Principle 07 of 07 · Education Experience
Anytime, Anywhere Learning.
School isn't only the building or the bell. Learning travels with the learner.
Students learn in the community, at internships, on weekends, during extracurriculars.
What it asks of a school
School isn't only the building or the bell. Learning travels with the learner — into community service, internships, weekends, family responsibilities, jobs.
The school's job is to recognize, capture, and credit learning wherever it actually happens. That requires schedule flexibility, place flexibility, and a credentialing structure that doesn't assume every credit-worthy hour took place in a classroom.
What it looks like
Flexible schedules — block scheduling, hybrid days, work-based learning periods. Credit for internships, dual enrollment, community service hours, and student-led projects that meet defined competencies.
Documentation routines that make out-of-school learning visible: portfolios, demonstrations, reflection conferences. The point is recognition, not surveillance.
Why it matters
Students who already live inside multi-context lives — caring for siblings, working part-time, running a side hustle — shouldn't have to pretend school is the only place learning happens. Schools that get this right credential the actual student, not the partial school version.
Resources for going deeper.
A curated set of research, articles, books, videos, and talks the MLCN network leans on for this principle. External links — opens in a new tab.
Flexible Learning Environments - Best Practices and Resources
Flexible Seating Elevates Student Engagement | Edutopia
CTE Work-Based Learning
Community Educators - by Patricia Harbour
Place-Based Learning: Using Your Location as a Classroom
Place-Based Learning: Connecting Kids to Their Community
Internships Offer Meaningful Real-World Learning: Is School Enough?
Student perspectives of learning in a flexible space
Equity in Student Centered Learning Guide
The Education Experience cluster.
What learning looks like — how and where students do the work.
Explore further.
Resources, student projects, and member schools tagged with this principle.
Resources tagged with this principle
Lesson designs, planning tools, readings, and templates shared by member schools.
OpenProjects in this principle
Real work from MLCN classrooms — defended in public, archived for the network.
OpenMember schools
Minnesota schools doing the work — browse the directory and filter by location, grade band, or principle.
Open