Guided Experiences
You're invited to visit some of the premiere Big Picture Learning network schools across the country through our two-day Guided BPL Experiences. As part of these site visits, you'll be immersed in the culture of what it means to be a seasoned BPL school through real-time interactive experiences with leaders, advisors, national BPL staff and - most importantly - students!
You'll not only have the opportunity to meet with leaders, educators and students from the host school; you'll also share time and space with visitors from around the country who are grappling with and exploring the same issues you are.
Each visit offers something different, but all will introduce you to our explicit design principles - One Student at a Time, Advisory, Real World Learning, Interest-driven Learning, and Authentic Assessments.
These Guided Experiences are hosted by Big Picture Learning as part of the California Secondary School Redesign (CSSR) initiative. Across three Demonstration Site Visits, participants will have the opportunity to see these principles in practice, learn directly from students and educators, and explore ideas they can bring back to their own communities.
FOUR STRANDS, FOUR DEEP DIVES
Throughout the Guided Experience, you’ll rotate through four strands, each offering a deeper look at a key part of the learning model. Along the way, you’ll explore real practices, tools, resources, and student work while connecting what you see to what’s possible in your own community.
Strand 01
IBPLC
What counts as evidence of learning when a transcript cannot carry it, and how a student builds a body of work worth defending.
Strand 02
ADVISORY
How the pillars and weekly routines hold a group of students known well for four years.
Strand 03
LTI
How an interest becomes a placement, a project, and a credential.
Strand 04
IMPLEMENTATION DESIGNS
What has to be true in your building before any of the other three can hold.
2026-2027 Experiences
Reading about the BPL design is one thing. Seeing and feeling it is something completely different. Bringing my colleagues to last year's Guided Experience really helped us share an experience and understanding about what BPL might look like in our community.
Grant Knowles, Director of Innovation
Hamilton County Schools (Chattanooga, TN)
Thanks to support from the California School Redesign Grant, registration for this BPL Guided Experience is FREE!
If you need this information in a printable format to share with colleagues, a description sheet is available here.
