EdLeaders Kick-Off Silicon Valley Immersion Experience — #pennsv16 team reflection 01
What is the Uber of Education? (2 min)
by Christy Brennan (@christybrenn)
The first day of our #pennsv16 adventure began at Wharton’s San Francisco campus. On our ride over, the question of ‘What is the Uber of education?’ was posed. As someone new to Uber (yes, I downloaded the app upon arrival at the SFO airport), it was interesting to think about how Uber has disrupted the traditional transportation industry. Even more intriguing, was trying to think about an equivalently disruptive innovation within the education industry.
Working in a school with a rich and deeply-rooted history, I think the tension between innovation and tradition is ever present.
The “Intentional Quest” For Transformative Ideas To Redesign Mindsets Towards Deeper Thinking (2 min)
by Glenn Robbins (@GlennR1809)
Over the past two days, our #pennsv16 group of educators, have flown in from across the country to converge as one. Each one of us possesses numerous strengths that enhances the group to become more knowledgeable in a multitude of ways.
Yet, our conversations were “deepest” in two areas:
- The VRBO “Incubator” house
- Walking close to 20 miles of the streets of San Francisco in just over a day.
Yes, a group of educational leaders with various backgrounds, degrees, and specialties, excelled the most OUTSIDE the classroom. The VRBO house, is more of an incubator for deep conversations, philosophies, and intentional interactions.
Problematizing Our Practice
by Dr. Randy Ziegenfuss (@ziegeran)
In an earlier post, I wrote about the one change educators can take to move our classrooms toward inquiry — problematizing practice. The most engaged leaders are never comfortable with the status quo. They continuously think of ways to improve aspects of practice and begin the journey of change by modeling powerful questioning.
This week I’m in Silicon Valley with a group of educators connected with Penn’s Mid-Career Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership, studying the intersection of and dynamics between education, innovation and entrepreneurship. To start our week-long journey, which includes conversations with entrepreneurs from education start-ups, visits to innovative schools and additional conversations with faculty from Wharton San Francisco, we gathered this first day to share our interests and generate powerful questions. [read the rest of Randy’s post]
Leading with the Brain
by Dr. Joe Mazza (@joe_mazza)
Take 20 minutes and walk around the building. Explore classrooms, public spaces, private spaces inside and outside. Snap pictures of the spaces you see that represent or contradict the 12 Brain Rules (Medina, 2015).
These were the directions I gave to our #pennsv16 Study Team as a culmination of our first morning at Penn’s Wharton San Francisco Campus. The activity was aimed to pull together a series of critical questions each of us had posed to each other at the start of our one-week immersion inside Silicon Valley.
Below are a few of the 100+ images captured team members for follow-up team discussion, as well as the Brain Rules that came up in the discussion around each photo.
What do you think about when you see each image? What would you add? Use the comment section below to share your thoughts, and help us continue to think deeper.
Brain-Based Instructional Space ‘Scavenger Hunt’ @WhartonSF
Look for more Day 1 reflections from Hadley, Julie, Jennifer, Bryan, Pam and Christine later on the #pennsv16 hashtag.
Penn’s Mid-Career Doctoral Program in Ed Leadership (@MCDPEL / @MCiLAB) takes a spring study trip each year to learn from their surroundings and fellow study team members. This week, students, alumni and faculty are in San Francisco to explore ed leadership through the lens of innovative schools and companies. Hear from students, alumni and faculty of the Program below.
