in the 2026-27 academic year, connect with our team to learn more about our process.

If you're a teacher looking to up your AI game this summer, we invite you to explore the Learning Experience Accelerator App. Trained with the Pathsmith™ Durable Skills Framework from America Succeeds and learner-centered strategies from Learner-Centered Collaborative, this powerful tool supports you to:

• Identify the right durable skills to pair with units and projects you are already planning

• Define success criteria for the durable skills at your grade level

• Plan ways to teach the skill, have learners practice the skill and demonstrate the skill with ideas for how to provide feedback

• Embed learner-centered strategies into your daily practice to support learners in developing durable skills

Take it for a spin and see what learning experiences you might create for the 2026-27 academic year!

Resources to advance your learner-centered practice

📖 From Training to Professional Learning: Building a Learner-Centered Culture for Educators. "Just as our Learner-Centered Ecosystem calls for designing systems around the needs of students, it’s equally critical that we design for the needs of adult learners. Shifting from professional development to Professional Learning means creating ecosystems that empower educators as learners, centered on purpose, agency, and growth." Why learner-centered learning is good for adults, too.

🤔 Systemwide Big Move: Teaching Teams & Mixed-Age Cohorts. "This form of distributed leadership is a key element of a learner-centered school design precisely because in order to make more learner-centered environments, we must not only develop learner agency with students, but also empower educators to exercise agency." Explore teaching teams.

🎯 Cooperative Learning Strategies. "Cooperative learning strategies, often called Kagan strategies, are low-lift and low-risk ways for students to engage with each other while learning. They are structured ways to break up a direct instruction lesson and ask students to collaboratively process information." Form your strategies today.