Posts by Tom Vander Ark
Acton Academy: Hero Launch Pad Goes Global
“We believe each person who enters Acton Academy will find a calling that changes the world.” In a world where most schools have mission statements about preparation for a fuzzy future, the Acton Academy promise is shockingly bold and full of agency. The promise is that through Socratic dialogs and…
Dare to Imagine: The First Global School Opens in D.C. and Shenzhen
“Our job is to build the first modern school—not a little better but fundamentally, radically better.” That was Chris Whittle’s charge to the founding faculty of a new global school opening in September in Washington, D.C. and Shenzhen, China. “The campuses represent the best thinking from…
Climate Collapse: Is AI the Antidote?
“It is worse, much worse, than you think,” said David Wallace-Wells, author of The Uninhabitable Earth, about the climate crisis. Nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history—and the rate of species extinction is accelerating, with grave impacts on people around the world now likely, warns a…
We’ve Got It Backwards: Starting With Content Rather than Learners Doesn’t Work
Why are high school students so bored? How could we engage them to learn the required content? How can we nudge, support, and coerce college learners to graduation? What if we’re asking the wrong questions? What if memorizing content and procedures wasn’t the point? A short paper in…
What’s Next in Learning? Four Future Trends
Imagine a platform that enabled you to access local and national opportunities from your smartphone or computer, a place where you can pursue your interests with mentors and peers, building new skills and habits wherever you are, whenever you want. LRNG, now part of Southern New Hampshire University, extends access…
Four Trends Influencing Education
A fitness tracker changed my life—it changed how I think about goal-setting and monitoring my exercise, it changed the intentionality of my travels, and it created a new global community of people who share my interests. I’m not alone; about a quarter of U.S. adults use some kind of tracker.
Four Emerging Trends in Learning
Imagine going to school in a museum and studying real artifacts. Imagine a sustained relationship with an advisor who helps you figure out what you’re good at and care about, and where you can make a difference. Imagine high school students designing practical solutions to community problems. Visit an innovative…
Earn & Learn Banking: Stackable Credential Career Pathway in Financial Services
Keyona was stuck in dead-end retail jobs. She knew she needed a change but didn’t know where to start. Last fall, she received an email from the coordinator in the first-time homebuyer assistance program she was enrolled in at Mi Casa Resource Center (…
Making Dallas Schools Work for Students, Teachers and Business
Dallas is in his DNA. Dr. Michael Hinojosa grew up raised a family, taught and coached, and has served as superintendent of schools for Dallas ISD for 10 years. The biggest metroplex in the south, Dallas added more than a million people in this decade. It’s a global business…
The Best Impact Story in Education Keeps Getting Better
Curriculum Associates is the best edtech success story in America, in several ways. Eleven years ago, Rob Waldron took the helm of a small New England workbook publisher and turned it into a digital learning leader. The flagship adaptive instructional product, i-Ready, is now serving…