Our ambition is to create a robust blueprint for innovative micro-schools that is easy to adopt and adapt by others. The first incarnation of our school will serve as a testing ground and prototype, but we have been trying to design our concept for scalability from day one. This introduces a number of constraints and requirements. I. Ease of useOur presentation of the school concept needs to be clear and unambiguous, easy to understand without requiring a background in education science or the like, and attractive to as many stakeholders as possible (potential founders, teaching staff, parents, students, experts, members of the community, etc.). Ideally, we will want to present our blueprint in the form of a step-by-step guide (or, eventually, a conversational interface), with deeper layers of detailed (and localized) instructions as well as troubleshooting guides added over time. (As we become a network of schools, this could evolve into a comunally managed wiki or something along those lines.) II. AdaptabilityThe concept needs to be adaptable to different circumstances along multiple dimensions, including:
III. Quality assuranceIf our concept is easy to implement and works in a variety of contexts, that still does not mean the resulting schools will be any good. We need to make sure that the quality of the students' education does not depend on one particular team. This is the hardest part. Outside of licencing and supervision within our franchise model, I see three interlocking ways of raising the probability that schools built according to our concept will not degrade in quality: architecture, incentives/selection effects, and materials.
One key aspect of our school's architecture is the focus on collaboration with experts, businesses and institutions in the community. This means that much of the expertise comes from outside the school itself. While different school administrators might do better or worse at curating this influx of expertise, the number of different expert and community contacts required to fill a school year makes it very unlikely that students do not take anything useful away from it. (Contrast the practice in public schools, where students might well be stuck with a bad teacher -- or more -- for years on end.) Curating, organizing and implementing these collaborations calls for a team of highly flexible and creative individuals with a keen sense for the needs of both students and the community. While selection effects will probably apply, at least in the beginning, attracting people who share our ideals and feel up to the challenge, we will develop tentative guidelines for choosing new team members (e.g. based on this[link: 7 questions]) to be used by administrators. We also encourage creating incentives to reward innovation and professional development, from bonuses to different career options within the network. Finally, the simplest way of ensuring quality is providing well-vetted and easy-to-use teaching materials, from ready-made workshop and course plans to curated online courses, learning games, etc. Interlocking with the previous point, continually creating and improving these materials will not only be part of the job description of our coaches, but will also be rewarded (eventually based on their reception in the network) through a bonus system. Of course, all of this still needs to be war-gamed. What else can possibly go wrong? Where are we creating incentives that run counter to our purpose? ...
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August 2017
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