Stanford University's d.School has stimulated innovative ways to solve problems across nearly every industry--including education. This week we had the privilege of visiting with Dr. Brett Jacobsen, Head of School, and select members of his leadership team at Mount Vernon Presbyterian School in Atlanta, GA, where design thinking has become an integral part of their school culture and curriculum.

The transition to design thinking wasn't the result of a sophisticated strategic plan but rather progressive inspiration. Dr. Jacobsen attended a conference where this philosophy and practice was presented, and was won over to this method for innovation and learning. He then identified a science teacher at MV who he thought could become a champion for the cause. This was followed by a blog post he wrote describing the new Mount Vernon Center for Design Thinking, giving definition to the desired results and a high level description of the destination. The transformation of the school had begun.

After extensive research and training, the MV team simplified the d-School methodology into a four-step DEEP process for design learning:

• Discover
• Empathize
• Experiment
• Produce

The implementation of this culture has encouraged an entrepreneurial spirit and momentum at the school. Using a quote from hockey great Wayne Gretzky, the question has become: How do go where the puck is going to be, rather than where it is? Schools, like organizations in every industry today, must stop creating for today and start surveying the landscape to understand what's coming in the future.

From Concept to Culture

For any change effort to have long-term impact, it must become ingrained into the school culture. First, introduce the concept, then establish common language. Prototype to test out different possibilities and assumptions, and then incorporate into the beliefs, rules, and goals of the organization. Mount Vernon leadership, for example, overhauled the organizational chart, expectations and evaluations of performance, revised the school's mission statement, and celebrated those leaders who embraced this new vision. It didn't take long for them to realize that "builders" would create higher value in this new paradigm than "sustainers." Design leaders are highly desired who are flexible, agile, story-creators and -tellers, writers, video makers, and portfolio artists. Design thinking has opened faculty minds to flexibility and new methods.

Recommended Book: Bringing Innovation into Schools by Susie Boss

The Cardboard Challenge is a featured special event at Mount Vernon, where elementary students research a city or a building and construct a model using a sea of cardboard materials. Such programs have contributed to imbedding design thinking throughout the school, conditioning teachers and students to create.

An Innovation Diploma in the planning stage at Mount Vernon, along with the implementation of curated comprehensive e-portfolios.

Recommended Article: Ewan McIntosh (edu.blogs.com), "What's the difference between PBL and design thinking?"

Design thinking has transformed this entire school and created some key differentiators in the highly competitive Atlanta school market. Dr. Jacobsen has used this blue ocean strategy to set the pace, increasing student performance, faculty engagement, enrollment and fundraising as a result. That's exciting school growth!

School quality in the U.S. is directly influenced by the leadership habits and results of the school board. The school board is ultimately responsible for the education of children in its community, making decisions that affect the lives of students, parents, teachers, other school/district employees, and the whole community. This is a new day for the board: For the first time in the history of the school board, these leaders will be responsible for governing a classroom they have never seen nor personally experienced.

To Play or Not to Play--That is the Question

Sports are embedded in American schools in a way they are not almost anywhere else.
Yet this difference hardly ever comes up in domestic debates about
America’s international mediocrity in education.
--Amanda Ripley, Oct 2013, Atlantic Monthly, "The Case Against High-School Sports"

This week we had the privilege of visiting Merit Preparatory Charter School in Newark, New Jersey. Highly personalized education through blended live and technology-based learning is the core strategy being used there to inspire a population of inner-city middle school students who face a sizable learning gap for a variety of reasons.

As in other schools that are implementing these instructional strategies, finding the right class schedule has been a challenge. The schedule has already been changed four times in only the second year of operation, now utilizing four two-hour blocks and weekly Playlists that are tracked in the Canvas LMS for guiding student work and progress. Adjustments to the master schedule are primarily motivated by logistical challenges such as managing hallway and stairwell capacities for student movement, recharging computers, and limited common areas.

What do teachers want to know from their chief administrator?

We received some very insightful answers to this question from people around the world. Below are a few examples of this great feedback:

What can educators learn from the Robertson Family on Duck Dynasty?

Phil Robertson started Duck Commander, a business producing duck calls for hunting, out of his home near West Monroe, Louisiana. Now 40 years later (and after a few years in the classroom as a teacher) people around the world marvel at the antics of the founder and his sons who now operate the expanded operations of the company. This family has become a top rated cable TV show with an enthusiastic throng of loyal followers.

Leaders are Readers, but I've struggled committing fully to the electronic version of books. For physical space and convenience reasons over the last two years I tried converting totally to ebooks, but in some situations and with certain content, I prefer a printed book over a digital iBooks or Kindle book.

The spatial context of reading matters when retention is important. For many the e-readers fail to provide the mental connections and tactile feedback that the human brain relies on to remember and relate to the material. The extra mental effort required to relate certain types of information being read on a screen can slow down the learning process and make it less enjoyable.

Have you ever watched those who have taught their minds to quickly retain extraordinarily large amounts of information? Some participate in competitions to demonstrate their unusual ability. These experts in memorization technique are able to associate the data with familiar physical locations, such as their house or workspace. For me that's what is missing from the e-reader--the physical context of the page, the location in which the page is read, physically turning the page, etc. Available research on this subject should influence how each student is expected to make use of ebooks vs printed books.

My reading strategy now is to prefer digital resources for news, partially scanning non-fiction material for research, and for reading fiction books. I prefer printed books or magazines that require high retention, for material that I want to markup and engage with notes, and for airplane take-offs and landings (where electronics must be turned off in the U.S. for unsubstantiated reasons of signal interference).

Sometimes I want to interact with the book, highlight, make notes, challenge statements, connect thoughts. This is hard to do with with iBooks or Kindle even if you highlight with your finger and the app makes note of your interest. What can you do with the notes? I haven't found an easy way to move bookmarks or notes to a mind mapping or note-taking app where it can be combined with other material.

What do you read on a regular basis? My regular news reading sources include:

• Wall Street Journal, especially the What's News section for a concise summary of important events, decisions, and trends
• Harvard Business Review for great research and ideas
• FastCompany magazine to stimulate design thinking and creative ideas
• EdWeek for current issues in education, opinions, and trends
• EdSurge provides great connections for blended learning and trends in educational technology
• FlipBoard is an app that gives me quick access to news within topics of my choice and includes feeds from my Twitter and Facebook accounts

Are you killing yourself, your creativity, your leadership, your organization, and your people by living under the tyranny of the urgent? Do your habits create a culture of constant reaction, or planned response? Does your leadership style cultivate fear and stress, or confidence and trust?

Two facts about school enrollment:

1. Administrators and marketing may attract families to enroll, but teachers, coaches, and staff are the reason they will stay (return or re-enroll).
2. Enrollment season for next school year started on the first day of this school year.

If you want to maximize enrollment,
go above and beyond to serve your families