If a picture is worth 1000 words, seeing it first hand must be worth a billion!  Experiential Site visits are designed for teams of teachers, site administrators, district administrators and business partners in a district to come and see Linked Learning in action and all that it entails.  Hosted ConnectED and partner districts, these school site visits allow participants to hear about the successes and challenges directly from students, teachers, and district leaders and witness the teacher and student interaction and sense of family first had.  No words can describe the engagement of students when they are deeply involved in a project or the excitement of teachers have when they have students go way beyond their expectations.  You have to see it to believe it!

Experiential site visits provide participants with an “aha” experience of Linked Learning. “Every time I go on a site visit, I’m struck by its power to demonstrate what a mature Linked Learning pathway looks like. You can see how interdisciplinary, real-world projects and work-based learning experiences combine to change the nature of learning for pathway students and help them to meet pathway and district level student learning outcomes.” Gary Hoachlander

Beyond the initial exposure and gaining an understanding of Linked Learning, participating in an Experiential Sites also provides an opportunity to investigate the finer details for those deep into the planning stages or even implementing a Linked Learning pathway but need some answers.  The host sites always appreciate and enjoy sharing how they have solved a particular problem or come up with a new idea.  There is no substitute for visiting other places and seeing how others do it, as they say, “steal shamelessly and improve.”

I hope you will take advantage of these opportunities this coming year it will be well worth your time!