Working with a design committee of education grantmakers under the auspices of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and in close collaboration with GFE senior leadership, Collective Invention developed a toolkit for engaging teachers in the design, planning and implementation of education reforms and innovations. The goal: to increase meaningful teacher involvement in grant-funded initiatives that support continuous quality improvement and raise student achievement. Our process included expert interviews, teacher focus groups, and the prototyping of practical engagement protocols. The toolkit is slated for public release by mid-2013.

Since its founding in 1866, Pacific School of Religion (PSR) has been a progressive voice of change in the Christian tradition, advocating for the rights of women, people of color, and the LGBTQ community.  But, like seminaries everywhere, PSR has struggled to remain viable: job prospects for seminary graduates are dwindling, and the combination of declining enrollment and high fixed-cost organizational models have led to fiscal crisis.

PSR asked Collective Invention for help developing a courageous new institutional vision that was unanimously—and emotionally—approved by the PSR Board of Trustees in the fall of 2012. We are now hard at work with senior leadership, facilitating PSR’s transformation through the creation of new programs, pedagogy and organizational models.

We have been working with NeighborWorks to explore the feasibility of complementary early childhood education offerings in affordable housing. In collaboration with NeighborWorks and the Graduate School of Design at Harvard, the first phase of the work, a broad survey of options, was completed in late 2012. We are currently working on the development of the next stage of the research plan.

Will regional accreditors act in service of the public good by stimulating greater access to high quality, low-cost options for college students? How will the teaching profession evolve as a result, and what are the new opportunities for higher education “edupreneurs?” For over a year we worked with the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) to redesign its accreditation standards. As a capstone to that process, we conducted Learning2025: Higher Education, a simulation of teaching and learning in the year 2025, at the WASC Academic Resources Conference in April, 2012.

Supporting Creativity Through Digital Media and Learning

Grantmakers for Education

This learning expedition was the fourth in a series of sessions about philanthropic innovation that Collective Invention has developed for Grantmakers for Education (GFE), a national network of nearly 300 grantmaking organizations funding education reform in the United States. A Renaissance of Wonder was a hyper-local, hands-on experience that took us all over Pittsburgh—formerly known as the “Steel City” and now known as a hotbed of collaborative innovation as teachers, gamers, roboticists, artists, designers and child development experts use child-centered arts, media and technology to inspire curiosity and learning. View more here.

On this journey we explored interrelated questions such as:

• What investments hold greatest promise towards “anywhere, anytime” learning?
• How can education philanthropy make smart bets when the children born today will be educated in a digital world that we can scarcely yet envision?
• In a society in which kids spend 80% of their learning time outside of schools, how might digital media more equitably help greater numbers of learners gain the skills they’ll need to succeed in 21st century life?
• How can philanthropists support the creation of environments like Pittsburgh’s, in which so many of the major local actors (philanthropy, school districts, politicians, university leaders, non-profits) appear to share a complementary vision around digital learning and creativity?

An overview of the work done by Collective Invention and the Idea Factory in the field of education innovation over the last ten years. From a powerpoint presentation.

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A recently released video and in-depth report document Collective Invention’s partnership with the Vallejo Charter School.

“We must all work, to make the world worthy of its children.” – Pablo Picasso

For the four years since it’s founding, the Vallejo Charter School (VCS) has been on the forefront of innovation in education. By utilizing a cutting edge Experiential Learning model, VCS serves as a platform for innovation in the education sector.

Collective Invention partnered with VCS to assess the effectiveness of this model and to help the school understand its place within broader trends transforming education over the next decade. The resulting report is available to download here:

A School Worthy of Its Children

Highlights include:

• Many of the jobs that VCS students will hold in the year 2025 do not currently exist. They may range from Aquaprenuers who finding opportunities in technology addressing the state’s water crisis to Clinical Bioninformaticists who tailor drugs to fit patients’ genetic codes.
• 66% of education philanthropies are funding innovation in education, and 33% plan to increase funding in this area. By positioning itself as a center for prototyping and scaling new learning models, VCS can more effectively capture philanthropic investment.
• Ethnographic documentation of VCS’s model revealed a striking emphasis on attentiveness. “In classrooms around the campus we noticed an emphasis on the physical characteristics of listening: eye contact, empty hands and a still body. “Use your listening eyes,” we heard in one classroom. “Make sure your hands are hands are empty and your feet are still. No distractions while you are listening” we heard in another. Research by the Dana Consortium indicates that attentiveness is significantly correllated with improved scores on intelligence tests.

Arnold Wasserman at the San Francisco Commonwealth Club on Oct. 13, 2011.

New Academic Studio, based on our Creative DNA work, featured in NOCCA’s July newsletter. NOCCA Institute Executive Director Sally Perry Selected For National Cultural Leadership Program.