Dissatisfied Yet Optimistic: Moving Faster toward New School Models

Today, Diane Tavenner, Aylon Samouha, Jeff Wetzler and I released a paper called Dissatisfied Yet Optimistic: Moving Faster toward New School Models. Each of us has been working from different vantage points for a number of years to redesign schools for personalized learning by rethinking time, talent, and technology. Several months ago, we decided to […]

A Next Gen Student Heads to College

As some of you might remember, Sofia Canela from Summit Public Schools joined Stacey Childress on stage at our closing plenary session at this year’s NewSchools Summit.  She shared her experience attending Summit Tahoma, a next generation school that promotes student agency and believes in an expanded definition of student success.  Sofia starts college this […]

Innovative Schools Need a Thriving Ecosystem of Digital Tools and Services

Innovative schools working toward an expanded definition of student success – in which ALL students graduate with a mastery of academic and critical life skills to achieve their most ambitious dreams – require sophisticated tools and services to help deliver personalized learning experiences for students and effectively leverage teachers’ time and talent.  Without the latest […]

Big Takeaways from Early Pioneers of Personalized Learning

For the past four years, I’ve been lucky to have been a part of a thriving community of practice of early-adopters of blended and personalized learning in charters and districts called the Community of Innovative Practice.  This group comes together twice a year to exchange war stories, share best practices, engage in lively debate, explore […]

Summit 2015: Creative Solutions to Classroom Challenges

Across the country, we’re excited to see many schools, districts and charter organizations exploring ways of innovating in classrooms.  We’ve learned that innovation is a journey that individuals and teams take (sometimes together, sometimes separately), and the ease of that journey depends on many things (teammates, school readiness, political context, landscape, other things swirling around, […]

DC Education Innovation Fellowship: Teachers as Innovators

Together with the CityBridge Foundation in Washington, DC, NewSchools launched the Education Innovation Fellowship program in 2013.  This yearlong program introduces teacher leaders to the most promising innovations in personalized learning and offers them opportunities to pilot personalized learning models in their schools.  The Fellowship program includes local and national school visits, workshops, seminars, guest […]

Three Tips for Picking a Personalized Learning Framework

Teams of educators all over the country are launching new schools and redesigning existing ones, and they are eager to build on the early lessons of the pioneers who have been at it for a few years. This is great – if everyone treats designing and implementing personalized learning as an invention challenge, the state […]

The Power of Video in Education and Our Investment in Zaption

Online video is central to the way in which 21st century learners digest and share information with one another.  According to comScore, 188 million people in the United States will watch 49 billion videos in just a day.  Online video consumption from individuals ages 12 to 17 represents over 13% of total video hours and […]

Seneca Goes “All-In!” on Education

Michael’s school career got off to a rough start. It was only the first week of kindergarten, and he started kicking, biting, and pinching his teacher. His teacher tried every technique she knew to stop him. Not surprisingly, Michael’s teacher resorted to sending him to the principal’s office. Soon, Michael was spending less than 20% of his school day in the classroom.