Tag Archives: Getting Smart

After a two-year investigation including hundreds of interviews, Kim Smith and Jen Holleran published a landscape of innovation in US K-12 education. What they found was a lot of confusion because there is not a single unified landscape. There are multiple systems are operating simultaneously often in the same geography:  Traditional Efficiency: schools organized inContinue reading “Why We Need More New Schools (Even with Enrollments Down and Closures Ahead)”

At Getting Smart, we partner with organizations that help collectively reach our mission of actively building the future of learning by designing, accelerating and amplifying equitable innovations that empower all people to thrive and lead in a complex world.  Within our learning design work, we spend a lot of time writing about, supporting and implementingContinue reading “Here are our design principles. What do you think?”

By: History Co:Lab “What would a map of every opportunity in Pittsburgh where young people feel powerful and seen look like?” On June 25th, at the Civic Learning Ecosystem’s Youth Design Day, youth leaders, educators, civic organizers, and community members from southwestern Pennsylvania gathered in the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh’s SLB Youth Media Center toContinue reading “Youth Design Day: Mapping Civic Learning Across Pittsburgh”

At Getting Smart, we are passionate about driving innovation in education. This year, we’ve submitted three exciting session proposals for SXSW 2025, and we need your support to bring these important conversations to the forefront. By voting for our sessions, you are actively contributing to advancing innovative education strategies that can significantly impact the futureContinue reading “Help Us Shape the Future of Education: Vote for Our SXSW 2025 Sessions!”

By: Alice Waldron As educators, it can feel like a new AI tool is introduced daily and there is pressure to use new tools just to keep up with the times. What if, instead, we made technology decisions based on ethical considerations and our students’ needs? AI has potential to support student learning, educator development,Continue reading “5 easy steps for responsibly piloting AI and tech in education”

Why do we award grades? Do they really improve learning? Research shows that in the short term, grades do indeed improve learning outcomes…on standardized tests. But when it comes to retaining information, thinking critically, recalling concepts later on, and applying + transferring learning to new contexts, grades are proven to be very ineffectual.  There’s aContinue reading “Fostering Student-Centered Environments: From Teacher Assessed through Grades to Self, Peer, Expert Feedback and Critique”

Summer is waning. Have you yet had the luxury to truly and entirely dedicate yourself to any one thing? If so, did you have the space to do so for eight consecutive days? I was fortunate to have the space. The focus was climbing to the roof of the African continent. A lot was learnedContinue reading “Summit Stories: Lessons in Simplicity and Strength on Kilimanjaro”

Over the last few years, we’ve been covering New Pathways, which we think of as a framework for school leaders and community members to create supports and systems that set students up for success in what’s next. This might be career exploration, client-connected projects, internships, or entrepreneurial experiences. But what it really comes down toContinue reading “Green Workforce Connect and Building Green Pathways with Cynthia Finley”

By: Ayana Verdi Before the COVID pandemic magnified the vast inequities that exist within our education system and spurred an education renaissance that rapidly spread across the country, the quest to reimagine what school could be had already begun in pockets across the country. In my home state of Florida, microschools and learning cooperatives wereContinue reading “The Women Building Community to Support Microschool Growth and Sustainability”

By: Dan Coleman, Ph.D. By now, most educators are used to thinking of the school building as a “third teacher:” the term coined by Loris Malaguzzi in the 70’s to describe the role played by space in the Reggio Emilia approach to education: “There are adults, other children, and their physical environment.” We know howContinue reading “How Many Teachers Can a Building Be?”