Notes

Why is it that structural change in “STEM education” has proven so elusive? What—if anything—might an ambitious foundation do about it?

In response to a Twitter trend prompting people to dive deep on their areas of interest/expertise, Alec posted this thread about unschooling.

The plan for Powderhouse Studios, our proposed innovation high school in Somerville, changed from this magnum opus to this legal document. Below, you’ll find the overview we provided as an orientation to that second draft.

When youth come to Powderhouse, they come with big ideas. Big ideas are what motivate us, but they aren't actionable. These are some of the ways we translate big ideas into smaller projects that stay true to whatever made the idea exciting to begin with.

This is a short story about and reflection on what’s needed to see and work with the whole person. In it, we’ve changed people’s names and superficial personal details to protect their anonymity, but all the documentation and events themselves happened as recorded.

This article was originally published as part of the Progress Studies Policy Accelerator that the Institute for Progress ran in partnership with the Day One Project at the Federation of American Scientists.

This is a select list—in no particular order—of some essential beliefs we hold which distinguish our efforts from many of those past.

Promoting biodiversity in the future of education by cultivating a new discipline: the management and design of learning communities

To really reinvent public education requires consistent, ongoing investments in new ideas. Only the state can do it. Originally published in The Boston Globe.

A proposal for rethinking calculus class in the face of computational tools, originally developed in our work with XQ Math

Originally drafted for a specific, potential partner, this memo has been reworked as a speculative call for partners interested in growing the critical community around creative learning

How do you know when someone’s learnt something? We think most good educators know it when they see it. This is a proposal for interviews as a means of assessing mastery and granting credit.