Washington Leadership Academy: Empowering Students with Technology

Envisioning the Graduate of the Future

Washington Leadership Academy (WLA) is a new public charter high school in Washington D.C., USA that currently serves 9th and 10th graders, and will eventually serve grades 9-12. In this video, WLA educators reflect on being a new school with the opportunity to plan innovative learning experiences based on emerging technologies and the students’ culture and experiences.

Meadowbrook School: Interdisciplinary Design Thinking

Design Thinking for Leading and Learning

Design thinking is an approach to problem solving that emphasizes empathy and iteration. The Meadowbrook School of Weston (Weston, Massachusetts, USA) has incorporated design thinking throughout their school in a variety of ways. Teachers can plan small activities around a phase of the design thinking process or build whole units around the entire process.

CCSC: Improving Instruction through Data

Launching Innovation in Schools

The Community Charter School of Cambridge (CCSC) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA began their Data-Driven Instruction Program (DDI) as an effort to measure student knowledge quickly and rigorously enough to check-in on student progress and develop re-teaches if needed. In this video, CCSC educators discuss how the program changed over time based on teacher feedback collected both formally and informally.They then talk about the teacher evaluation program which is based on pairing teachers with evaluation coaches who observe classroom activity and then debrief with teachers to help them to improve their practice.

Shrewsbury Public Schools: Engaging and Empowering Students

Launching Innovation in Schools

The culture of Shrewsbury Public Schools strives to be collaborative, where teachers, students, and the administration all contribute to the vision for the district. When Shrewsbury High School went one-to-one with iPads, they engaged students in the initiative by launching the Student Innovation Team. The Student Innovation Team functions as a help desk where students both answer the technology needs of the school and help teachers to experiment with using new aspects of the iPad technology in their curriculum.