Agile Learning Center

Education Evolved

New York City’s first Agile Learning Center is an independent school for self-directed learners. Students at Agile Learning Centers individualize their learning within the context of a supportive community. We have adapted simple tools for self-organization and intentional culture creation to better support young people in engaging with their passions and curiosities while shaping the environment of the school.

Culture

Our ALC model is emergent and adaptive. We iterate and evolve our tools and practices so that the process is always serving the people. The ALC model holds these four assumptions, the Agile Roots, at its core — they drive all that we do.

The Agile Roots

The soil we grow from is trust: in students, in each other, in you. The four assumptions that ground us are as follows:

1. Learning: Learning is natural. It’s happening all the time.

2. Self-Direction: People learn best when they make their own decisions. Children are people.

3. Experience: People learn more from their culture and environment than from the material they are taught. The medium is the message.

4. Success: Accomplishment is achieved through cycles of intention, creation, reflection, and sharing.

The Agile Cycle of Learning

Intention

What do you want to accomplish today?

In an Agile Learning Center, we discern and articulate what we want to do, individually and as a group.

Creation

What are you going to do about it?

Agile Learners spend their days exploring and inventing – once we know what we want, we create it.

Reflection

What did you learn from your choices?

Looking back, we develop awareness of what worked and what didn’t, so we can move forward more powerfully.

Sharing

How can you share it with the world?

We document our work to record, exhibit, and share our experience with others.

Relevant

We prepare young people for the world they are growing up into by empowering them to actively create it.

Innovative

We use leading edge tools and culture creation practices to provide students with the maximal support with minimal interference.

Collaborative

We are active collaborators in the ALC Network. We aren’t in this game alone! Check out the growing network of ALCs.

Engage

Follow our adventures on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Check out our Agile Learning Facilitators Facebook page, and our growing network of Agile Learning Centers! You can learn more about the ideas that inform our work from these videos, books and articles.

Featured Video

Check out Agile Learning Facilitator and founder of ALC Mosaic, Nancy Tilton, speaking at The What if…? Conference in Columbia, MO! She speaks about happiness, “flow,” and her journey starting an ALC.

Ready to Play?

The Agile Learning Center does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, national origin, or ethnic origin in administration, admission, or any associated activities.