Posts by Rebecca Midles
One Map, Every Framework: The Shared Architecture Behind School Transformation
If your teams have ever spent valuable meeting time translating between frameworks instead of moving learning forward, this piece is for you. Nate McClennen and Rebecca Midles analyzed 16 leading school-design frameworks and 7 change models and found something remarkable: beneath every different vocabulary, the same seven questions keep emerging. Their Learning Innovation Wayfinder offers a common map, not to replace the frameworks your system trusts, but to help every partner finally see they have been working toward the same destination all along.
When to Innovate, When to Implement, and When to Improve: A Framework for Strategic Schools
Not every school challenge calls for the same solution, but most systems are only fluent in one approach. In this new piece, Nate McClennen and Rebecca Midles unpack the critical differences between implementation science, innovation, and improvement science, and show leaders how to build the organizational fluency to use all three. If your system defaults to implementation for every problem, or chases innovation without the structures to scale it, this framework offers a clearer, more strategic path forward.
Beyond the Shiny Object: How to Assess Your System’s True Innovation Readiness
Too many districts launch the next big initiative before their systems are ready to sustain it. In this new piece, Getting Smart contributors Nate McClennen and Rebecca Midles introduce the 5 C's of R&D Readiness and 8 Archetypes of System Transformation, a practical framework for honestly diagnosing where your school or district stands before committing to wide-scale change. Whether your system is a Vanguard or a Frozen System, this tool helps leaders move from reactive initiative-chasing to intentional, coherent redesign.
When Scale Gets Ahead of Learning
Why honest naming matters in education redesign: distinguish R&D from implementation so leaders scale learning, not assumptions.
Coalition Before Consensus: How Trust and Shared Ownership Sustain Transformation
System transformation rarely fails because of a bad strategy. It fails because the relationships needed to sustain it were never built. In this piece, Rebecca Midles and Nate McClennen draw on real district leaders to show what coalition-building actually looks like when the messy middle arrives. From a rural Michigan superintendent who started with the willing to a Kansas City microschool that put students in the design seat, this is a practical and deeply human look at what makes change last.
Running Your Own Race: Why Agency Begins in the Interior Life
Why boredom, quiet, and reflection matter for teen identity, agency, and imagination in a world shaped by constant screens.
Designing for Belonging: Lessons from Districts Building What Technology Can’t Replace
Discover how districts are wrestling with what AI can't replace, prioritizing human skills like belonging, judgment, and connection through systemic redesign.
Book Review: How We Thrive
Rehumaning in schools: redesign schedules, grading, and culture to support belonging, regulation, and sustainable adult capacity.
So, Your District Wants Personalized Learning… Where Do You Start?
Explore how to do personalized learning effectively. Transform your educational system into one that truly values student outcomes.
How to Leverage CTE for Durable, Personalized Pathways
The rise and spread of CTE is an education success story. With 98% of school districts offering some kind of CTE programs and over 11.2 million students enrolled across the country, these programs are exposing learners to new careers, skills and possibilities at a remarkable scale. States…