For me, Richard and Sandy — putting learners at center of design — their user experience not ours is key. Last week over 250 teacher leaders in ACPS explored how to design for learners and learning and not plan for teaching. We started with a big design challenge of “how might we dare to change the world?” The design thinking that ensued didn’t neglect the small learning bytes necessary to build agency in young people as young as 4–5 but the big thinking that ensued exponentially expanded the cultural, emotional and cognitive bandwidth of how we considered unleashing learning potential. I believe we need to free teachers to design, create, engineer, build, and make as Edentrepreneurs and imagineers rather than spoon feed our teachers in workshops face to face or online what others are selling whether it’s test prep or curricula in a box. We can’t change compliance-driven education of the last century unless we let loose our quiet problem solvers and solution finders in our schools to design. It’s a process and not something that just happens but it is possible.

Watch “Most Likely to Succeed” — passion-based teaching and learning at its best.

Thanks for stimulating my thinking!