What Students Want

Our guest today is Cam Stottler. He is the Executive Director of North Lakes Academy Charter School, a K-12 tuition free school located in Forest Lake, MN.

The school has been in operation for over 20 years, implementing an educational program that is challenging, developmentally appropriate, and catering to the needs and passions of their students. Given the small class sizes, each student receives personalized attention from teachers and the school feels like a big family.

In this episode, we talk about how you can increase your expectations from students and keep standards high, while increasing their motivation at the same time.

Quotes:
 05:11 -  If a school leader sees potential in administrative colleagues or teacher leaders, then it's their number one job to invest in that potential, in those people. That  is the greatest impact a leader can have on the school,

is those people. And then in turn, those people will turn around and invest in the teachers, and the teachers in the students and so on. So if a school leader feels that the potential's there, then they have to, they have to take the time to invest in it.

15:43 - We tell them we keep standards way up here because you deserve that from us. And if we did anything less than that, then we're failing you. And often students, the students that schools are labeled behavior problems or disruptors, they need to hear that .They need to hear that, no matter what, our expectations are not going to change because you're worth it.

And often that last part doesn't get added to it. It's just our expectations of this high, because that's who we are, but it's not about us. The expectations are high because that's what you need.

26:47 - We have such a negative connotation with failure that anyone who can work through that and can recognize that failure is part of the process. If you're not failing, you're not doing it right. Which is ironic  but if you're not seeking failure, you're not growing, you're not receiving feedback, you're not understanding criticism. And those are such key facets as we all look around in our current jobs, right? The people who can't fail well are the ones you don't want to work with, the ones that ultimately aren't going to make a good partner or aren't going to grow the company or have the impact that you want them to have. And so I think it's, again, keeping the students in front of the idea that "yes, you can AND you're expected to, AND you're going to fail as a part of that and that's all okay and that's all going to be part of who you are. 

Where to learn more about Cam Stottler and North Lakes Academy Charter School:

• http://www.northlakesacademy.org
• Cam Stottler | Executive Director | [email protected] | 651-797-6266

Where to learn more about Enrollhand:

• Our website: www.enrollhand.com
• Our webinar: https://webinar-replay.enrollhand.com

In this episode, we catch up on the last 2 years since our first podcast interview in August 2019. We talk about how Prenda uses a unique learning model with a mix of blended learning, PBL and inquiry-based learning to increase confidence and curiosity. We see how they enhance grit and perseverance, helping learners to stick with their problems longer, as Albert Einstein would say.

Some interesting highlights from our discussion:

The focus is on helping the child choose to be a learner. Nurturing their curiosity, setting goals, not quitting despite the tears, as per Albert Einstein, staying with their problems longer.

The learning model takes all the progressive learning research and packs into a simple, 3-part daily schedule. We compared it to how the Homebrew Computer Club tinkerers ended up with the Apple II - decades of trial and error packaged into a simple, beautiful box.

The learning guide does not teach or instruct. The role is flipped. They coach. With the simple, beautiful learning mode, kids are always on their learning frontier. They progress FAST, wizzing through grade levels.

Prenda is a growing, remote team, and is gradually making it's way from the South West to any state that welcomes them. Working with public and charter schools, the microschools are free.

Here are some resources mentioned in our discussion:

• Previous episode: https://blog.enrollhand.com/launching-80-schools-in-8-months-with-kelly-smith/
• Quote: "It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer." - Albert Einstein
• Prenda Town Hall Intro video - https://youtu.be/cHrOWvEKSvQ?t=46
• Dan Meyer's Three-Act Math Tasks - https://blog.mrmeyer.com/category/3acts/
• Homebrew Computer Club - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homebrew_Computer_Club
• I, Woz: Computer Geek to Cult Icon - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00C2UUB9Q

Where to learn more about Prenda:

• Twitter - https://twitter.com/prendalearn
• Website - https://www.prenda.com
• YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn6GcJFx_Yh1CpKzUUuzzQg
• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellysmith35/

Where to learn more about Enrollhand:

Website: www.enrollhand.com

Our webinar: https://webinar-replay.enrollhand.com

Our guest today is Felix Ohswald. He is the CEO of GoStudent, an online tutoring company that just raised 70 million euros and is growing like a rocketship in Europe. In this episode, we talk about the origin story of GoStudent, Felix's views on what makes a learning experience successful, his tips on operating a growing educational institutions, and his regional and global plans to consolidate the fragmented tutoring market.

• 05:24 - Felix and his team made a hard turn from a model that was very engaging for students but not financially viable to a business model that is both profitable and creates excellent learning outcomes.
• 09:26 -  GoStudent is moving fast to be the first in Europe. A first-mover advantage is a key stragegy for them.
• 11:25 - Educating prospects in a consultative sale process is becoming more important. Talking to prospects, Felix saw that they were not really understanding the offer and even what solution they want to experience.
• 15:24 - You can think of managing students in a lifecycle like customers. They come asking for one thing, then you solve it and move to the next thing. Competency based or mastery based learning is the epitomy of a student lifecycle.
• 27:52 - At the end of the day, convenience and the best products will always win. When you have this extreme focus on these things, you can, you can make it everywhere. And that's, that's where we focus on.
• 33:48 - Analytics and metrics can inform the success of a learning experience significantly. Looking at KPIs, you find insights, you find bright spots and can double down on them.

• Wheree to learn more about GoStudent:
  • Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/company/gostudent-gmbh
  • Website - https://www.gostudent.org/en
  • Article - https://medium.com/emerge-edtech-insights/idea-to-series-a-gostudent-65068968b68d
• Where to learn more about Enrollhand: 
  • Website - www.enrollhand.com
  • Webinar - https://webinar-replay.enrollhand.com
  • Our free Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/schoolgrowth/

Summary

Our guest today is Victoria Ransom, the CEO at Prisma. Victoria is a serial entrepreneur from New Zealand, having sold her last company to Google and is currently living in the U S with her partner and co-founder Alain Chuard. We are going to talk about their newest venture Prisma, a full-time virtual program (with a physical component) for middle school learners. Prisma is a full-stack connected learning network that is rethinking school from first principles.

Listen and take note of what happens when you combine a stellar team, great technology and a state-of-the-art, progressive learning framework.

In our discussion, we cover:

Many education leaders integrate peer learning, but at Prisma they have thought deeply about how learning from & teaching another child is so beneficial.

Victoria seems an inflection point before middle school, where kids start racing after grades and tests. Prisma catches them before middle school starts to keep and kindle their sense of wonder.

A coach appears as the governor of Wisconsin, a task force is put on a major water problem. Is it a classroom or a Hollywood set? Kids get clues and reports. Curiosity and motivation kick in. They launch a PR campaign, a budget...oh, and hit all their learning goals as well.

Teachers still do so much grunt work, so much waste, so much multitasking that takes their focus off the learners. Prisma is using technology and learning science to strip away the noise and let their coaches focus on delivering a pure, seamless learning experience.

Zoom doesn't cut it for the kiddos. Victoria is bursting with ideas, both for sync & async learning that enrich and gamify the learning experience. One example: Expressing support in a virtual setting

Here are some resources mentioned in our discussion:

• The concept of Hard Fun by Seymour Papert - http://www.papert.org/articles/HardFun.html
• Prisma's Learning Framework - https://www.joinprisma.com/framework
• Prisma LIVE - https://www.joinprisma.com/prisma-live

Where to learn more about the guest:

• Prisma's Twitter account - https://twitter.com/joinprisma
• Victoria's Twitter account - https://twitter.com/victoria_ransom
• Alain's Twitter account - https://twitter.com/AlainChuard
• Website - https://www.joinprisma.com

Where to learn more about Enrollhand:

Website: www.enrollhand.com

Our webinar: https://webinar-replay.enrollhand.com

Summary

• Our guest today is Ryan Delk, the co-founder and CEO at Primer. Ryan spent the last decade building tech companies at Square, Gumroad and Omni. He has now co-founded Primer to free the next generation of kids to be more ambitious, more creative, and to think for themselves, starting with homeschool.
• In this episode, we discuss Ryan's ambitious plans for the future of Primer, how parents are equally important to kids in the learning equation, why observing the "user-experience" is so important, why not stratifying by age creates some sort of magic and much more.
• Listen and take note of how Primer creates ambitious, global communities of learners based first and foremost on children's interests.

Where to learn more about Primer:

• Twitter - https://twitter.com/withprimer
• Website - https://withprimer.com
• Team - https://withprimer.com/team

Where to learn more about Enrollhand:

Website: www.enrollhand.com

Our webinar: https://webinar-replay.enrollhand.com

Our guest today is Kelly from Galileo XP. Kelly and her co-founder Vlad redesigned school from scratch. Galileo a global online school soon to have access to physical spaces as well. 
Listen and take note of how Kelly and the Galileo team transitions students into self-directed learning, inject learning experiences with passion and provide a 10-star experience for everyone that joins.

Quotes:

• 9:35 - We have students as young as eight and even some seven year olds that are actually facilitating this meeting and asking their peers. "Can you show me your schedule? What did you do yesterday? How is that science project?" And yeah. They can have this conversation together.
• 21:14 - A lot of online schools imagine "Oh, they can learn all the courses. It's all in asynchronous, it's self directed. You can do it by yourself", but if I want to learn something and really see progress, I need to be accountable to someone. Even for adults, they have these quiet focus groups where you can go and learn things and take breaks together. Putting this in for children as well and helping them. They're already meeting on zoom outside of their class time. So getting that peer to peer learning there.
• 22:00 - We see it as a human-centered operating system. We have all of the resources within and then the educators are there to help bring this collaboration together. We need to negotiate, we need to connect and we need to work on projects together. How can students be prepared to go out in the world if they're in the same class with the same age group from K-12? Giving them different opportunities, different cultures, a lot of exchanges happening between ideas and across the world.
• 31:20 - Everything we do is still an experiment. So whether or not the students are responding well to it, benefiting from it, learning from it, we're here for the students, listening to them, getting their input, also with the parents, and making sure that they are the focus of the growth here. 
• 33:15 - We have a delight team. Every family that joins is assigned a delight officer and this person will see them in the transition period. So making sure that all their questions are asked, they have a point of contact. We know it takes more than one adult to help them there, making sure that this is a 10 star experience for everyone that joined.

• Here are some resources mentioned in our discussion:
  • The Galileo Daily Checkin https://galileoxp.com/check-in
  • Galileo parent interviews https://galileoxp.com/parents
  • Inside the Kernel podcast https://player.fm/series/inside-the-kernel-by-galileo
  • Free Self-Directed Learning Course and Learning Network https://app.galileoxp.com/signup
• Where to learn more about Kelly:
  • Twitter - https://twitter.com/kelly_edtech?lang=en
  • Website - https://galileoxp.com/
• Where to learn more about Enrollhand: 
  • Website - www.enrollhand.com
  • Webinar - https://webinar-replay.enrollhand.com
  • Our free Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/schoolgrowth/

Summary:

• Our guest today is Brian Tobal. Brian used to be a teacher at the Harlem Children's Zone, then worked as a researcher, and then he spent the last few years building lots of educational software, and curriculum for schools, universities and businesses. Now, Brian has started SchoolHouse with his co-founder, to have parents get together and create microschools or learning pods in their own homes or in flexible spaces.
• In this episode, Brian and I discuss what it takes for an educational program to find product-market fit. This means that the students are happy and engaged, they are succesfull in their learning goals, and the experience is amazing for everyone involved, so that they all keep coming back for more.

Listen and take note of how to find this magical fit in any learning experience you create.

In our discussion, we cover:

• 06:38 - "The founding principle is that the teacher's attention is the most valuable piece in the educational brew or ecosystem. If you really want to have a high quality educational experience, you'd increase the amount of teacher attention that each child is receiving."
• 09:21 - "The bet was that we could take outstanding teachers and give them high autonomy, and it would produce better educational outcomes. And that turns out to be true."
• 13:45 - "You're abstracting away whatever's unnecessary, you're matching the right teacher (with the right philosophy and experience) with the family and what they're looking for. And then a group is formed around that. So it's a bit like product-teacher-market fit. Market being the family. You're basically making sure that the right teacher and the right family are interacting ."
• 23:04 - "The most interesting thing to me is that when we removed all the prescriptive schedules and cells and bells, (I can't remember who said that, but I thought it was a good phrase), they move faster. That's interesting. Let's push on that. Let's use that."
• 27:37 - "Maybe the way of thinking about it: If you have an assembly line, attention doesn't matter. If you're a sculptor, attention is everything. And our teachers aren't on an assembly line anymore. They're working with the marble in front of them."

Here are some resources mentioned in our discussion:

• Can a School Have Product-Market Fit? by Brian Tobal
• What is the Orton-Gillingham Approach?
• Bloom's 2 sigma problem
• Live Q&A with SchoolHouse CEO Brian Tobal

Where to learn more about Brian:

• Twitter - https://twitter.com/briantobal
• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-tobal-a4946911
• Website - https://www.getschoolhouse.com/
• Email - [email protected]

Where to learn more about Enrollhand: 

• Website - www.enrollhand.com
• Webinar - https://webinar-replay.enrollhand.com
• Our free Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/schoolgrowth/

It has become popular to sneer at our education system’s factory model. 

We call for the death of schools in favor of Airbnb-like learning communities. Our SAT/ACT testing culture, our boring direct-instruction content-dumping, our mental health issues - these are easy targets.

But schools can thrive, and many are doing so. Only the job of the school, and the teacher, needs to change.

To accompany our recent interview, I wanted to write a short book review of Thrive: How Schools Will Win the Education Revolution by Grant Lichtman. Grant is a thought leader and author. He speaks, writes, and works with fellow educators to help them innovate. Educational leaders, as well as a wider array of pundits on education, need to internalize the ideas Grant lays out in his most recent book. 

For example:

• How to ask your community what your value proposition should be
• How to learn from what the corporate world is doing
• How to make hard choices: “A strategy is choosing what not to do”
• How to accelerate movement by removing barriers. (Change is like a muscle)
• How to research, design, prototype, test, again and again, slowly then faster
• How to reveal what your new job is!
• How to take more risk
• How to increase the innovation DNA of your school (most schools lack innovation DNA)

At Enrollhand, we often meet school leaders who feel out of touch, whose schools are stagnating. We share with them many of the concepts below, but Grant has a silver tongue and does a way better job of telling it like it is!

Our guest today is Trevor McKendrick, Chief of Staff at Lambda School, where students graduate and get the job because they got the skills - and it’s free until they get a job paying over $50K. In this podcast, Trevor goes to the heart of “the customer experience” and details how everything they do is framed in light of reducing the risk and elevating the satisfaction of the customer - their students.

Education is transforming, whether we are ready or not. With a steady eye on mastery-based progression and competency-based learning, Lambda School is trail-blazing an education model that begins with the end in mind. As they design skills training, they start by determining available jobs and target their program to prepare qualified candidates. In contrast, the traditional university model offers a more static curriculum, without the same regard for whether or not it ultimately prepares students for the market they will enter. 

Listen and consider how the student experience in your school could be improved by starting with an innovative outcome in mind.

Quotes:

2:48 “When we are thinking about how to design an experience for our students, it always comes from the point of view of - how can we eliminate that risk?”

6:55 “The point of school is not to get through it as fast as you can; the point is to actually learn the material that you wanted to learn.”

21:40 “We think about - what are the jobs that employers actually want (to fill)? And let’s start from there and design the programs and get the students who are interested in those things.“

28:27 “The idea is - if the student experience is as good as... if you had as much confidence in attending Lambda and getting the job as you did when you order on Amazon or got on Uber, then nothing else matters. ...that’s why it’s the main thing we focus on.”

Where to learn more about the guest:

Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/trevormckendrick

Twitter - @TrevMcKendrick   

Lambda School - https://lambdaschool.com/

Trevor’s newsletter - https://www.howitactuallyworks.com/

Where to learn more about Enrollhand:

Website: www.enrollhand.com

Our webinar: https://webinar-replay.enrollhand.com

Our free Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/schoolgrowth/

In education, the obvious place to cut your teeth is as a teacher. Joel Rose knows the classroom well. He began as a 5th-grade teacher in Houston before moving into a variety of leadership roles in education. Joel is a respected commentator on education through his published articles and as a speaker at conferences. He is currently spearheading the nonprofit “New Classrooms,” which reimagines classrooms through the creation of new and different learning models. 

In our interview, Joel Rose cuts to the chase. The industrial model of one teacher in a classroom with 28 kids is not working to prepare students for the postmodern world. He joins us to consider how to begin changing that model within the confines of the present education system. Joel shares his ideas about the role of student choice in learning, keeping students challenged and in-flow, how to initiate innovative programs without overburdening teachers with logistics, the importance of data collection to tweak personalized learning, and the accountability that must be charged to model-providers that design and offer innovative learning models. 

If you would like to know how to less painfully ease into personalized learning, listen to Joel and learn the success factors for launching a new model at your school.

Here are some resources mentioned in our discussion:

Denver Frederick Interview with Joel Rose - https://denver-frederick.com/2019/01/28/joel-rose-co-founder-and-ceo-of-new-classrooms-joins-denver-frederick/

The Iceberg Problem - https://www.newclassrooms.org/2019/10/07/the-iceberg-problem-event-highlights-op-eds-and-more/

Twitter Graph - https://twitter.com/SuperMugatu/status/1205870814509359105

Podcast with Bill Gates - https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/bill-gates-on-advice-for-founders-mistakes-philanthropy/id1316769266?i=1000443225347

Big Picture Learning - https://www.bigpicture.org/

New Technology High School - https://www.newtechhigh.org/

Where to learn more about the guest:

Joel on Linkedin - linkedin.com/in/joel-rose-0779357

Joel on Twitter - https://twitter.com/NCJoelRose

Joel’s website - broadacademy.org/fellows/fellow.php?alumni_id=102&category_id=14  

New Classrooms - https://www.newclassrooms.org/

Joel at The Atlantic - How to Break Free of Our 19th-Century Factory-Model Education System https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/05/how-to-break-free-of-our-19th-century-factory-model-education-system/256881/

Where to learn more about Enrollhand:

Website: www.enrollhand.com

Our training on how to grow your school: https://webinar-replay.enrollhand.com

Our free Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/schoolgrowth/

You can always reach out by emailing [email protected]