Grandview superintendent Dr. Kenny Rodrequez (Missouri Superintendent of the Year) explains how the four career academies — health and engineering (both PLTW pathways), business and the arts — are adding client projects and dual enrollment courses. Grandview hosted the first PLTW engineering program in the area and their leadership encouraged regional growth to now over 95,000 students. Grandview Assistant Superintendent Patty LeMoy said Grandview elementary schools are adding more real world learning.

On recent visits to metro Kansas City high schools, we spotted evidence of more real world learning including more client-connected projects in core and elective courses, more internships and entrepreneurial experiences during and after school, and more dual credit courses and industry-recognized credentials.   

Summit Technology Academy (STA) is a next-gen career center in Lee’s Summit that opened in 2017 with the University of Central Missouri. It offers half-day experiences in five pathways: engineering, computer science, health, human services and natural resources (which is offered at a new location this year). Each pathway offers a career capstone project assessed for agency, authenticity, and articulation (i.e., how well students tell their story). Lucy, a senior, is completing an engineering capstone project to reduce contaminations from electronic waste. Lilli is taking on a challenging digital media project for a client and learning to use constructive feedback. JC appreciates time in the flight simulator (which he helped build over the summer). Blake will graduate in the spring with extensive work experience, 60 hours of college credit and will be on track to finish a finance degree in two years at KU. Instead of sports trophies, the results of PLTW biomedical research projects are proudly displayed at STA. 

North of Kansas City, Kearney High teachers are adding client projects to core and elective courses. Botony teacher Kaitlyn LaFrenz lined up garden projects with civic organizations and a church. Culinary teacher Kassidy Robertson helped students organize a catering event. Students in Angie Carmack’s Graphic Arts class served community clients with campaign collateral. Dustin McKinney turned choir into a client project with community deliverables while teaching quality, service, and entrepreneurship.  

Kearney Principal Dr. Andrew Gustafson showed off the professional broadcast studio where students produce news and sports programming. Several dozen Kearney students are engaged in an education internship where they teach an elementary class for an hour each afternoon. 

Shawnee Mission high schools (in southwest Kansas City and home of Kansas Superintendent of the Year Michelle Hubbard) are adding client projects in core and non-CTE courses. Tenth grade English at Shawnee Mission East High includes a project for a school district client; students problem-solve real issues in school operations and deliver a written report with solutions.   

Like Summit Tech, the Shawnee Mission Center for Academic Achievement opened in 2017. The next-gen career center hosts a world-class culinary program (above) and restaurant, the Broadmoor Bistro, which serves more than 150 guests per day (and is booked out through Valentine’s Day). It is supplied (in part) by a horticulture program that includes a greenhouse and garden (below). 

Above the restaurant are labs where seniors are doing capstone biomedical research with a molecular biologist, Dr Kenneth Lee (below). Research topics include microbes that degrade plastic, mycelial networks, micro-building blocks, and treatments for diabetes.  

Shawnee Mission elementary schools have added career exploration experiences. There is a middle school career fair and a high school internship fair. Secondary students use YouScience to identify strengths and interests and match them to possible futures.   

Bringing Real World Learning to Scale in Kansas City

The first cohort of 15 school systems received planning grants four years ago. It now includes 35 systems and 80 high schools in three Missouri counties and three Kansas counties. 

The goal is that all students will graduate with at least one valuable experience (called Market Value Assets) including internships, client projects, college credit (9 hours) and industry-recognized credentials. 

Many of the participating school systems have improved the number of students graduating with valuable experiences from a baseline of one-fifth to almost half. A few systems had more than 70% of graduates earn MVA, with many earning two or three. 

The Kansas state board has recommended that students should graduate with at least two valuable experiences (with a slightly broader definition). 

Principals from 49 of the regional high schools are participating in a fellowship program learning from each other how to add more real world learning. (The school visit observations in this blog resulted from accompanying principals as they visited other real world learning schools.)

Adding more real world learning experiences is boosting student engagement and job-ready skills, it’s developing learner agency and social capital, it’s connecting youth to possible futures and inviting them to experience success in what’s next. As more graduates leave school with valuable experiences, it’s likely to boost entrepreneurship and economic mobility and make Kansas City even more equitable and vibrant.

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We are a year into the new age of human-computer interaction and things are moving fast. Generative AI gets better every month at producing text, code, images, and even video. 

In an Impromptu dialog with GPT-4, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman suggested we should now think of ourselves as a new species, homo techne, “tool-makers and tool users, augmented and amplified beings capable of more than we ever thought possible.” 

Two breakthroughs define this new age of human-computer interaction, explained Satya Nadella in his annual letter, natural language as the interface (after generations of keyboards, mice, and touch screens) and powerful reasoning engines. “This generation of AI helps us interact with data in powerful new ways—from completing or summarizing text to detecting anomalies and recognizing images—to help us identify patterns and surface insights faster than ever.”

Hoffman’s AI startup Inflection offers Pi, a “personal intelligence” willing to serve as “coach, confidante, creative partner, sounding board and assistant.” The 2013 sci-fi movie Her is playing out with dozens of AI companions in app stores. 

A year ago, the script was “Focus on human skills because AI will never be creative or empathetic.” This fall AI apps promote idea generation, collaboration and creative content. 

AI apps are empathetic confidants, coaches, and pathway advisors. AI capabilities are moving fast causing a reconsideration of what young people can do and should know. 

At an AI demo at EdTech Week in NYC last month, there was a mixture of Hoffman’s optimism and a dose of concern. Some pragmatic optimists are busy automating 20th-century pedagogy–making it easier to produce worksheets and robo-tutoring hand calculations in math.  

Creative optimists are inviting learners into value creation. Warton professor Ethan Mollick invites students to view AI as a co-founder and creativity engine in entrepreneurship. Learners in DaVinci Schools in Los Angeles use Project Leo to construct community-connected projects. 

Educators use Playlab to construct project tools and chatbots. Reinvention Lab used Playlab to create FutureShock, a summer impact sprint.  

A new report from TeachAI summarizes the potential benefits of AI in education (below) leading with content development and (4th on the list) creative project-based work. To the personalized learning category, add smart career exploration and path guidance (see SchoolJoy for example).   

The most widespread concern is (what is currently considered) cheating and plagiarism–or the unauthorized and undisclosed use of gen AI in completing assignments. Use guidelines are important but there is also the opportunity to move to what Professor Sarah Elaine Eaton calls “the post-plagiarism age of hybrid writing” with higher expectations for quality while valuing attribution. 

The automation of bad pedagogy, as TeachAI notes, could lead to less agency and loss of critical thinking. The opposite is the goal– inviting learners into more challenging work yielding public products not previously possible. 

Getting Started With AI 

School visits this fall suggest that most schools are waiting for guidance. And, that direction is beginning to emerge. AI for Education offers useful guidance on laying a foundation, developing staff, and engaging students. 

Similarly, the new guidance from TeachAI suggests a three-step process of 1) creating/updating a use policy, 2) facilitating staff development, and 3) identifying areas for improvement and transformation. 

A few school districts are well down this path. St Vrain Valley Schools in Longmont Colorado has invited staff to explore AI with a bingo card of 25 learning experiences. Drop-in coaching sessions are hosted at the Innovation Center and weekly pop-up events at schools invite exploration (example below). AI Champions at each school support ongoing development and real-time exploration.  

St Vrain students won the 2022 World Artificial Intelligence Competition for Youth and they are hosting the competition this year. St Vrain has 220 robotics teams across the district and hosted the 2023 Underwater Robotics Championship. Innovation Center students on the AI Cyber Bus Team are converting two school buses into mobile labs following the lead of the Future Ready Innovation Lab.  

The Peninsula School District in Gig Harbor, Washington developed Artificial Intelligence Principles and Beliefs rooted in Universal Design for Learning. It concluded, “AI is a potent tool that can dramatically improve education by offering personalized, inclusive, and compelling learning experiences when used responsibly and ethically.” Teachers in an AI Action Research project developed Resources and FAQS. 

To get started, check out AI 101 for Teachers from Code.org. Also, see ISTE’s AI resources including Tips for School Leaders. For using AI to learn about teaching, request a demo of   

Stretch AI from ISTE, a chatbot that is trained on their libraries of vetted content. 

Communities Alive With Possibility

There are good reasons to be concerned about the proliferation of AI in work and learning. But if collective response is limited to risk mitigation, communities will miss the greatest impact opportunity in history. Gen Z (or as Reid Hoffman suggests, Generation AI) has the opportunity to do more than ever thought possible–to create, express, invent, heal, and teach. 

What I most appreciate about visiting St Vrain Valley Schools is the sense of possibility. They lean into opportunity, they turn it into an R&D agenda, they invite teachers and learners to explore new possibilities, and then they scale innovation for equity.   

With Colorado Education Initiative, St Vrain hosts the National Innovation and Leadership Institute where they share the formula for building a strong foundation and adding an innovation agenda. Assistant Superintendent for Innovation Joe McBreen challenged the last cohort, “Your district’s greatness in 2030 will be directly proportionate to how innovatively you dare to lead.” (And, he said it in three languages using an AI translation app.)It’s time for a community conversation about what’s possible, about lifting collective expectations of the kind of work young people can do. Like KEEN engineering schools, it’s time to invite learners to spot opportunity, design solutions, and deliver impact. Like Real World Learning schools in Kansas City, it’s time to invite learners into community-connected and entrepreneurial projects. Ethan Mollick said, “Given the inevitability of change, we need to figure out how to mitigate the negative, but also how to channel the change for good as much as possible.”

AI in Education

For the past decade, we’ve been covering advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning, sounding the alarm that it’s not if it’s when and it’s not when… it’s now. Over the last few years, the news cycle appears to be in full agreement with us. This publication highlights trends and developments in artificial intelligence that are shaping teaching and learning.

View Publication

The post One Year Into the AI Revolution….and Most Schools Are Still Seeking Direction appeared first on Getting Smart.

Recognizing the important foundational role of schedules, a new administrator asked for examples of schedules that allow for flexibility and innovation yet support teacher time. Following are five sets of examples of innovative high school schedules that expand student opportunities while providing more collaborative time for teachers. 

1. Double blocks. Schools in the New Tech Network organize the day into team-taught project-based double blocks with some math courses being taught separately at times. Teachers assess agency, collaboration, and oral and written communication with each project. Double blocks increase team planning time and provide rich cross-curricular projects for students.

2. Varied blocks. Summit Learning campuses use three big project blocks with two smaller blocks for advisory and support (see Summit Atlas for example). The Summit Learning platform allows for a high degree of self-directed learning. They also have 2-week expeditions between quarters (8 weeks/year). 

Building 21 is a network of competency-based high schools. Their central unit of design is a studio–a 6-12 week learning experience designed around a set of competencies. Each studio starts with a problem frame and ends with a culminating performance-based assessment. (See Aurora blog).   

Microschools often use a studio model of scheduling with goal-setting at the start and reflection at the end for accountability. Examples include One Stone and NuVu. 

Instructional learning blocks allow for more flexibility with the schedule and increase personalized student schedules.

3. Individualized schedules. The three campuses of Purdue Polytechnic High School in Indiana develop individualized schedules. Students work with their advisory coach to create a schedule that can vary from week to week depending on their individual educational needs. The course of study combines individual personalized learning with client projects. The new PPHS microschool offers even more flexibility. Founder Scott Bess said smaller units facilitate schedule flexibility.  

In the last three years of the Jeffco Open School, each student demonstrated readiness to function as an adult by completing six passages. Students work with their advisors to sequence, plan, and conduct passages.  

4. Half-time structures. The 100 affiliates of the CAPS Network offer professions-based learning in half-time opportunities for juniors and seniors that retain course transferability but frequently offer more block flexibility for community-connected projects. Iowa BIG in Cedar Rapids is another example of a half-day program for juniors and seniors.  

5. Small alternative schools with big blocks. Many small alternative schools use big blocks to facilitate project-based learning. Liberty Academy, north of Kansas City, organizes learning in six-week bursts of interest-based learning often connected to one of 100 community partners. Students set goals in about four success skills during each burst. Teachers in this competency-based school help students to document their growth weekly.

Students in Big Picture Learning schools typically spend two days a week in internships.  

Other Resources: 

• Apps: abl is a scheduling app that may be useful 
• Books: Personalized Learning in a PLC at Work: Student Agency Through the Four Critical Questions 
• Podcast: Tom Rooney and Scott Rowe: Buildings are Closed, Learning Goes On! (featuring Huntley’s hybrid flex schedule)
• CAP Report
• Blogs
  • Rethinking the Master Schedule in Competency-Based Schools (Building21)
  • Building 21’s Studio Model: Designing Learning Experiences for Engagement and Impact
  • Timetable Absurdity (Featuring examples from England and Australia)
  • Altus Schools: Personalized Learning, Flexible Schedules, Beautiful Spaces, Repeatable Quality

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Client projects can be extremely valuable experiences because they engage in real complex organizational problems and develop design thinking, problem-solving, and project management skills. Like internships, they provide immersive career exploration opportunities. Often conducted in teams, client projects build collaboration and leadership skills. 

Client projects meet or exceed the PBLworks Gold Standard for project design with a couple amped up elements: 

• A Challenging Problem or Question is identified by or with a community partner (business or civic) and
• Public Product is not just a presentation, it’s a commitment to delivering value to the client. 

Following are two frameworks for client projects in higher education and five groups of examples of high school systems supporting client projects. 

Two HigherEd Frameworks for Client Projects 

Riipen connects students to employers through real work projects. The venture-backed Canadian edtech startup is bridging the gap between higher education and employment. Students at more than 430 educational institutions work with 28,000 employers on real projects that add value to organizations while developing in-demand skills. Riipen awards badges which are defined by employers and instructors. 

The 55 engineering schools that make up the Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network (KEEN) share a commitment to developing an entrepreneurial mindset. The KEEN framework adds opportunity recognition and impact delivery to traditional engineering design.  

The Rowan College of Engineering had a solid foundation of experiential learning but the KEEN framework added a focus on stakeholders and value creation. After joining KEEN, Rowan students were stimulated to think about designs all the way through. “They are equipped to address why they’re doing the design, understand who it will benefit, and think about the context and impact on various stakeholders.”   

Client Projects for High School Learners 

DaVinci Schools developed Project Leo, a ChatGPT powered project authoring tool that brings student strengths and interests, industry expertise, and teacher identified needs into the design of personalized projects. Students in the three STEM focused Los Angeles DaVinci high schools use Leo to build 1300 inspiring projects this spring while gaining feedback from teachers, professionals, and peers throughout the process. Through a partnership with Cal Poly, professors and college students give feedback on high school projects and build a professional network in the process.

CAPS Network 

When Donna McDaniel opened the Blue Valley Center for Advanced Professional Studies in 2008, it set a new standard for career education. The CAPS team explains, “Students fast forward into their future and are fully immersed in a professional culture, solving real-world problems, using industry-standard tools and are mentored by actual employers, all while receiving high school and college credit.”

Juniors and seniors from five high schools usually attend CAPS in half day blocks where they engage in client projects and entrepreneurial experiences in six strands (eg., bioscience, business, healthcare, engineering). 

On my last visit to CAPS in southwest Kansas City, I met three young men building an airplane in the lobby and three young men launching app-based businesses (below). 

Corey Mohn took over CAPS leadership in 2014. An entrepreneur turned educator, Mohn saw the opportunity to develop a network of affiliated programs and by 2018 there were dozens of member programs nationwide. The CAPS Network was included in HundrED “most impactful innovations that are changing the face of education in a post-COVID world” and recently added its 100th affilate. (See feature.) 

Real World Learning in Kansas City 

Also inspired by the success of CAPS, the Kauffman Foundation sponsored Real World Learning initiative in metro Kansas City includes 85 high schools in 35 systems that are adding internships and two kinds of projects: 

• Client Projects: Learners analyze and solve authentic problems, working in collaboration with other learners and professionals from industry, nonprofit, civic or community-based organizations. Work involves authentic methods and tools used by professionals in the work environment. Experience includes mentoring and evaluation by working professionals. Output is viewed as value-add by external stakeholders and resume-worthy.

• Entrepreneurial Experiences: Students identify a compelling social or market problem and mobilize resources to research and solve it. Leveraging input and support from multiple stakeholders, students iteratively analyze, prototype, implement, reflect and adapt potential solutions. Outputs of an entrepreneurial experience include a market and stakeholder research summary, a ‘business plan that includes an assessment of costs and benefits associated with the development or operation of their solution, and feedback from relevant external stakeholders obtained through exhibition or ‘shark-tank’ type pitch opportunities

Some client projects are housed in a single course like Drive Projects at Ray-Pec High in English 4. In North Kansas City Schools, client projects are hosted in career pathway blocks. 

The Innovation Academy at Basehor-Linwood High was launched as a chance for juniors and seniors to launch self-directed projects and earn core (English, science, social studies) and CTE credits. Guiding principles of the ala carte program include student choice, embracing the unknown, it’s ok to fail, and community partnerships. Last year Innovation Academy opened to freshmen and 45 students had the opportunity to design a park with the city. They engaged the community, considered names, pondered alternative uses, built budgets and developed 3D models. Through deep civic engagement and frequent communication, they earned an English and social studies credit–and they’ll never pass a park again without thinking about the experience they had.  

High school students from the Global Impact Academy at Notre Dame de Sion in south Kansas City talk about their trip to Kenya and their impact projects in this podcast. North of Kansas City, students in Liberty EDGE microschool conduct projects aiming at making a world of difference (see feature). 

Client Projects at XQ Schools 

Founded by Purdue University with support from XQ, the three Indiana campuses of Purdue Polytechnic High School prepare learners for STEM-related postsecondary programs and high-tech careers through a series of client projects. 

Every eight weeks, PPHS students are presented a real-world challenge. Project challenges are designed by staff in partnership with industry partners. The projects reflect real-world challenges that Indiana companies face in the areas of healthcare, energy, transportation and philanthropy. Students team up with fellow classmates and work together through a five-step design thinking process to develop a solution. Partners provide guidance on project prototypes, serve as panelists for student presentations and provide feedback on project pitches.

Through project challenges, students learn teamwork, problem-solving, critical thinking, communication and leadership skills, and use a blend of practical STEM applications and traditional liberal arts. It makes for a well-rounded educational experience that teaches students everything they need to know to succeed in school, college and the workforce. 

Many of the courses at Iowa BIG feature client projects. The part time high school program in Cedar Rapids, also sponsored by XQ, creates a catalog of core credit opportunities structured as community-connected projects. (See podcast with Trace Pickering.) 

World Shaping Projects at Polytechnic 

Sabrina Zhang, a student at the Polytechnic School in Pasadena, recently competed in The Earth Prize. Her Agrivision system measures plant health during early, treatable stages to reduce crop losses and organic waste. (See podcast with Sabrina and teacher Jack Prather).

Other Poly students worked with Dr. Bala Selvakumar using molecular biology tools from miniPCR bio to perform experiments on local soil samples and contribute that data to a national database that addresses a global challenge. Students engage hands-on with antibiotic resistance, a challenge recognized by the World Health Organization as a top global public health threat. Dr. Selvakumar noted that any high school can engage with and contribute to this project (see project details). 

Employer Provided Innovation Challenges

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation will be launching the Employer Provided Innovation Challenges (EPIC) initiative this fall. EPIC aspires to scale high-quality work-based learning experiences through a national network of partners that provide authentic, employer-led problem-based learning experiences to high school and postsecondary learners.

EPIC experiences will be hosted by Riipen and badged with Credly. The EPIC initiative will expand access to high quality work-based learning while building a trusted credentialing system to communicate new capabilities. 

Afterschool Client Projects 

The Knowledge Society is a 10-month youth accelerator program operating in four cities and online. TKS learners work on real problems with global companies and are supported by mentionships, internships, hackathons and a resource rich platform. (See podcast with TKS learners).

Conclusions 

Client projects can be challenging to facilitate. They require an external partner involved in multiple steps. They are interdisciplinary by nature and don’t fit cleanly in the typically siloed high school schedule. They usually involve big complicated problems with no simple solutions and assessing learner growth and contribution is challenging. 

So why bother? There are at least three reasons to help all learners engage in client projects: 

• Client projects offer the most efficient way for learners to experience success in what’s next: diverse teams working on new problems using smart tools. Client projects will increasingly utilize generative AI in solution development allowing learners to experience success as augmented (Super T) professionals.
• Client projects can be super motivating for learners because the work is authentic and interest-aligned with a chance for real contribution.   
• Client projects can be an efficient way for employers to support work-based learning and a productive part of student career exploration and pathways. 

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We are a few months into a new age of human-computer interaction, an era that will change how we work, our aspirations and even our identity. The rise of artificial intelligence, especially generative AI, boosts productivity in content creation–text, code, images and increasingly video.  

An OpenAI/Penn study suggests around 80% of the U.S. workforce could have at least 10% of their work tasks affected by the introduction of large language models (LLM), while 19% of workers may see at least 50% of their tasks impacted. Unlike prior waves of automation, higher-income jobs face greater exposure to LLM capabilities.

With tools built on top of LLM, including sector-specific models such as BloombergGPT in finance and MedPalM2 in healthcare, about half of all worker tasks in the US could be completed significantly faster at the same level of quality.

With the caveat that none of us knows how AI will influence life and work, the following are six preliminary conclusions about the nature of work and learning.

1. AI narrows the skill gap.

Generative AI augments content creation and boosts response capabilities, especially for low-skill workers and learners. A new Stanford/MIT study of customer support agents showed that generative AI increased productivity by 14% on average with the greatest impact on novice and low-skilled workers. AI also narrowed the productivity gap between lower-skilled workers and workers with more skills.

Next generation AI tutors will accelerate skill-building (even better than current adaptive systems i-Ready, DreamBox, i-Station, ALEKS) by modifying path as well as level.

MIT’s David Autor optimistically told NPR “that we could use AI to expand job opportunities, lower barriers to entry to a whole range of occupations, and reduce inequality.”

Accelerated skill building and real-time skill augmentation are promising developments and may begin to level the skills playing field but the experience gap (below) is likely to widen along with the wealth gap.

2. AI augmented workforce values experience.

New productivity and quality expectations may raise employment experience requirements. “Employers might reasonably expect entry-level workers to be conversant with AI and something like 50% more productive. And this means while the skills gap may narrow, the experience gap could become a chasm,” said Ryan Craig, Achieve Partners (a private equity firm that invests in hiring intermediaries).

“The bar for good entry-level jobs will be higher, meaning fewer jobs that look entry level, and rendering career launch even more difficult,” said Craig. He continued, “Employers will only want to onboard entry-level workers who’ve already proven they can do the job…The problem will become even more acute with the emergence of industry-specific large language models”

“In the ChatGPT era, the future of career launch and socioeconomic mobility will depend on scaling pathways that not only teach, but also provide relevant work experience. CTE and youth apprenticeships will become priorities for every high school,” said Craig.

“As generative AI transforms entry-level jobs and puts a premium on experience, these earn-and-learn models are likely to be the best bet for helping millions of young people launch careers,” added Craig.

Author of the forthcoming book Apprentice Nation, Craig thinks work-based learning (client projects, internships and apprenticeships) can narrow the experience gap for high school and college students.  

3. AI makes Super T professionals.

 For three decades, talent consultants have referred to T shaped professionals as having the breadth to collaborate across disciplines with the depth of expertise in a specific field. For individuals and teams, generative AI extends breadth and, with sector specific tools built on LLMs, extends expert-level depth.

BloombergGPT answers financial questions, conducts analysis, and builds projections.  Google’s Med-PaLM2 answers medical questions and supports diagnosis (and passes medical licensing exams). GitHub Copilot and Replit Ghostwriter generate, complete, and explain code. All of these, to Craig’s point, are most useful to workers with some sector knowledge and experience.

AI changes the vocational identity of augmented professionals. It affords a new sense of purpose and agency–expanding the scope of the change you can make in the world. Suddenly, you can be a 5x coder, maybe a 10x coder, doing more than a skilled team could accomplish in the same period of time.

AI may not take your job, but a clever, sector-knowledgable augmented (Super T) human will.  

4. Augmented work requires new skills.

 In a May research brief, Microsoft said “As AI reshapes work, human-AI collaboration will be the next transformational work pattern—and the ability to work iteratively with AI will be a key skill for every employee.”

“ChatGPT and the underlying technology of large language models is likely to change nearly every job that involves writing, analysis or otherwise processing information…someone with prompt engineering skills will find themselves in demand across a growing range of professions, from coding and engineering, to marketing, management, law, research, product development, administration and many others,” said ASU’s Andrew Maynard.

Prompt engineering requires analytical judgment, intellectual curiosity, and creative evaluation–three of the top skills identified by Microsoft. Leaders they surveyed said “it’s essential that employees learn when to leverage AI, how to write great prompts, how to evaluate creative work, and how to check for bias.”

Source: Will AI Fix Work? Microsoft 

Problem finding, a precursor to prompt engineering, is spotting work worth doing–work that matters to you and your community. KEEN, a network of 55 engineering schools committed to developing an entrepreneurial mindset, calls it opportunity recognition which leads to solution design and impact delivery. It takes curiosity, willingness to explore contrarian views, connections for many sources, and a commitment to creating value for communities.

5. Be a better you.

With the widespread use of generative AI, we will all be producing less and editing and curating more. Editing requires Models of Excellence–you have to know what good looks like. Editing also requires a personal narrative. To be a better communicator than ChatGPT, you have to be a great storyteller.

Kevin Kelly told Steve Levitt that in the age of big prediction models, there is value in being unpredictable. “A really worthy goal is to arrange your life or become something where you’re not predictable by A.I. Again, A.I. is a prediction thing. It’s going to try and guess what the next average human would say, and you don’t want to be the average human if at all possible. You want to be you.”

And, while you’re being your best creative self, get the facts right. In the early models of generative AI we’re co-creating with tools that hallucinate convincingly. Add an explosion of deepfakes and editing for creativity AND accuracy is the new challenge.  

6. Augmented work changes pathways bets.

The dynamic velocity of the employment market makes postsecondary learning more important than ever. However, it is more important than ever to pursue learning with a sense of purpose and a plan for employment. Debt without a degree and related employment is the new worst case scenario. If you can get a full scholarship to a selective college take it and start building work experience. If not, consider an earn and learn ladder, find an employer willing to pay for training and development.  

Liberal arts might be more valuable than ever–they build the knowledge, skills, and mindsets that make us most human–but don’t pay too much for a degree without building experience and employability.  

Next Steps for EdLeaders

Start the conversation with staff and community about the age of human-computer interaction. They need to hear from you. You don’t need all the answers, you just need to show up and acknowledge that we’re living through something new and important.

Banning generative AI isn’t an option. After an initial ban, NYC Chancellor David Banks said, “New York City Public Schools will encourage and support our educators and students as they learn about and explore this game-changing technology while also creating a repository and community to share their findings across our schools.” They launched a Day of AI to explore new possibilities.  

Encourage exploration and use with disclosure. Take a human-centered, teacher-in-the-loop approach (see US ED OET Recommendations for more). Update your code of conduct (and your acceptable use policy as needed) and give instructional staff the ability to establish parameters around when and how students should engage in AI to complete an assignment or project.

Update your digital citizenship training and introduce the ethics of AI beginning not later than middle school.

Start iterating assessment and grading practices. Assume that any work done outside of school is augmented.

Expand access to Real World Learning including internships, client projects, and entrepreneurial experiences. Expand access to accelerated pathways including college credit and credentials.  

This change won’t be easy but this new era means young people can do more than ever–more than we dreamed possible even a few months ago. It’s time to invite them, especially learners furthest from opportunity, into a future of possibility, into work that matters. Their potential just got bigger and better.

The post The Rise of AI: New Rules for Super T Professionals and Next Steps for EdLeaders  appeared first on Getting Smart.

Like Mehta and Fine, we’ve found pockets of excellence in three dozen high school visits this spring. And where we’ve spotted evidence of deeper learning (i.e., engagement, critical thinking, excellent public products) it’s been work that matters to the learner and their community– it’s relevant, purposeful, and consequential work.

Following are two dozen examples of work that matters in six categories (projects, public, place, purpose, pathways and possibilities).

Projects that Engage

High Tech High in San Diego is the granddaddy of project-based learning with the most interesting mashups particularly art infusions (see feature and podcast and Changing the Subject: Twenty Years of Projects from High Tech High).

Design Tech High in Redwood City arms freshmen with design thinking and prototyping skills so that, as seniors, they can complete engineering projects that benefit the community (see feature and podcast).

Iowa BIG in Cedar Rapids is a half-day option for juniors and seniors from three districts to conduct community-connected projects for core credit (see feature and podcast).

Purdue Polytechnic High School is best-in-class at client-connected projects. Students collaborate with fellow classmates, coaches and industry mentors to successfully complete projects that are designed by industry partners. These projects challenge students to dive deep into research, gather data, use design thinking to develop solutions, conduct trials, build prototypes and determine commercial viability. Examples are shown below. (See podcast.)

In the last three years of the Jeffco Open School in which each student demonstrates readiness to function as an adult by completing six passages. students work with their advisors to sequence, plan, and conduct passages.

• Adventure Passage: a personal quest–the mythical hero’s journey–that involves leaving the familiar, facing challenges, and experiencing success.

• Career Exploration Passage: explore a career related to interests, passions, talents, and experiences.
• Creativity Passage: explore a concept, develop a design, and carry out a process to

make a unique personal final product.

• Global Awareness Passage: the opportunity to see the world and help “create the world as it ought to be.”
• Logical Inquiry Passage: a mental challenge, following a process to discover an answer to a question or problem of personal relevance. The process includes framing and investigating a problem.
• Practical Skills Passage: develop a useful skill that will yield a product. It could include learning a second language, personal finance, or cooking.

Public Work

Palo Alto High School Media Arts is the biggest and best journalism program in the country with a dozen student-led publications including newspaper, online,  broadcast, yearbook, arts/culture, video, and graphic design. Each of the Paly publications is a thriving brand with a sustainable business model. A journalism incubator engages student teams in developing new publications or reformatting old publications (see feature).

Real Work Learning in Kansas City engages 35 systems and over 80,000 students in client projects and entrepreneurial experiences each with a public audience or customer group. A Great example is the DRIVE projects in English 4 at Ray-Pec High. Students use design thinking to develop a solution and build competencies. Public presentations were held on April 19. (see  RWL Case Study.)

At Green Mountain High in Jefferson County, Colorado seniors complete capstone projects “designed to showcase each student’s academic achievement, enduring knowledge, and unique talents.” In preparation for their public presentation, students develop a poster summarizing their work and it makes a cool capstone collage (below).

In St Vrain Valley Schools in Longmont, Colorado 200 robotics teams from 60 schools compete in public competitions.  In June, SVVSD will host the world championships in underwater robotics

OK, we’re science fair geeks, we love how science fairs support student-driven deep dives and public products. Society for Science hosts the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) and Regeneron Science Talent Search (see June podcast and November podcast).

Last but not least in the public work category are powerful experiences in visual and performing arts culminating in public events. We saw great art classes, bands and choirs, and drama programs in Jeffco last month at Evergreen, Lakewood, Golden, Ralston Valley, and Standley Lake High Schools. (See podcast with the University of Arizona profs on why front and back-of-house roles in the performing arts are so valuable.)

Power of Place

Building on lessons from Teton Science Schools, there are a growing number of schools leveraging the power of place to personalize learning. (see Power of Place campaign and book)

Kearney School District north of Kansas City created Learning and Exploring through Nature and Science (LENS), a middle-grade microschool inspired by paleo-artist Gary Staab (that’s him supervising a fossil dig below).

Crosstown High Project 901 is a freshman AP Geography/English block that combines local tours, problem finding, a research project, design thinking and a community impact project–a great example of work that matters because it brings voice, choice, and place into a core academic project.

Each year, teacher Rachel Bahr at The Academy of Science and Entrepreneurship invites her English 11 class to share their own sense of place in a project with a public product. The work is so compelling that it’s often shared by the local newspaper. ASE is one of  21 New Tech Network schools in Indiana committed to team-taught project-based learning.

Purpose

In diverse east San Diego County, Cajon Valley USD learners engage in 54 immersive career exploration units K-8. Each unit includes exploration, simulation, meet-a-pro, and practice. After each unit, learners reflect on their strengths, interests and values and how they lined up with the possible future. It’s the best example of systematic vocational identity development we’ve seen (see World of Work for more).

Thanks to the Cajon Valley team and sponsors for recently hosting the World of Work Summit (see recap). Delegations from Indiana, Arkansas, Colorado, and Pennsylvania described how the World of Work is Surging in their regions.

Blue Valley CAPS is a next-gen career center south of Kansas City where learners engage in purposeful professions-based learning. Through courses, projects, internships, and entrepreneurial experiences learners try on possible futures. On my last visit, right inside the front door, I met a young man building a mobile app business next to three students building an airplane (below).

Professions-based learning is catching on, there are 100 member sites (representing 200 school districts) in the CAPS Network. The network was just recognized by HundrED as a global innovation.

Pathways to Opportunity

Illinois’ District 214 is known for helping every learner find or create a pathway to opportunity. The D214 Center for Career Discovery engages with more than 1,000 industry partners to support more than 2,500 student work-based learning and career exploration opportunities annually. Each of the six comprehensive high schools supports strong community-connected pathways including the Advanced Manufacturing Lab at Elk Grove High School (below).

On a recent visit to D214, we observed a high degree of student engagement and a sense that students were doing work that mattered in part because they had played an active role in pathway selection/shaping.

Indiana Graduates Prepared to Succeed (GPS) is a framework that emerged from a statewide dialog in 2021. It yielded five priority skills and multiple Graduation Pathways. The Indiana class of 2023 will be the first to individualize their graduation requirements to align with their future goals of employment, enrollment, or enlistment leading to service. We think GPS will lead to more Indiana youth doing work that matters to them and their postsecondary plans.

Indiana certifies schools with STEM pathways including inquiry, project-based learning, community engagement, entrepreneurship, student-centered classrooms, integration into humanities and related arts and out-of-school STEM activities. The Metropolitan School District of Lawrence Township (Indianapolis) is all in on STEM pathways for all learners. They use PLTW Launch as the core STEM K-6 curriculum and extend it to their JumpStart summer program.

Alive with Possibility

Schools are alive with possibility value and develop an entrepreneurial mindset. In Difference Making we described dozens of schools, programs and colleges that encourage (as the KEEN network says) opportunity recognition, solution design and impact delivery (see feature).

We recently visited Barrington High in suburban Chicago (featured image) and observed

INCubatoredu an entrepreneurship course from Uncharted Learning. The course was piloted at Barrington 10 years ago and it’s now used in more than 300 schools and has allowed 100,000 students to experience entrepreneurship.

And, speaking of Indiana, the biggest and best high school pitch competition in the country is Innovate withIN from StartEdUp which “empowers a generation of leaders with an ‘opportunities are everywhere’ mindset, fueling innovation and hope for our communities, country and world.”

Conclusions

Students and families want more engagement. In a variety of ways, they are asking for more work that matters.

A recent Populace study showed less interest in college as the goal of high school and more interest in developing practical skills. The study suggests “Better” is no longer the goal — “Different” is an individualized education is the future, one-size-fits-all is the past.

Recent research by American Student Assistance suggests that nearly seven in 10 high school students feel they would have benefited from more career exploration in middle or high school. Two-thirds of them believe that success is having a job aligned with their passion and, for most, that’s a career that helps others and connects with social causes. Almost half of Gen Z respondents would prefer to be an entrepreneur (a huge increase from pre-pandemic levels).

Inviting learners into work that matters (projects, public, place, purpose, pathways and possibilities) requires giving up some control, making space, and at least periodically inviting co-authored learning experiences. It means valuing broader definitions of success, developing b broader dashboards of success metrics, and equipping learners to describe their growth and capabilities (see Credentialing for All).

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My definition of Homo techne assumes that every individual human, sapiens or ante-sapiens, with or without an AI copilot, makes choices. Those choices, in the aggregate, shape what is experienced by each succeeding generation.  –Reid Hoffman, Impromptu 

Humans use tools to solve problems and meet needs. Two decades ago, when computers and sensors became ubiquitous, the amount of data exploded and every sector became computational. In Being Mortal, surgeon Atul Gawande described how the expanding complexity of medicine (like other sectors) had moved beyond the individual expert model to delivering in teams. “It’s a profession that has exceeded the capabilities of any individual to manage the volume of knowledge and skill required. So we are now delivering as groups of people.”

Ron Heifetz identified two types of challenges: adaptive and technical. The technical is defined as those that the knowledge of experts can solve, whereas adaptive requires new learning. The expanding complexity of business compounded by geopolitical, health, and climate crises means more problems are adaptive–requiring smarter teams and smarter tools.

Six or seven years ago, some widely available tools started learning from data, drawing fresh inferences, and supporting a new round of process automation in every sector. Six months ago, smart tools broke through to consumers and generative AI apps started drafting articles, authoring videos, writing code, and developing art.

Some call this new age of human-computer interaction the Fifth Industrial Revolution. It is characterized by diverse teams attacking new problems using smart tools. A few examples include:

• Medical teams use smart tools to diagnose and treat disease
• Pharmaceutical teams use smart tools in drug screening and discovery
• Software development teams using a copilot to rapidly build solutions  
• Engineering teams use smart tools to automate processes and predict mechanical failure.
• Content creation teams use smart tools to draft articles, transcribe interviews, and translate information.
• Energy production teams use smart tools to understand patterns in renewable energy usage and generation.

The age of human-computer interaction is resulting in the automation of routine tasks –both cognitive and manual. Jobs emphasizing nonroutine tasks are in big demand. But here’s the rub–there’s a big divide between teams directed by smart tools (e.g., delivery drivers) and those creating and using smart tools (e.g., engineers). With 10X wage differentials for those using AI versus those directed by AI, a barbell economy is inevitable.  

The nonroutine cognitive work is what Lumina CEO Jamie Merisotis called Human Work in the Age of Smart Machines: thinking critically, reasoning ethically, interacting interpersonally, and serving others with empathy–these problem-finding, problem-solving, integrative skills are things only humans can do. He acknowledged the increasing importance of the caring professions– health and education–but noted that teachers and nurses are not paid like other professionals in the nonroutine cognitive category. 

Entrepreneurial Mindset

Work in every sector is increasingly diverse teams addressing new problems using smart tools.

In response, the KEEN Network, a collaboration of America’s leading engineering schools, developed a framework for entrepreneurially minded learning. It starts with finding and framing a problem worth solving, or what KEEN calls opportunity recognition. Then comes solution design–that’s where design thinking and prototyping solutions come in. And finally, communicating and delivering impact to a community  

KEEN members share a commitment to developing an entrepreneurial mindset based on three dispositions: Curiosity, Connections, and Creating Value.

This new age of human-computer collaboration means more work with be done by diverse teams attacking new problems with smart tools. The new educational challenge (as taken on by KEEN members) is designing pathways that build the mindset and skills for opportunity spotting, solution designing, and impact delivering.  

It’s worth noting that these are foreign concepts in secondary and postsecondary education. The KEEN framework is a new way to think about learning goals (or “portrait of a graduate”) and a new way to think about learning experience design.

Every secondary and postsecondary learner deserves at least a couple of cycles each year of opportunity spotting, team-based solution designing, and feeling the satisfaction of delivering public impact.  

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As we enter the fifth industrial revolution (right, we were just getting used that confusing 4IR), a hypperconnected complex world of human-machine interaction, work is increasingly the art of framing and attacking new problems in diverse teams using smart tools.  

The changing nature of human enterprise (and citizenship) suggests that we need new learning goals, new learning experiences, and new ways to communicate capability. We need to invite young people into work that is important to them and their community–more opportunity spotting, more solution designing, more impact delivering (see KEEN for higher ed engineering examples).

Breaking out of the box of courses and grades represents several problems of practice including how to organize and support more community-connected projects and entrepreneurial experiences and how to capture and communicate human capability. And, given the events of the last two months, how to craft new ethics of learning, working, and creating with smart tools.

There are a few examples of networks working on these challenges. More than 30 school districts and charter networks in metro Kansas City are working on these real world learning design challenges through school transformation and new microschool development. Some systems are issuing digital credentials for next-gen learning experiences.

Each student experience at XQ sponsored schools like Purdue Polytechnic High School is a unique sequence of client-connected and co-authored projects–challenging, purposeful, and supported. XQ Math is a project-based math curriculum with badges that certify achievement.

ASU Prep is opening new microschools on ASU campuses (see featured image) and hosting Khan World School that includes daily seminar socratic-style discussions about real-world topics.

These problems of practice–how to organize, support and credential authentic and challenging work– warrant more new school development.

It’s time for more new schools

Post-pandemic there is a new level of acceptance for hybrid work and learning environments. There is also a stronger demand (by adults as well as students) for a sense of purpose and meaningful engagement. With deep learning gaps, there is more challenge than ever. New learning tools and the platform economy offer more opportunity than ever.

A National Parent Union survey suggest that two thirds of parents (and more than three quarters of Black parents) want schools to focus on re-thinking education and new ways of teaching and learning (i.e., not go back to the way things were pre-pandemic). And, with good reason, there is more interest in attracting more teachers and leaders of color into new school formation.

A few school districts are forming new small schools to illustrate the path forward. In Kansas City, Liberty Edge and North Nation promote real world learning through interdisciplinary studies. In Longmont Colorado, Skyline P-TECH combines high school, college, and tech internships into a powerful new bargain (one of about 300 P-TECH schools).

While charter networks in some states continue to gain approval for new schools, new applicants find it more difficult than ever to gain approval for new schools–particularly for innovative models.

It’s time for new innovative authorizing

Charter schools, in part, were supposed to be the showcase of innovative practices in education. But well-intentioned efforts to promote quality in authorization have resulted in a bureaucracy that inhibits rather than fostering innovation.  

I’ve been advocating for authorizing practices that encourage innovation for a decade so I appreciate new recommendations from the National Association of Charter School Authorizers:

• Double down on known quality authorizing practices,
• Shift rigor from paper to people,
• Align the application process to how new schools actually develop,
• Create innovation portfolios,
• Collaborate and communicate: authorizers, charter support organizations, charter management organizations, incubators, and community,
• Evolve definitions of school quality,
• Change who authorizes in some contexts, and
• Better assess need and demand

On creating innovation portfolios, NACSA suggests:  

• Designating a portion of portfolio to focus on dramatically different approaches to teaching and learning, with rigorous, yet different expected student and school outcomes.
• Leaning into pilot programs or small learning communities to explore innovation on a small scale and grow (as appropriate) when success is evident.
• Allowing for really different ways of organizing teaching and learning to emerge.
• Ensuring those kinds of schools have a special designation so families understand that what the folks are trying in those spaces is new and different (and how).

This sort of innovation pathway for quickly testing and demonstrating new approaches requires some policy changes in some places allowing for a more flexible approach to accountability and other rules that won’t make sense in that context. It should be accompanied by microgrants that support rapid prototyping and testing.  

It’s time for more new schools that meet new demands and take advantage of new opportunities–new schools inside public schools and public districts and new charter schools and networks. School districts and charter authorizers could both use a responsive innovation pathway that supports new learning models rather than blocking them.

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1. Informing the public: Journalism provides accurate and relevant information to the public, helping them stay informed about local, national, and global events.
2. Holding power accountable: Journalism exposes corruption, abuse of power, and wrongdoings by those in positions of authority.
3. Promoting democracy: A free press plays a crucial role in democratic societies by fostering public debate and holding elected officials accountable.
4. Providing a platform for diverse voices: Journalism amplifies the voices and perspectives of marginalized communities, promoting inclusivity, equity and diversity.
5. Driving social and political change: Investigative journalism can uncover injustices and bring attention to important social and political issues, leading to positive change.

This concise if not compelling case for journalism (generated by ChatGPT) provides a foundational rationale for why it should be taught in elementary and secondary schools.

Historically, journalism has been a valued and viable career path. However, the rise of the web, particularly social media, disrupted time-honored media business models. Half of newspaper readers and journalists disappeared over the past 15 years reports the UNC School of Journalism adding that newspaper circulation decreased by 55 million between 2004 and 2019 resulting in 36,000 fewer journalism jobs.

While there are fewer newspaper roles, job boards are full of journalism, communications, advocacy and marketing jobs where strong writing matters. While AI writers (like ChatGPT) will produce more first drafts and simple posts, talented humans will remain in the loop creating story ideas, crafting prompts, editing drafts and curating content.

Compelling writing is a core executive skill at companies like Amazon. In their 2021 book Working Backwards, longtime Amazon execs Bill Carr and Colin Bryar explain that complex decision-making requires narrative and memos beat presentations for information density, problem analysis, and building shared understanding.

Good writing matters in careers and in a healthy democracy and journalism–the regular production of public content in newspapers, magazines, and websites–is a great way to teach it.

High School Journalism

The biggest and best high school journalism program is hosted at the Media Arts Center at Palo Alto High School, Paly Mac. Rejuvenated 40 years ago by Esther Wojcicki in a portable behind the school, the program features a dozen student-led publications and a state-of-the-art facility.

Stepping inside Paly MAC is like walking onto the basketball court at Duke during practice– there’s engagement, intentionality, leadership and a tradition of excellence. The buzz of student teams working on getting a story right and stacks of prior publications make it clear that good work is done here.

On a recent visit, we saw Viking Magazine editor-in-chief Elizabeth Fetter (below center) meet with her team of sports writers after the holiday break. She ran a great meeting where she was clear about roles and goals, set high expectations and followed up with individualized support.

Fetter took a Beginning Journalism class as a sophomore and an advanced class as a junior Viking staff writer. She is taking a leadership course as a senior to support her editor-in-chief role. This thoughtful three-year pathway progression supports all the publications.

Campanile is the campus newspaper. The first magazine was Verde, a news and feature publication. C Magazine features arts and entertainment. InFocus is a daily TV news production. Madrono is the yearbook. Paly Voice is digital news (where a recent feature explored controversial uses of ChatGPT). Paly MAC also features photography, video production, graphic design, and social media. More than 180 students staff  Paly publications.

In addition to strong written communication, Paly MAC pathways teach leadership and teamwork, research and marketing, project management, and business management. Each of the Paly publications is a thriving brand with a sustainable business model.

An incubator course taught by Paul Kandell engages student teams in developing new publications or reformatting old publications–a great way to teach entrepreneurship in high school.

Middle-Grade Journalism

While visiting Paly MAC, we met Daniel Stedman, the founder of L Magazine and Brooklyn Magazine. When he sold the publications in 2015, his commitment to community journalism turned to education. He volunteered in New York City journalism programs. He saw writing improve but students and programs came and went. Rather than impacting dozens of learners, Stedman got the sense he could impact millions of students with a writing app. In 2020, he launched Pressto to teach learners in grades 3-8 to write through journalism.

Stedman thinks the middle grades are a great place to teach better communication through writing. Journalism motivates students to write more. It develops voice, agency, and encourages learners to share their ideas. “Journalism is an aspirational way of inspiring stories and civic engagement in middle grades,” said Stedman.

Pressto learners develop writing plans for narrative stories, informational news articles, and persuasive writing. Planning Blocks make the structure of writing approachable for students while helping to organize ideas and assemble together in a finished work of writing. AI provides detailed writing prompts and delivers real-time formative feedback. Teachers have the option to monitor student progress in real-time. Pressto is free this year and will add a premium feature next year.

Human Writers

With a focus on quality public products, teaching journalism promotes strong writing while building transferable leadership skills. Sustaining publications, like those at Paly MAC, invite students into a tradition of excellence while offering voice and choice. Every month yields portfolio-worthy work–and it’s work important to the learner and the community.

As AI writers proliferate and automate parts of journalism (sports scores and corporate earnings reports are already automated articles), students and professionals will increasingly add smart tools to research and content development (e.g., GPT4 was added to Microsoft’s Bing) potentially yielding more and better writing.

Adding smart tools to the publication process will increase the human focus on spotting and framing issues, voice and creativity in storytelling, curating and editing content. This new era of human–machine collaboration (already being called the fifth industrial revolution) requires an ethics update on sources, methods and attribution.

For teachers and students, new AI-powered tools like Pressto are a useful introduction to human–machine collaboration in writing. The use of new tools will be accompanied by AI detection Whac-A-Mole. The rise of AI writers may, as Rick Hess argued, unflip classrooms for a time allowing teachers to observe more of the writing process.

However, the future opportunity in writing instruction is not detection, it’s empowerment–the agency and voice, the ethics and expectations of programs like Paly Mac that invite learners into forms of human expression that they value and are valued by their community.

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Serving its seventh cohort, FalconTECH was the first P-TECH in Colorado. Supported by IBM for the last 10 years, P-TECH is an internationally adopted grade 9-14 school model that combines high school, an AA degree, industry credentials and tech internships.

Starting as a math teacher, Heidi Ringer has been at Skyline for 25 years and has been principal for the last decade. In addition to FalconTECH, Ringer was a part of the launch of a STEM Academy and Visual and Performing Arts Academy. She’s proud that more than three quarters of FalconTECH students are the first in their families to be experiencing success in college.  

Work-based learning opportunities for the 230 FalconTECH students start during their freshman year. Paid summer internships are an opportunity for juniors. IBM has also provided virtual mentors for students. IBM has hired 27 FalconTECH graduates.

Freshmen and sophomores take a couple of college courses at school. College courses make up the majority of the schedule for juniors and seniors, some on the Skyline campus and some at Front Range. A remarkable two-thirds of graduates leave with an AA degree (although it takes some students an extra year to complete).

“It’s a pathway with a purpose and support, that’s why students are so successful,” said Skyline Assistant Principal and FalconTECH Director Greg Stephens.

A Portfolio of Personalized Pathways

Skyline is one of eight comprehensive high schools in the St. Vrain Valley School District. Each has well-developed community-connected career academies and/or focus programs. Fredrik High has a Biomedical Sciences Academy and another P-TECH in BioChemistry. Erie High features an Academy of Engineering and Aerospace. Longmont High has a Medical and BioScience Academy, High School of Business Academy, and a P-TECH in Business launching in 2023. Mead High features an Energy Academy. Silver Creek High features a Leadership Academy and a P-TECH in Cybersecurity. Niwot High has a robust International Baccalaureate Program. Lyons Middle Senior High is in the process of launching a focus on environmental leadership.

Superintendent Dr. Don Haddad’s created a focus on “P-14 academic excellence by design.”  

Haddad has led the 33,000-student district for 15 years (22 years in district) with an exceptional leadership team most of which have been together for a decade. “We have launched over 70 diversified and rigorous instructional focus academies and programs across all 60 of our schools,” said Haddad.  

“We focus on having a great teacher in every classroom,” said Haddad. St. Vrain teachers are among the highest paid in the state. They participate in professional learning after school and on weekends to avoid having a lot of substitutes teaching classes.

The district is intentional about developing talent internally while building strong partnerships externally. Pathways are supported by more than than120 district-level partnerships and over 435 school partnerships.

Thirty miles north of Denver, Longmont (and nearby Boulder) has become a tech hub. But the sprawling district also serves mountain towns and rural communities–some of the most liberal and most conservative areas of the state. Haddad and the #StVrainStorm have innovated through the complexity by focusing on academic excellence, supporting the community (“How can we serve you” rather than “Here’s what we need from you”) and championing unrelentingly positive communications about the work of St. Vrain teachers and students. Rather than asking for handouts, Haddad talks about workforce, property values, and democracy.  

The district won big federal Race to the Top and Investing in Innovation grants that helped advance pathway programs and develop the Innovation Center, a spectacular next-generation career center offering courses in robotics, avionics, AR/VR, biotech, and entrepreneurship. It’s “a catalyst, incubator, and bridge” between education, industry, and the community.

Assistant Superintendent of Innovation Joe McBreen said half of the Innovation Center came from industry. They partner with traditionally prepared educators to provide powerful pathways experiences. Innovation Center students engage in relevant experiences in the state-of-the-art facility and they engage local businesses in job shadows, events and internships. Some Innovation Center learners team up on client projects–they deliver real value for business and civic partners and get paid $13 per hour.

McBreen loves to show guests the 3D-Printing-as-a-Service room (below) at the Innovation Center. All 60 St Vrain schools share the print-on-demand capability with next-day delivery. Students can watch the printing on live video with none of the smell or maintenance headaches.  

Just past the Innovation Center lobby, there is a giant fish tank, only this one is home to robots. In what must be the world’s best high school underwater robot lab, students work on robots used by the city of Longmont, the Denver Zoo, and by ecology partners in Peru.

Robotics teacher Nathan Wilcox describes the four pillars of the robotics program: computer science, electrical-mechanical, design-fabrication, and robotics applications. He hopes to host the world championship for aquatic robotics in Longmont next year.

Innovation Center Executive Director Axel Reitzig champions robotics district-wide. There are over 210 robotics teams in St. Vrain with teams in all 60 schools. In April, St. Vrain students won the world championship in The FIRST Robotics Challenge and The FIRST Tech Challenge. Reitzig calls robotics the “best disruptive practice” because it is so engaging, integrated, creative, and team-based.  

And, speaking of world championships, in December, the AI team from the Innovation Center won the World Artificial Intelligence Competition for Youth.

Next to the underwater robotics lab are state-of-the-art aeronautics labs–one where Certified Flight Instructor Colin Dielmann teaches students to fly airplanes, the other where Josiah Slaydonto helps young pilots build and fly Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS or drones). Both are examples of Innovation Center staff with extensive private sector experience and a passion for teaching. Staydonto challenges students to use UAS to help solve the world’s problems.

The Innovation Center also hosts Pathways to Teaching (P-TEACH) which introduces St.Vrain high school students and classified staff to a career as an educator by offering a variety of concurrent enrollment courses. Students and staff members can earn up to 31 college credits through CU Denver. Over 100 high school students from all campuses are engaged in P-TEACH and 48 paraprofessionals are on a path to a degree and teaching credential.

The St. Vrain Career Elevation and Technology Center (CETC) is celebrating its 50th year of

providing real-world experiences in pathways to high-wage, high-growth employment. Pathways include Advanced Manufacturing, Agricultural Science, Automotive Tech, Healthcare, Culinary, and Law. The pathways often link to specific post-secondary programs leading to degrees and certificates.

St Vrain Virtual High School is delivered through a partnership with FLVS. Students are encouraged to attend onsite when they are in town. Virtual High students can also access courses at the CETC  and Innovation Center.

St. Vrain Valley teachers serve about 600 online K-12 students through LaunchED Virtual Academy using locally curated content on Schoology. The LaunchED team is also piloting expanded synchronous course choice in hard-to-staff subjects making it possible for one or two students to take an advanced course from another school.  

About 800 homeschool students attend classes a day per week and access online resources through the APEX Homeschool Program.

Engaging pathways and strong student supports helped boost St. Vrain’s four-year graduation rate to nearly 92%, up 16 points since 2010 (while graduation requirements were increased).

The St. Vrain portfolio of pathways is a result of sustained and intentional leadership in partnering with a dynamic community and growing staff. Learning environments for students and working conditions for staff blend high expectations with strong support. The commitment to supporting great teaching in every classroom is unparalleled. The clarity of mission and positive energy across large school systems make St Vrain Valley schools unique and worth visiting.  

This post is part of our New Pathways campaign sponsored by American Student Assistance® (ASA), Stand Together and the Walton Family Foundation.

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