Diane updates Michael on the latest progress on one of Summit’s pilots from this year and the two then delve into a discussion of how to bring the new innovation that’s working and scale it up inside the organization—and what to do about the old processes that are no longer needed.

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Back from their trips abroad, Michael and Diane reflect on what they saw in the countries and what that means for shaping educational opportunities for each and every child worldwide.

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Michael and Diane dig deep in analyzing the big acquisition of NWEA in the assessment market by Houghton-Mifflin Harcourt, one of the largest curriculum players in the United States. They conclude that we should be skeptical that the acquisition will improve teaching and learning for students or that it will pay off as much as HMH might like. 

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In this episode, Diane reflects around why failure in life and schools is hard—and she and Michael dissect why it’s nevertheless important. Diane shares how, after a set of tests don’t work as planned, her schools then chart a pivot to a new direction.

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Diane and Michael break down the latest frenzy around artificial intelligence and education. They explore if and how ChatGPT could be an innovation in education, what would make it innovative (hint: it’s not the technology!), and how it could be a useful tool in creating better learning experiences.

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Arguably the scarcest resource in schools is people. And people are imperative for doing a pilot and innovating well. In this episode of Class Disrupted, Diane Tavenner and Michael Horn delve into how to best use people when innovating and what are the key roles that you must fill to do a pilot well.

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Diane Tavenner shares with Michael Horn her excitement about a school visit she did recently in South Carolina to the Anderson Institute of Technology—which raises the question of why aren’t there more schools like what Diane saw?

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Schools typically have long laundry lists of all the pilots and innovations they want to do—if only they had the time and resources. Or they have laundry lists of improvement projects that are in the works—but then the execution suffers on all of them. How should a school choose which innovations and improvements to invest in trying? In this episode of Class Disrupted, Diane and Michael offer both a framework for how to make these decisions, but also describe how Summit chose to do its pilot on better supporting its school heads rather than all the other things they might have attempted.

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Whether there’s a teacher shortage depends on who you ask and the definition of “shortage” it seems. In this episode, Diane and Michael welcome reporter Kevin Mahnken from The74 to provide up to date information on the data and storylines in the media. Then Diane details what her reality is on the ground in her schools — and Michael and Diane analyze why the on the ground educator reality is often different from the current national data and what to do about it.

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Diane and Michael reflect about how all too often educators tell them that they’re piloting something, but when they dig in, what they’re doing doesn’t actually sound like a pilot. To make this crystal clear, they put one of Summit’s current pilots under the microscope to start to break down just what is a pilot and how do you do it well.

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