What I Learned From 10 Innovative Leaders in Learning

Insights from d.school’s K12 Lab, IDEO, Nueva School, Teachers Guild, KIPP Schools, Galilelo Learning Academy, California College of the Arts, and Darden Graduate School of Business

Susie Wise

Design for School Culture: Working the Levers:

Susie Wise is the K12 Lab Network Director, and will be introducing the levers of design, which are powerful tools for innovating and building school culture. But what does design look like in practice? Together, we will explore how to use design to build a purposeful school culture. This session is open to parents and educators who are ready to roll up their sleeves and build the practices of innovation and design into their schools. We will explore quick wins to get started, as well as how to experiment your way toward changing space, time, rituals, and roles.

Levers for Redesigning School

• Communication
• Incentive
• Ritual
• Role
• Process
• Space
• Event
• Schedule
• Finance

How to Use the Levers

“Assumption-storming”: A brainstorm session where you list out assumptions for your project. Knowing your assumptions gives you new levers to work with for designing change. Example of the classroom experience assumptions:

• One teacher
• Students sit at desks
• Multiple periods in the day
• One subject taught at a time
• Students have homework
• Students ask for permission to speak
• 1 hour classes

Gripes & Dreams

• What gripes do you have with the education system? If you could redesign education, what would that dream system look like?

How Might We (HMW) Questions

• Using the inputs from Gripes & Dreams, create HMW questions using the levers to create prototypable experiments (i.e. How Might We change the learning spaces for 9th grade design students to facilitate greater collaboration?)

Additional Resources

• School Retool

Kim Saxe & David Kelley

Creative Confidence

Too often, companies and individuals assume that creativity and innovation are the domain of the “creative types.” But David Kelley (IDEO) and Kim Saxe (Nueva) show us that each and every one of us is creative. In an incredibly entertaining and inspiring narrative that draws on countless stories from their work at IDEO and Nueva School, David and Kim Saxe identify the principles and strategies that will allow us to tap into our creative potential in our work and personal lives, and will allow us to innovate in terms of how we approach and solve problems. This session will help each of us become more productive and successful in our lives and in our careers.

Refinement / Correcting Misconceptions of Design Thinking

• Move the problem definition to the middle (or simply revisit it often throughout the process) because only by challenging the initial framing of the problem does the solution become more closely aligned with user needs
• Human-centered design is about needs-finding not problem solving; if you don’t talk to users and stakeholders you’ll never get novel insights
• Just because there are steps doesn’t mean the process is easy, straightforward, or clean: it’s messy, hard, and sometimes requires creative leaps that are neither methodical nor logical.
• Design thinking is about cultivating a bias towards action whereby the inevitable failures during the process lead to guided mastery

How to Get Stakeholder Buy-in When Introducing Design Thinking in Orgs?

• “Double deliver” by doing a project 1) your organization’s original process; and 2) using the design thinking process; and compare the results from the two
• Paint a picture of the future with your product / service using stories; don’t use powerpoint

How Does Nueva School Build Creative Confidence & A Culture of Prototyping?

• Social Emotional Learning (SEL) embedded in all grades → greater trust, conflict resolution, self regulation
• Norms (No smirks, eye-rolling, judgments)
• Independent brainstorms (before group brainstorms students do individual brainstorming to avoid comparison / doubt)
• Prototyping Mindset: Encouraging students to continue prototyping even after a design challenge is over; give opportunities for students to present their subsequent findings and learn from one another
• Process vs. Outcome: Focus on the process, not the outcome, otherwise prescriptive solutions abound and latent needs remain undiscovered
• Incentives to Participate in Design Thinking: A struggling public school in Philadelphia allowed students to participate in the solar car team (DT + PBL) if they got passing grades in other classes. Using projects that excite students as an incentive for achievement in other classes can improve overall academic performance

Additional Resources

• Juggling for the Complete Klutz: Guided mastery
• Albert Bandura: Self-efficacy

Stephen Beal & Jeanne Liedtka

Design for 21st Century Skills: A Conversation about the Future of Design and Education

Increasingly, students need to solve complex, multifaceted problems that don’t have single right answers. Join us for an engaging moderated conversation between two leading design educators on where and how design can shape not only what we teach, but also how we teach it. Topics discussed will include how to turn STEM into STEAM, how to apply a studio approach to traditional disciplines, and how to combine creative and analytical subjects into integrated projects. Stephen Beal is the president of the California College of the Arts, a 108-year-old accredited art and design school that provides more than 20 interdisciplinary undergraduate and graduate degrees. Jeanne Liedtka is a professor at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business and author and online educator to thousands of global online learners through her popular Coursera course, “Designing Thinking for Innovation.

STEM to STEAM

STEAM is not necessarily about injecting art into the STEM education; rather, it’s about taking the pedagogy of art education and applying it to the content of STEM:

• Growth mindset
• Project based learning
• Peer to peer learning
• Culture of critique
• Iterative process
• Design portfolios to show process and progression

Risk Management:

Design Thinking is about better risk management; rather than one catastrophic loss (black swan), prototyping disaggregates risk into smaller testable experiments that can reduce overall project risk

Passion + Objectivity

• Passion: Initial motivation + momentum
• Objectivity: Testing + seeking disconfirming data to refine understanding of user needs & solution

Intention & Purpose

DT should be used as an iterative process to constantly refine your Intention & Purpose for the product / service

Breaking Down Barriers

DT is not about getting better answers. It’s about breaking down barriers and looking for answers in more places by engaging across disciplines.

Molly McMahon, Michael Schurr and Emma Scripps

Innovation Mash-Ups: Spark Student Curiosity

The music industry has always understood the importance of mash-ups — taking two songs from different genres and coming up with fresh beats. Think Rihanna and Eminem or Kanye West and Ray Charles. That’s actually how a lot of innovation starts. Two existing ideas are mashed together to make something new and better. Join the Teachers Guild, an open innovation platform out of IDEO and the Riverdale Country School, for an interactive design sprint where we’ll mash together your favorite classroom projects that spark student curiosity. Together, we’ll create innovative opportunities for our students to be active seekers of new knowledge. #sparkcuriosity Molly McMahon is the Program Lead for Teachers Guild at IDEO, Michael Schurr is a Teachers Guild Coach from the Riverdale Country School, and Emily Scripps is a Program Designer for Teachers Guild at IDEO.

Framework for Mashing Up Ideas

(1) Plan out your idea & gather your thoughts

• What’s your favorite thing about each idea?
• Whats missing from these ideas?

(2) Mash it Up: Time to make it awesome!

• What will you keep?
• “Yes, and..:” What are you adding?

(3) Make It Sing: Build, sketch, diagram out your mash-up

(4) Sell It: Write your value prop for your Mash-up

<Idea Name>

IS THE ONLY <WHAT / category>

THAT <HOW / point of differentiation>

FOR <WHO / who is using it>

IN THE ERA OF <WHEN / underlying trend>

Further Resources

• TeachersGuild.org
• Examples of MashUps from the Nueva Innovative Learning Conference

Kyle Shaffer

Designing School

Kyle Shaffer is the head of the new KIPP Excelencia Community Prep public charter school in Redwood City. He received the prestigious Fisher Fellowship, which allowed him the opportunity to travel to multiple public and independent schools across the country where he observed best practices and interviewed teachers and leaders. Deeply committed to creating a model school, Mr. Shaffer solicited his community for feedback and then spent more than a year designing the new transitional kindergarten to 8th grade KIPP school. Now, two months into the school year, Mr. Shaffer and Megan Terra, director of the innovative teacher development program at the Nueva School, will reflect on how design thinking shaped the school’s vision and mission, and what that looks like in “real life.”

School Philosophy

A school is not a name on a building, it’s the people in it and what they believe in.

School Framework:

Family + Kids + Teachers

Student Perspective

What Is Offered

• A rite of passage through Lower School → Upper School → The Academy
• Tech stations offering 1:1 student to tech ratio (every student has a laptop)

Developing Character

• Zest: Excitement, work with classmates, find passion, Fun Fridays
• Grit: Rigorous lessons, small group & personalized learning, Mastery-based grading (Exceeding, Achieving, In Progress, Not Yet)
• Curiosity: Science & Tech everyday, inquiry based lessons, excellence classes, Innovation Lab, art, music
• Love: Community circles, collaborative groups, team & family
• Gratitude: Shout out for teammates, attitude of gratitude reflection

Teacher Perspective

Excellent Instruction Drives Culture

• Art of teaching
• Masters of content
• Push one another — weekly PD with whole school
• Weekly data meetings and literacy meetings

They Are Who We Are (Modeling For The Kids)

• PD focuses on uncovering teaching beliefs, struggles, definitions of identity, and why we do this
• Restorative practices and SEL (Social Emotional Learning)
• <Insert 2 x 2 on restorative practices>

Literacy Is The Foundation; STEM Is The Ticket to Success

• Half the day is spent on literacy
• 100 minutes of math daily
• Science / tech every day

Family Perspective

Community Development

• Home visits
• Parent involvement: parents are welcome to visit and work with the school
• Family learning time
• Monthly community festivals

Prioritization When Starting a New School

You can’t do everything at once. Current focus:

1. Tight Routines + Kids Happy To Be There
2. Guided Reading Centers

Education Leadership Lessons

• Clarity in Beliefs: Clarify the school’s beliefs NOT by asking overly open-ended questions (i.e. what do you believe in?) BUT INSTEAD by asking concrete questions to all staff to mine for latent beliefs (i.e. what does <student name>’s life look like 15 years after graduation?)
• Frequent Check-In’s With Team: meet once a week to discuss blocks, wins, and plans

Glen Tripp

Creating an Innovation Ecosystem: Aligning Parents, Educators, and Students to Create a Better World

Increasingly, parents, educators, and policymakers are beginning to understand the need for a new kind of education that prepares kids to become innovators. But the common outgrowths of this idea — individual teachers adding design thinking to the curriculum, a new room dedicated as a maker space, parents advocating for schools to add coding to the curriculum — often fall short of the system-wide focus that is required to truly achieve innovation. Glen Tripp’s Galileo Learning, which brings together a community of 2,000 educators and 20,000 students and their parents in the name of innovation each summer, will share what he has learned about nurturing this ecosystem. Topics will include parent communication, mission and values identification, and practices parents and educators can use to encourage kids to courageously pursue a bold vision.

Parent Experience

• The Pitch: Teaching your kids to be innovators
• Building Trust: Deliver Galileo Innovation Approach (GIA) handout to parents
• Counselor Checkins: Counselor reports to parent about which mindset their student learned & practiced each week
• Parent Involvement: Parents are allowed to take a workshop to experience the Galileo curriculum firsthand, which develops more empathy for their own children’s experience, as well as an appreciation for what is being taught

Staff Experience

• Recruitment Materials: Recruits would be participating in a movement of developing young innovators
• Culture of Fun & Authenticity: Colorful and silly induction ceremony
• Counselor Checkins: Counselor reports to parent about which mindset their student learned & practiced each week

Student Experience

• Orientation: Orientation designed to be playful and dismantle fear of failure. Students are then told a story in orientation and all subsequent projects actually move that story forward. Classrooms (the camp venue) are decorated with posters by staff to put GIA as the focus
• Mindsets: Mindset challenge of the day (i.e. Today we will adopt X Mindset using Y Process) reinforced by rituals such as crowning & bracelets to celebrate different mindsets
• Reflection: (1) How Will You Be <Mindset>? is a wall of post-it notes to see the collective strategies students use to adopt different mindsets; and (2) The Epic Fail Wall & Super Success Wall help students learn from both their failures as well as their success

If you liked any of the notes above, please give a shoutout to the respective speakers!