WonderLab: Become An Inspired Learner

A Little Transition

10/1/2015

In case you missed the last paragraph of the post just below this one...

Our blog is now published under the name of Templeton Learning, the parent organization for both WonderLab and Blyth-Templeton Academy. The blog posts will still be monthly updates about what we're dreaming, doing and learning, so thanks in advance for continuing the journey with us.

If you have any questions about this or anything else, please don't hesitate to contact me! Check out the new blog here:
http://www.templetonlearning.com/blog.

Kindest regards,

Temp Keller
Founder, WonderLab
Co-Founder & CEO, Templeton Learning

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Three Updates from 30,000 Feet

9/30/2015

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Years ago I was surprised to see Dave Levin, the co-founder of KIPP and a hero of mine, had disembarked an airplane without his laptop. When I inquired how someone working as hard as he was could survive a long flight without being plugged in, he responded with a query of his own: “When else would I have time to think?”

Today I’m violating the Levin Rule; tapping out this post aboard what has been my usual commute every two or three weeks — a flight between Washington D.C. and Austin on a Southwest 737. That said, I’m pleased to report that I actually have enjoyed some good time to think on the many flights since my last blogpost.

As many of you know, I’ve been spending quite a bit of time in D.C. working to help launch Blyth-Templeton Academy, a new, independent high school model born from the question: What could/should a 21st century U.S. high school do for students, and what should it look like?

Which leads to the first of my three updates…

I’m thrilled to announce that Blyth-Templeton Academy opened its doors to seventeen phenomenal students and their families on Tuesday, September 8, 2015. I’m even more excited to share that having just visited the school in its fourth week, that we’re off to an incredible start — building an institution worthy of our students and their potential.

In my brief remarks on that opening day, I posed a question to those founding families and students: What are your gifts, and how can you use them in a way that brings you joy and serves others? I then suggested to them that it was indeed a gift to have such a school and community in which to explore that question — much less to be guided by talented, empathetic educators for whom their answer to that question was teaching at Blyth-Templeton Academy.

Perhaps that question sounds familiar? I’ve actually posed it several times before in this blog, as this question is at the core of WonderLab’s methodology for students to dream a big idea, then do it, share it, and iterate it.

Which leads to my second update…

I’m equally thrilled to share that Anna Smith, WonderLab’s wonderfully talented Director of Programs, has packaged the WonderLab approach into a school-based quest that Blyth-Templeton Academy students are currently piloting. It’s certainly still early innings, but we’re getting tons of great feedback on the viability of the school partnership channel.

Anna has also been busy channeling one of her heroes, game designer Jane McGonigal (if that name doesn't ring a bell, I encourage you to join the nearly four million people who have watched her TED Talk “Gaming Can Make a Better World”), and building a beta version of a game-based WonderLab quest for homeschoolers or those in traditional schools to use in and/or out of the classroom. At a Templeton Learning board meeting in a few weeks, we intend to determine whether the school-based or game-based strategy offers the most viable path forward for WonderLab.

Which, in turn, leads to my third and final update today…

My next post will come to you from Templeton Learning. After all, Templeton Learning is the umbrella organization for both WonderLab and Blyth-Templeton Academy. We think this makes sense given the alignment between the two sub-entities and the fact that so much of what we’re learning — not to mention dreaming, doing, sharing, and iterating — is tied up in both entities.

Time to stow the laptop, unplug, and think.

Back soon and best in the meantime,

Temp

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WonderLab’s Learnings and What’s Next?!

7/24/2015

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Per my last blogpost, we have spent the last month and a half reflecting and conducting interviews with the wonderful Parents and Learners that we've talked with or worked with to date with the goal of continually building a better WonderLab.

We set out to walk our talk --- aligning our query with the same WonderLab Venn diagram that we use to help guide our Learners:

What are we, WonderLab, good at? What do we, the WonderLab Team, love? What does the world need? What can we be paid for?

So what did we learn?!

We learned that WonderLab is really good at engaging kids through deep listening fueled by genuine empathy. So many of the conversations that we had ended up with a refrain perhaps best captured in a conversation that I had with a WonderLab parent last fall:

“I didn’t quite understand what this was when we signed up. By my daughter’s storytelling of what she was doing at WonderLab, it became clearer. It was one-on-one. You were asking her questions like a grown-up. Her opinions were taken very seriously --- and she totally responds to that.”

The good news is that listening empathetically is something that we (the WonderLab Team) love. The challenge is that our current model is neither scalable (that which the world needs) nor sustainable (that which WonderLab can be paid for).

Why? Because this deeply human exercise of listening empathetically one-on-one is relatively difficult to scale and expensive. I love Princeton University President Chris Eisgruber’s explanation (see “The Changing Landscape of Higher Education: MOOCs, Money and the Future of Liberal Arts Education”):

“What Princeton offers… is intense and unrelenting engagement… and engagement is expensive. Engagement is essential to learning, and, in general, engagement is expensive. It is expensive because it turns on putting students in contact with faculty members in as close to a one-on-one relationship as you can get. So engagement drives labor costs, and labor costs are what make education expensive.”

I can honestly say that I knew this when starting WonderLab. In fact, I was actually in the audience when then President-elect Eisgruber spoke those words, nodding enthusiastically. That said, I thought our part-time Mentor Guides and modest physical Lab would provide the right mix of engagement, scalability and affordability --- and I now readily admit that I was wrong.

So what's next?!

Again, walking our talk, we’re pivoting. We are trying to find the right questions that might lead us to the best answers. And ultimately, we will find another way.

What is a scalable and sustainable delivery mechanism for WonderLab to motivate people to love learning? How can we build a model where caring individuals listen empathetically to engaged WonderLab Learners in a group setting? In schools? In existing after school programs? Outside schools? In homeschool settings? How we can use technology as a tool? How can we do so in a way that frees up the humans to be more human with one another?

Late last month we suspended our current Lab-centric, one-on-one model, and at a Templeton Learning Board meeting last week, we determined that WonderLab will discontinue this model to focus our energies on developing a new way to package the WonderLab curriculum and methodologies for like-minded schools and/or homeschooling families.

Luckily for us, Blyth-Templeton Academy’s upcoming launch in Washington D.C. this fall may provide an opportunity to pilot a school-based WonderLab offering, and some of the phenomenal homeschooling families that we’ve worked with in Austin to date have expressed interest in piloting a homeschooler-centric offering.

There is no shortage of work to be done in the next couple months, and though we’ll be busy learning by dreaming and doing --- walking our talk yet again --- we’ll keep sharing!

Thanks for reading, and thanks to all those who have provided the ideas and insights that have gotten us this far.

Sincerely yours,

Temp

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How to Build a Better (Flintstone) Vitamin?!

5/31/2015

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Ben Wallersten is another member of the great Team launching Blyth-Templeton Academy in Washington D.C. that I mentioned in my last post. This month I have him to thank for inspiration, as I've been thinking a lot about something Ben and I first talked about years ago: Flintstone Vitamins.

I was complaining to him that post-secondary education entrepreneurs whose student and customer are often one in the same have it relatively easy. After all, in K-12 you have parents and kids who often have different needs and motivations.

He knowingly smiled and replied that like many K-12 education entrepreneurs I was seeking the learning equivalent of a Flintstone Vitamin — something which parents love because they are good for their kids and that kids love because they are delicious.

First of all, when we launched WonderLab we knew that it was harder to sell vitamins than aspirin. Most human beings are more reactive than proactive, and many parents and kids alike often sign up for tutoring in the wake of a bad grade to make the pain go away. But we believed then — and still believe -- that the bigger opportunity is for kids to be proactively and genuinely motivated to love learning. For learning to be delicious!

However, motivation is a tricky thing that is both intrinsically and extrinsically fueled. I truly believe that hard-wired into the DNA of every parent is the intrinsic motivation for their child to thrive. But there is also the extrinsic motivation among parents for kids to thrive in the eyes of other friends/parents, as their children's achievements (games won, awards, college acceptances, etc.) become a proxy for good parenting.

At WonderLab we believe that all kids have an inspired idea in them that will change the world. Put another way, we believe that hard-wired into their DNA is the intrinsic motivation to love learning about something. But of course, the extrinsic motivations get tricky when kids transition from early childhood where parents and teachers are the authority figures to adolescence when concern for peers' opinions takes over.

I'm thinking more about this these days because -- as crazy as this sounds -- WonderLab is yet to build the best vitamin that we can build. But I'm heartened by the fact that the first Flintstone Vitamin didn't work very well. They basically took a vitamin and coated it with sugar, only to realize that kids were smarter. Kids would simply suck off the candy coating then spit out the tasteless vitamin. Thus, model 2.0 fused the vitamin and the sugar together.

In the month to come, we'll be taking stock of all that we've learned to date, as well as interviewing past, present and future WonderLab Learners and Parents, in the hopes of continually building a better WonderLab.

Needless to say, we'll keep you posted on our progress!

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Authentic Goodness and/or Résumés?

4/30/2015

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David Brooks’ phenomenal op-ed a couple weeks ago entitled “The Moral Bucket List,” adapted from his new book The Road to Character, is a must-read if you missed it.

He writes thoughtfully about people who radiate “an inner light” and attempts to understand “how deeply good people got that way.” Brooks observes “that wonderful people are made, not born — that the people I admired had achieved an unfakeable inner virtue.” An authentic goodness.

I’m grateful for Sam Blyth, a friend and colleague with whom I’m proud to be part of a team of wonderful people working to launch Blyth-Templeton Academy, a quality, affordable, private high school that opens this fall in Washington, D.C. Sam not only forwarded me the Brooks op-ed, but he also did so posing the following, powerful question that captures the essay’s essence:

“What kind of adventures produce goodness, rather than build résumés?”

I believe that this question gets to the heart of a key tension — one that is far from new, but is coming to a head like never before in an age of increased population, transparency, and in turn, college selectivity. To reword Sam's question: How do we encourage and enable young people to follow their hearts and do extraordinary things — yet do them not as a means to an end, but to do them with authenticity?

I say this question is far from new because I recall a time in my increasingly distant past when many of us were encouraged to do more community service and other “good” things in order to round out our résumés/college applications.

Interestingly, more and more colleges are beginning to promote what their students have done or created — not their SAT scores. See Boston University’s “Interesting Student Facts” as a case in point. But are these students doing and creating authentically? Does it matter?

At WonderLab, we think it matters a lot.

Which leads me to Gage and Robby. In yesterday’s WonderLab Learner Exhibition, they both presented their work to an audience of family and friends. Gage is on a mission to design — and one day build — a children’s museum like none you’ve ever seen. Robby is designing/building a Rube Goldberg machine that is as unique as Robby himself.

Both are working on these projects because a trusted, caring adult — in this case, Anna Smith, their WonderLab Mentor Guide — began a line of inquiry that is at the heart of what we do here: What motivates you to love learning? More specifically, she asked: what are you good at? What do you love? What does the world need? What might you get paid for (eventually)? Where do your answers intersect?

In the end, might these inspired projects build their résumés? Sure. That said, I assure you that the results of a straw poll that I took in the wake of the event revealed that not a single person fortunate enough to have attended yesterday’s Exhibition doubted their authenticity and/or their goodness.

These are the kind of adventures that produce goodness, and these are the kinds of kids developing their inner light. Perhaps you'd like to refer a Learner who should join them?

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Degrees vs. skills? Who is “Most Likely to Succeed?”

3/30/2015

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As I often joke with friends, it always feels like a decisive moment in education. And alas, education tends to evolve at a glacial pace. Yet, hear me now: this really feels like a decisive moment in education.

For quite some time now, many have been debating the value of college degrees and viability of the traditional college business model as a whole in the 21st century. After all, in this month alone we have two exceptionally provocative books (if not titles): The End of College: Creating the Future of Learning and the University of Everywhere and College Disrupted: The Great Unbundling of Higher Education.

If you find yourself hard-pressed to find the time to read an entire book (much less two) in the near future, then I strongly suggest you find four minutes to read last month’s Quartz article, “Degrees don’t matter anymore, skills do,” which as you may have guessed from its title, addresses a number of the same themes.

However, the real reason that today really feels like a decisive moment in education is beautifully captured in the new documentary film, Most Likely to Succeed. More than my aforementioned four-minute “strong suggestion,” I implore you to find the 86 minutes to watch it sooner than later.

One of our fundamental beliefs at WonderLab is that asking good questions is far more important that regurgitating correct answers. I love this movie because it rises above providing standard, ideological education answers and instead asks some of this moment’s most important questions about education, schooling, teaching and learning:

“Over 100 years ago the United States went from one-room schoolhouses to the robust, industrial model we have now. It was a transformation that was nothing short of miraculous. Perhaps it’s time for another transformation?”
“Right now we are attempting to educate a generation of kids who will work in jobs that have not been invented yet. They will be called on to solve problems in a world so complex we can’t even imagine it. How do you design a school system that prepares kids for that?”
“While turning students into better collaborators, or having them think more critically might seem like a great idea, won’t changing a student’s approach to education this radically inhibit their ability to get into a good college?”

But more importantly, the film captures the questions, the humanity, and the uncertainty of parents in this decisive moment:

“Do I want him to do well on the SAT? Why? To get into college? Well, why? I’ve had to really reexamine all of those things—and why do I want all the things that I want for him? Because it’s not like I’m only trying to get him into an Ivy League school or something. I’m really not. I want him to be happy. But I also don’t want him to have any doors closed.”
“As I consider the kind of education I want for my own daughter, how do I predict what will give her the best shot at future happiness? At being successful—whatever that means?”

And though WonderLab Mentor Guides do not answer questions, I for one feel that this is a very appropriate moment to reiterate what we believe:

We believe that education is changing—shifting from uniform textbooks that provide facts to project-based, experiential learning that develops unique skills.
We believe that most schools, tutoring and test prep centers have fallen behind this shift—and not changing fast enough to catch-up.
We therefore believe that partnerships between families and forward-thinking supplementary learning coaches (like WonderLab Mentor Guides) present the best shot these days at ensuring an individual Learner’s future happiness and success.

So whether success to you as a parent is for your child to get into a highly selective college, become highly skilled, and/or be happy, we believe that this need not be an either/or. We believe that the straightest line to all three is figuring out what motivates your child to love learning, developing a project as unique as they are, and supporting them as they work to change the world.

Or perhaps better articulated by Sir Ken Robinson in the final minutes of Most Likely to Succeed, “Human resources are like the world’s natural resources—they are buried beneath the surface. If we find things that energize us—things that we love to do—you can’t keep us down.”

Clearly this film has energized me. Though it’s still busy energizing others at major film festivals (Sundance, Tribeca, etc.), my ask today is that you consider helping the film’s producers organize a screening in your hometown. I’m organizing one here in Austin, so please email me for more information and to attend.

After all, whether or not this really is a decisive moment in education depends on you.

Is this your moment?

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What Job Are Your Kids Hiring School to Do?

2/27/2015

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As Clayton Christensen, Michael Horn, and Curtis Johnson thoughtfully argued nearly five years ago in a white paper on student motivation, “most of the ‘home runs’ of marketing history occurred when people sensed the fundamental job that customers were trying to do—and then found a way to help more people do it more effectively, conveniently, and affordably.“

They then share a wonderful anecdote about a fast food company that was attempting to sell more milkshakes. After extensive focus groups, subsequent product tweaks, and considerable expense, sales remained flat.

It wasn't until they asked the question: “What job is the milkshake being hired to do?” that they started making progress. They discovered that nearly half the milkshakes sold were bought in the early morning. The “job” for which they were being “hired”? Sustenance during a long, boring commute.

Coffee was guzzled too quickly. Bagels were too messy. The milkshake took awhile to finish, and the chilly container not only kept the driver alert; it fit beautifully in the cup holder.

The punch line? Once they understood the job the milkshake was being hired to do, they could build a better milkshake. In fact, they built what we now know as a smoothie.

So what “job” are kids “hiring” school to do? Christensen, Horn and Johnson hypothesize that “there are two core jobs that most students try to do every day: They want to feel successful and make progress, and they want to have fun with friends.” They go on to make a compelling case that many schools are not fulfilling either of these jobs very effectively at all.

At WonderLab we believe that the key to success and fun is one fundamental question: What will motivate this individual Learner to love learning? Our experience tells us that once we better understand a Learner’s unique strengths and passions, we can then help them make progress on a project that is as unique as they are—all while having fun with friends.

So for all you parents with the need for your child to be in a safe, productive place outside of school or a homeschool environment, over spring or summer break—or perhaps a new spot for a child’s upcoming birthday party where the job-to-be-done might also include making the other parents a bit jealous that they didn’t think of it first—please keep in mind your child’s primary jobs-to-be-done: feeling successful and having fun with friends!

And do keep WonderLab in mind, as it’s a job that we most certainly love doing!

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Create Experience and Relationships

1/30/2015

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I think those of us who are passionate about the future of teaching and learning can learn something from the world of retail.

In the last ten years, online shopping has gone from good to great. We can now buy just about anything online that we can from a brick and mortar store—and often at a better price.

What has brick and mortar retail done in response? The best have doubled down on experience and relationships. Makes sense, doesn’t it? In a world where I can buy nearly anything faster and cheaper online, the rationale for physically going to a store is often because it offers me an experience and/or a human relationship that online cannot (yet) provide.

Not surprisingly, education technology (edtech) is slowly, but surely, moving from good to great—and one of the many joys of building WonderLab is that we Mentor Guides have a front row seat. In our “Code It” Workshop last weekend, we marveled as WonderLab Learners in a few short hours invented their own game or animation using MIT’s Scratch platform, while others chose to use Code.org to acquire the skills they needed to improve a Flappy Bird game and make it their own.

Interested in other examples of edtech in action? Watch this terrific Code.org video. Listen to the stories of these iconic engineers and entrepreneurs. See the common threads of thought that connect them—the powerful spark of motivation. The motivation to make something fun for themselves and others. The motivation to solve problems, and then take on and tackle increasingly complex problems. Most importantly, the motivation to love learning.

Many parents’ fundamental concern with edtech is understandable. It’s the worry of comatose kids with eyes glued to their various devices’ screens. But that’s not what I saw in WonderLab last weekend. I saw good technology in the hands of Learners who will one day make it great. I saw kids working together. I saw good technology that was fueling powerful learning experiences and relationships.

I think we need to be clear that there is a fundamental difference between kids using technology to consume versus using it to create. When we understand that, we see a future of learning where experience and relationships matter more than ever. Then we begin to understand that the real opportunity for edtech is ultimately for it to free up humans to be more human with one another.

What online resources are you using to fuel your kids (or your own!) learning? To create? To build experiences and relationships?

Please share your answers to these questions, as we still have a lot to learn about edtech—and per our bigger theme, please share because we are genuinely motivated to love learning more about it!

Thanks for your time today, and thanks in advance for your thoughts,

Temp

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One Year Old and Learning

12/16/2014

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As WonderLab's first year of operations comes to a close, I find myself reflecting --- per our questlamation mark logo --- over some of the bigger questions and inspired, exclamatory answers of 2014.

So as much as I do love a good top 10 list, in an effort to be brief, here's the #1 question asked at WonderLab this year: What is my child actually going to do here?!

My faithful readers are likely crying foul. After all, I kicked off 2014 with a blogpost stating that was the question that we receive most often.

The difference, however, is that after a year of learning by doing and figuring out what we are and are not --- I'm thrilled that I can now answer “What is my child actually going to do here?!” three different ways:

In words:

"The two most important days in your life are the day
you are born and the day you find out why."
--- Mark Twain

In an image (apparently a picture is worth a thousand words, though I'm certainly a fan of Mr. Twain's 21 words above):

And in a video (if a picture is worth a thousand words, apparently a video is worth a million --- but we'll let you be the judge):

I can only hope that these three answers provide as much clarity for you as they do excitement for me and the rest of the WonderLab Team --- excitement about all that we’ve learned together to date, and about all that we will learn in the year to come as we keep seeking big questions and inspired answers!

I’m grateful this holiday season to all the families who have taken the WonderLab leap this year. It's been an absolute honor to work with you, and we couldn't be more excited about seeing where your imagination will take you in the New Year.

Also grateful to those who forward this to a friend or loved one in the hopes that they get WonderLab. Better yet, why not give the gift that keeps giving: a WonderLab workshop or membership.

Thank you all for a wonderful year!

Temp

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Thanks Giving Tree

11/25/2014

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Hard to believe that it was 50 years ago that Shel Silverstein published The Giving Tree. Not only is it one of my favorite books, but I’m honestly hard-pressed to think of a book from which I’ve learned more. If it has been years since you read it -- or read it to your child, as I had the pleasure of doing last night -- please do yourself and loved ones the favor sooner than later.

And in the immediate, perhaps you should take a moment to watch the movie?

Now, I’m going to go out on a limb here (pardon the pun), and argue that The Giving Tree Movie is yet another case in point to the old adage that the book is always better than the movie.

Why is that?

Like all WonderLab Mentor Guides, my job is to ask questions rather than answer them, but in this case I’ll make an exception and offer one of many answers: movies often leave little to the viewers’ imagination. In a way, we make the movie in our heads as we read, while movies provide insight into one filmmaker’s imagination.

So we thought it would be a fun challenge to make a movie that did WonderLab justice (and by “movie,” I of course mean “two minute video”). Rather than leave little to the viewers’ imagination, however, our objective was for viewers to imagine the infinite possibilities at WonderLab.

So if you are like me — one of the many fortunate people on the planet who can genuinely say that you love learning — perhaps the people, places, and ideas that brought that to fruition should be at the top of your thank you note list this Thanksgiving?

And if like me you want nothing more than to raise children who genuinely love learning, perhaps you should consider reading them plenty of Shel Silverstein and giving the gift of wonder(lab) this holiday season?!

Thank you, happy Thanksgiving, and thanks Giving Tree,

Temp

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<<Previous

A Little Transition

Three Updates from 30,000 Feet

WonderLab’s Learnings and What’s Next?!

How to Build a Better (Flintstone) Vitamin?!

Authentic Goodness and/or Résumés?

Degrees vs. skills? Who is “Most Likely to Succeed?”

What Job Are Your Kids Hiring School to Do?

Create Experience and Relationships

One Year Old and Learning

Thanks Giving Tree

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