Month: October 2019

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In this episode, we are learning with Zack Jones, Director of Dual School, located in Wilmington Delaware.

Dual School is a supplement to the existing education system, delivering a learning opportunity to students from public, private and charter schools in New Castle County, DE. Dual School also welcomes teachers to learn from their innovative pedagogy and connect with other forward thinking educators. Born out of a partnership with Blue Dot Education, a group of teachers from High Tech High, Dual School provides their flagship Idea Incubator program twice each year to about 40 students and their consulting work reaches another 100 youth who work on social impact projects as a workforce development experience. 

Zack is a graduate of Horn Entrepreneurship at University of Delaware, and is the author of The World Changer’s Handbook: A Young Person’s Guide to Creating an Impactful Life. He’s passionate about helping young people activate their potential by taking action on their ideas.

In our conversation, we learned about Dual School’s innovative learning model through many examples. During the 3-hour learning sessions, learners at Dual School work alongside adults to pursue social impact projects. The model represents learning that is personalized, contextualized and relevant to the participating high school learners. The projects shared also represent a high level of learner agency. We spoke about the importance of shifting adults roles in a learner-centered learning environment.

As a result of our conversation, we are thinking about the following question:

• What did you learn today that can be applied to the transformation of your learning environment and the shifting role of the teacher?

Resources:

• Dual School website

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This blog post and podcast was created and edited by d.Tech High School Interns, Monica Shannon and Jemma Schroder.

In this bonus episode of Shift Your Paradigm, we talked with Jemma Schroder and Monica Shannon, interns from Design Tech High School. We designed an internship in which our learners have the opportunity to learn the inner workings of podcast production by working to support our TLTalkRadio and Shift Your Paradigm podcasts. Our two participants—Jemma and Monica—have been working with us this week. During this episode, we checked-in, reflected on their progress, and shared more about the process with our listeners.

Here’s what we talked about:

1. How has this week been?
2. What have you learned or what skills have you built in this internship so far?
3. What is one challenge you have encountered in this internship?
4. Has anything surprised you during this week?
5. As mentors, how have we helped make this experience successful for you?
6. Do you feel you are to make your own podcast or host an episode of a podcast?
7. Going into next week, how do you feel? Would you change anything about this internship?

Resources

• Bonus Episode 13
• Bonus Episode 13 Script
• Audacity Audio Editing Software
• Podcast Welcome Letter

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In this episode we are learning about the learner-centered environment at RiseUp Community School in Denver, CO. We are speaking with Karen Ikegami, Principal of the school. RiseUp Community School is a charter school within the Denver Public School System. The school opened in August of 2015. The adults at RiseUp work hard to provide each learner with the opportunity to learn, practice, and excel with skills they’ll need to be active participants in the community. Curriculum at RiseUp is designed to examine self and community while various wrap-around services help students navigate barriers to school. Community building is a key aspect of the school and helps learners understand each other as individuals.

During our conversations, we learned what makes RiseUp learner-centered, and also discussed the challenges of a regulated public school environment working to provide as many learner-centered experiences for learners as possible. We also learned about the importance of prioritizing relationships and learner voice in the design of learning experiences.

As a result of our conversation, we are thinking about this question:

• What did you learn today about supporting learners who are not successful in the traditional high school model of learning?

Resources:

• RiseUp website
• RiseUp Community School – Education Reimagined article
• A Conversation with Karen Ikegami

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

This blog post and podcast were created and edited by dTech High School Interns, Monica Shannon and Jemma Schroder.

In this bonus episode of Shift Your Paradigm, we talked to Jemma Schroder and Monica Shannon, interns from Design Tech High School. We designed an internship in which participants will have the opportunity to learn the inner workings of podcast production by working directly on supporting TLTalkRadio and Shift Your Paradigm podcasts. Our two participants — Jemma and Monica — will also have the opportunity to plan and design their own passion project podcast for future publication.

Internship activities might include:

• Researching guest author’s books and/or learning environments
• Developing questions for podcast guests
• Writing bios for guests
• Preparing the podcast script
• Editing recorded episodes for production
• Intern also has the opportunity to create his.her own podcast/elements of a podcast

Here’s what we talked about:

1. Give us some background on your learning experience at Design Tech High School and what interests you about this internship opportunity?
2. What specific facets of podcasting are interesting to you?
3. We believe you will need specific Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities to be successful.  How can we help you develop these skills?
4. How can we best support you as mentors?
5. If this is a highly successful experience, what will it look like?
6. How might this experience connect to your future goals?

Resources

• Podcast Welcome letter