Project Wonder

Project Wonder is a three-day innovative learning experience that immerses ALL learners and ALL school staff members in engaging and effective activities focused on developing creativity, building resilience and fostering collaboration. The process will pair PK-12 grade learners with community business partners to, in part, accomplish three major goals: 1. Develop meaningful and beneficial two-way relationships between the school system and the community businesses, therefore the community at large; 2. Support age-appropriate learning outcomes through a variety of creative and collaborative activities all the while developing potential solutions to real-life challenges presented by the community partners; 3. Expose students to a variety of potential career opportunities with the long-term goal of better meeting employment challenges within the community. This experience will simply and holistically “change the game” for numerous young people, the educators that serve them and their collective educational journey.

Momentum in Education

Have you ever wondered why some new and innovative programs in schools succeed wildly and others fade away without even a whimper? I propose that successful initiatives have an inertia that carries them forward through the myriad of systemic obstacles…in other words, momentum!

With that in mind, I set off to determine if there was a way to calculate momentum within the educational sphere. I first listed and prioritized the potential elements within education that may impact momentum and secondly studied how those elements might relate to each other within a formula for the calculation of a nebulous concept such as momentum. The process allowed me to consider various aspects of our current learning systems and evaluate them through a lens that recognizes the immense diversity of learning programs and cherishes future-focused student agency. As I processed the information, I began to believe that we need to contemplate two levels of momentum within educational institutions…programmatic momentum, which measures potential long-term success of individual initiatives and systemic momentum, which considers a larger scale of inertia across a system. Based on the formulas suggested below, programmatic momentum must precede and therefore flow into or feed systemic momentum. This sequential relationship offers the ability for varying scales of evaluation from one program to understanding how numerous programs may create positive impact across an entire school system.

The next question to consider…how might we use this information to positively impact the future of an educational institution? From my perspective, a “definition” like this could be used by school leaders to support a strategic planning process, to evaluate existing course offerings, and/or to conduct a post-mortem evaluation of a new program. There are numerous advantages for an educational system to evaluate policies, practices and priorities based on at least some of the non-traditional formula components included below.

I am not sure I have it completely figured out or, most importantly, if measuring momentum in education has the ability to move the needle in the right direction but, here is something for the LinkedIn community to react to!

PROGRAMMATIC MOMENTUM

Pm=onc/i

Pm – programmatic momentum

o – originator score, who initiates the idea…on a sliding scale from 1 (State Department of Education) to 5 (students)…the more the idea is developed and created by young people, the better the chance for success.

n – number of learners impacted per month…how many students participate directly in the initiative over a pre-determined duration.

c – number of relevant career pathways…initiatives that touch career options that support the local business community, have inherent growth opportunities and are engaging to learners will have a much better chance of success.

i – the investment to support the initiative for the first three years…the dollars required to conceive, develop, and operate the program for a duration of time is a critical reality.

SYSTEMIC MOMENTUM

Sm=p(A+B)TF/U

Sm – systemic momentum

p -programmatic momentum

A – administration forgiveness score…as determined by staff surveys, on a sliding scale from 1 (low) to 5 (high) measuring the acceptance/support of innovative initiatives including positive and negative consequences.

B – staff belief factor…as determined by staff surveys, on a sliding scale from 1 (low) to 5 (high) measuring the confidence within staff that improvements that are suggested can be implemented within their local system.

T – professional development score…on a sliding scale from 1 (low) to 5 (high) measuring the percentage of total professional development hours spent on atypical professional development sources/formats.

F – facility improvement projects in design and/or construction within the last 5 years…the number of opportunities the staff and administration have had the opportunity to go through a design thinking process.

U – strength of state and/or local educators union…as determined by district leadership (administrator, board of directors) and parent surveys, on a sliding scale from 1 (low) to 5 (high) measuring “strength” of the state and/or local union.

Health and Wellness

We know that children grow and mature through multiple, influential years that are deeply impacted by their educational experience. PK-12 schools, especially public institutions, do not do a very good job equipping young learners with the tools needed to thoughtfully develop their own healthy lifestyle habits and navigate the challenges they will face. Pobal Learning’s Health and Wellness initiative would radically adjust the way children examine their personal life choices in relation to their life-long physical and mental wellness journey. The program is intended to immerse young people in a health and wellness program that fuses movement, exercise, food, drink and rest activities into a portfolio of personal understanding in order to develop better lifestyle habits which they can carry on into adulthood. This innovative learning experience would remove young people from their typical school environment and, through age-appropriate curriculum and learning outcomes, would seamlessly blend physical and health education requirements and traditional subjects (science, math, reading, etc.) with a systemic appreciation for a nutritious and balanced diet. The Health and Wellness initiative would be programed as a multi-day event occurring to replace/supplement traditional physical education classes. This dynamic offering would be rooted in collaboration, creativity and communication with a goal to build personal resiliency and mutual respect. 

Launch

As part of Pobal Learning’s overall vision for the redevelopment of our educational system, we are developing a multi-year planning process that leads to a more engaging and effective high school experience specific to the needs and desires of the community it serves. Rooted in the needs of the local business community, LAUNCH would seamlessly integrate input from students, parents, teachers and business leaders with the overall district vision and needs to ideate, test and develop a learner-centric academic model. The process is intended to have healthy and empathetic discussions around the development of an engaging curriculum embedded with numerous necessary life-skills that is sympathetic to real-world challenges.