“People Create Change, Not Products”

Ben Wilkoff asks: what trade-offs are you making in professional development? He asserts that people and interactions are chiefly important in bringing about meaningful and impactful change in schools. Far more than focusing on products or content, schools should leverage their people and community. When teachers drive change and feel supported by a team to […]

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“Building Innovation Partnerships”

Butler addresses what he sees as the lack of true transformational partnerships between schools and their partners. He pushes schools to imagine partnerships that go beyond transactional relationships focused on funding to relationships that include key stakeholders working across organizations to develop real innovation. Butler asserts that greater levels of change can occur when partners […]

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“What do the innovation economy and young black men have to offer each other?”

What is it that the disadvantaged students need to succeed? Mike Green discusses how disadvantaged young black men in particular need access to the language of innovation and STEM education. Knowledge and mastery of the language and skills of the innovation gives students access to high-growth and high-income entrepreneurial opportunities in the future. Green believes […]

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“Innovation in Education: Not just a term for startups”

Levitt shows that teachers and innovators share similar habitual core traits. Clayton Christensen’s book The Innovator’s DNA describes five traits of innovative thinkers: associating, questioning, observing, networking, and experimenting. Levitt pulls on her own experience as both a teacher and the founder of a startup to show that each innovative thinking competency is used frequently […]

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“Next frontiers for lean”

Lean production is spreading to more and more fields. McKinsey analyzes how it’s grown from beginnings in business in the Toyota production line to various businesses and is now moving into the public sector. Lean is all over the place: hospitals, airlines, restaurants, and asset management to name a few. The next step for lean […]

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“Escaping the Education Matrix”

What story are students learning about themselves at school? Steve Hargadon explains that our current school system is built to produce students who are excellent at following. He believes those practices are dissonant with the narrative we tell students about valuing their creativity and potential. Parents and communities could step up and drive the change […]

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Tom Vander Ark on TrueSchool Studio and future of learning

Tom Vander Ark writes about TrueSchool Studio as a leader in the redesign of not only schools, but also the way we learn. TrueSchool is one of the early organizations figuring out what this new kind of education will look like through three main areas of development: in-school accelerator, technology micro-pilots, and design thinking skill building […]

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TrueSchool, Stanford, and ThinkImpact partner to launch innovation app

In partnership with Stanford University and ThinkImpact, TrueSchool will research and design an action platform curriculum to be launched on the Unleesh app. The app will include two possible pathways: one pathway open to the public and geared towards anyone seeking to design/build/launch a social enterprise (“Explorer”) and a private pathway for Stanford students and alumni […]

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TrueSchool facilitates Studio with 72 teachers at Grace King High School

From October through November 2013, TrueSchool Studio teamed up with the 72 teachers at Grace King High School to run a Studio geared towards developing team-designed and teacher-led prototypes. Beginning with an understanding of available resources and assets, 10 teams of between 5-8 teachers then identified a challenge and a potential solution to test. Ideas […]

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TrueSchool attends iNACOL Conference as NGLC design partner

TrueSchool Studio attended the iNACOL conference as a Next Generation Learning Challenge (NGLC) design partner. The premier conference for education professionals at the forefront of blended and online learning, the week in Orlando was filled with exciting conversations, events, and panels around the future of learning and the possibilities of education technology to redefine the […]

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