Podcast: Big Picture Learning Connects Students to Internships Through ImBlaze

Today the Getting Smart team is bringing you a conversation with Andrew Frishman.

From the minute Andrew Frishman met a student from the flagship Big Picture Learning school, he knew he would be involved in crafting education one student at a time. He became a Big Picture advisor at (the now world famous) Met in Providence and then the internship coordinator at Met Sacramento. For the last six years, Andrew has been co-director of Big Picture. One of his initiatives is ImBlaze, an internship management platform that helps young people connect with work-based learning and helps teachers monitor their location and progress.

Tune in to learn more about Andrew’s backstory and all the work that he has done at the Met, Big Picture Learning, and ImBlaze in this conversation with Tom Vander Ark!

Key Takeaways:
[:15] About today’s episode.
[1:06] About Andrew’s upbringing, early education, and the genesis of his interests in teaching and biology.
[4:21] What inspired Andrew to get started at the Met.
[7:54] Tom and Andrew give some background on the Met.
[8:57] About Andrew’s past roles and current role at the Met and some of the benefits and challenges that come with it.
[10:44] How Andrew came to work at the Met in Sacramento.
[11:41] About Andrew’s work as the co-director of Big Picture Learning and how he and his co-director are thinking about the future of the network.
[13:42] Andrew proposes the hypothetical question: Why affiliate — or not — with Big Picture?
[15:30] How Andrew thinks about the services Big Picture provides.
[18:00] How Andrew thinks about his aspirations for the network.
[20:54] Why are so many people in the Alt Ed space turning to Big Picture Learning?
[25:17] Andrew’s thoughts on how public policy could better recognize the value-add of alternative schools?
[28:47] What is ImBlaze?
[30:40] Where to learn more online!

Mentioned in This Episode:
Big Picture Learning
Met High School (in Providence)
Met Sacramento
ImBlaze
New England Secretary School Consortium
Deeper Learning Equity Fellowship
The Upstream Collaborative