Many learner-centered educators believe in the power of community partnerships to create more relevant, empowering and open-walled learning experiences for young people. This interactive session will explore the opportunities and challenges of building effective partnerships with universities, cultural and environmental institutions and local businesses. Grounded in participants’ own experiences and questions, the session will also leverage extensive student voice and experience data from an innovative middle school program in Salem, Massachusetts in which students leave the classroom weekly on local learning immersions that leverage long term partnerships.
By attending this workshop, our hope is that partners come away having explored ways to design and implement successful community partnerships, with a focus on preparing partners to engage and affirm all students; creating meaningful curriculum and skills integrations; and establishing innovative human capital and systems solutions that make open-walled learning more sustainable for schools.
Participants will:
- Understand the keys to school community partnership: Student Voice, Inclusive Environments, Engaging Experiences, Two-Way Dynamic
- explore what a two-way partnership looks like in practice by hearing from local community organizations, WPS team members, and Salem Public Schools leaders to design equitable learning (including media and artifacts from co-designed learning experiences).
- work in groups based on whether educators are just getting started or have experience with partnerships to plan for deepening their programming, leveraging resources in the WPS Action Guide for School Community Partnerships.
