Learning Communities
As entrepreneurs work in each of their local communities to create new schools and educational opportunities, they benefit tremendously from taking time to reflect upon their lessons, evaluate progress against their goals, and learn from colleagues pioneering similar work elsewhere. As such, the NewSchools Network facilitates Learning Communities enable practitioners to share knowledge on a regular basis. We believe that building a community that learns together and supports each other will be critical to maximizing and sustaining high-quality impact over time.
Community of Practice Events: Entrepreneurs and their organizations are most effective when they can reflect on their own experiences, share successes and mistakes with each other, and pool their collective learning. Each year, NewSchools convenes our portfolio of ventures for several Community of Practice gatherings. These events act as dynamic learning laboratories and enable the capture and dissemination of knowledge from practice. These Community of Practice events are critical to building communities that value the importance of learning from one another, and relationships that are developed during these meetings build a foundation for sharing and reaching out for guidance. In addition, the active learning in these environments informs both our team’s ongoing management assistance practices and our knowledge development work.
Regional and Topical Meetings: We have learned that while Community of Practice gatherings are extremely valuable to participants, practitioners also benefit from smaller, more focused gatherings that concentrate on challenges specific to a geography or issue. NewSchools has created opportunities for these entrepreneurs to work together in smaller groups to address challenges such as facilities, school turnarounds and human capital.
NewSchools Community: This online forum has been designed as a platform for our practitioners to more regularly engage in collective problem-solving, to share best practices and effective materials, and to generate new ideas together. The NewSchools Community also strengthens and extends the offline learning community we have developed over the last several years through regional meetings and Community of Practice events.
Venture Visiting Program: NewSchools' Venture Visiting Program allows our ventures’ teams to visit other organizations, schools, and districts across the country. This program directs resources toward the kinds of learning opportunities and experiences that practitioners and education entrepreneurs value most—those that put them in contact with other practitioners and education entrepreneurs. This program allows teams to pursue learning based on their specific organizational needs and interests.