A New Model for Capacity Building in K-12

Pete Reynolds Blog October 1, 2025October 9, 2025Capacity Building

Those that have been in longer conversations with us may have heard mention of Cesar Hidalgo’s thinking about products as the physical embodiment of the knowledge, skills, and relationships needed to produce them, or Don Reinertsen‘s observation that product development operates within a very different set of economic constraints than manufacturing, and therefore requires a much different approach to managing that work. We ran into these early in the life of Learn Deep, and they have guided a lot of our thinking about both what we ask students to take on and how K-12 schools might build the capacity to take on complex work. Earlier this fall we spent some time to put together some tools which capture that thinking.

Moving from Manufacturing to Product Development

Our educational system was built on a manufacturing model. That model assumes students arrive with the same skills, learn at the same rate, and that application of a consistent process will produce consistent results. None of those assumptions are correct.

If the job of schools is more than the mere provision of instruction, a product development lens is far more useful. It allows us to reframe responses to the failures of the manufacturing model– personalized, inquiry based, social and emotional learning, etc. under a central question “What might this student become?” It allows us to move beyond simply working towards implementation of the next new practice with fidelity, and offers a framework for understanding how schools can create more value for their students and community.

Key Shifts From Traditional Maturity Models

Shifting the model of education is a product development effort in its own right. It requires schools and educators to rethink what it is they offer and how they do so. Getting there requires teaching teams that are able to collaborate, experiment, and learn together to envision, build, and evolve a school that is up to the challenge.

Traditional Model	Product Development-Inspired Model
Standardization is the goal	Variation is a feature; adaptability is essential
Fidelity = effectiveness	Learning velocity + feedback = effectiveness
Processes are optimized top-down	Teams optimize locally within a coherent strategy
Cost of delay is uniform	Delay in key student needs/opportunities has asymmetric impacts
Outcomes are predictable	Uncertainty is expected; experimentation is vital

Teaching Team Capabilities

The starting point is an honest assessment of a teaching team’s capacity to drive change within their school. This is framed not in terms of the ability the teaching team has to deliver on any specific pedagogical model. Rather, we need to look at the team’s ability to identify, develop and evolve the practices that allow their students to gain the skills, knowledge and working relationships to take on more complex and challenging work, e.g. through a product development lens.

Teaching Team Maturity Model

Level	Characteristics	Focus	Indicators
Level 1: Reactive Builders	Teams respond to immediate instructional demands with little time for intentional design. Practices are highly variable and dependent on individual teacher energy.	Surviving the work.	Teaching is isolated; few shared artifacts; minimal feedback loops; weak knowledge capture.
Level 2: Responsive Integrators	Teams begin to coordinate efforts, adapting known practices for local use. They respond to problems quickly, but often reinvent solutions.	Sharing and adapting.	Growing use of shared tools (e.g. protocols, task designs), but still limited experimentation or feedback-driven iteration.
Level 3: Learning Designers	Teams intentionally design experiences with students’ varied needs and developmental paths in mind. They test, learn, and adapt quickly.	Design and feedback.	Prototypes tested in real classrooms, cross-team critique, increasing focus on learning from failure.
Level 4: System Navigators	Teams understand how their efforts interact with broader school systems, community contexts, and learner pathways. They optimize for learning velocity, not compliance.	Knowledge flow and decision economics.	Rich feedback systems; time deliberately allocated for experiments; clear strategy for what learning to prioritize.
Level 5: Learning Portfolio Managers	Teams manage a portfolio of learning experiences, balancing exploration with exploitation. They contribute to the school’s adaptive capacity and mentor other teams.	Strategic innovation.	High alignment between student passions, community assets, and instructional design. Documentation and reflection are shared widely.

The ability of a teaching team to drive change is as much a reflection of the system they operate within as the skill or motivation of individual members. Teams operating with limited time, permission, or support to evolve practices will have a difficult time doing so.

Practices Indicative of Maturity

Work in Progress (WIP) Limits for Initiatives: Teaching teams control how many “new practices” they take on at once to avoid overload.
Experiment Canvases: Short cycles for testing instructional prototypes (new routines, project frameworks, student roles).
Feedback Ecology: Regular, low-stakes feedback from students, peers, and community partners.
Cost of Delay Awareness: Teams prioritize based on which needs—social-emotional, academic, access—can’t wait.
Cognitive Load Management: Team norms focus on reducing unnecessary mental load for both students and staff.
Portfolio Thinking: Over a term or year, what mix of experiences do students need? What risks are worth taking now?

Student Capabilities

When we ask students to take on responsibility not just for completing their work, but to become active participants in directing both what they take on and what comes out of that process, we engage them in a product development role as well. We ask them to become co-designers in a process that identifies the challenges they will take on, what they might develop as a solution or response, and the systems that allow them to do so.

Here too, we need an honest assessment of where students are, not in terms of specific skills or knowledge, but in terms of their ability to build the skills and knowledge to take on complex work. Again, we do so through a product development lens.

Student Capability Maturity Model

Level 1 – Compliance Learners (Task Followers)

Characteristics:

- Students focus on completing teacher-assigned tasks for grade
- Work is largely individual and rule-based.
- Collaboration is superficial (“divide and conquer” rather than co-creation).
- Agency is minimal — students ask, “What do you want me to do?”
Analogous to: workforce with basic labor skills, limited adaptability.

Level 2 – Emerging Explorers (Guided Collaborators)

Characteristics:

- Students can engage in small projects with structured guidance.
- Begin experimenting with roles in group work, though trust is shallow.
- Some choice in methods or topics, but still within narrow boundaries.
- Success depends heavily on scaffolding by teachers.
Analogous to: workforce that can operate standardized processes with some teamwork.

Level 3 – Active Problem-Solvers (Adaptive Learners)

Characteristics:

- Students apply knowledge across subjects to tackle authentic challenges.
- Collaboration skills include negotiation, division of roles, and peer feedback.
  Increasing comfort with uncertainty and iteration (not just “one right answer”).
  Agency is growing — students begin asking, “What problem are we solving?”
Analogous to: skilled technicians or professionals who can work in project teams.

Level 4 – Collaborative Designers (System Thinkers)

Characteristics:

- Students can initiate and manage substantial, cross-disciplinary projects.
- Show resilience and adaptability in the face of failure or feedback.
- Trust and collaboration extend beyond classmates (mentors, partners, experts).
- Students begin to manage complexity — balancing multiple constraints, stakeholders, and perspectives.
Analogous to: design or engineering teams in complex organizations.

Level 5 – Entrepreneurial Changemakers (Self-Directed Innovators)

Characteristics:

- Students co-create enterprises, services, or research with lasting value.
- Exhibit entrepreneurial mindset: opportunity recognition, risk management, iteration.
- Collaboration networks extend beyond school into community, industry, and global partners.
- Agency is deeply internalized — students ask, “What impact can we make?”
Analogous to: innovators/entrepreneurs at the frontier of complex product and service creation.

Student Work Product– Complexity & Collaboration

It’s not enough to have a teaching team capable of driving change and students capable of rising to a challenge if we don’t give them the opportunity to do so. In fact, without giving them that opportunity, we don’t really know what they are capable of.

The work products of students are the best reflection of:

The knowledge, skills, abilities, and dispositions they have developed
The relationships their school has developed both inside and beyond school walls
The vitality of the educational ecosystem that supports them

An assessment of the work students are asked to take on is the third leg of the stool. It tells us whether or not we have really tested what they are capable of, and what we might reasonably challenge them with next.

Student Work Product– Complexity & Collaboration Maturity Model

Level 1 – Compliance Outputs (Reactive Learners)

Typical work product: Worksheets, quizzes, and tests focused on recall.
Characteristics: Teacher-designed, student-performed individually; Products rarely used beyond the classroom; Minimal collaboration among students or between students and external audiences.
Analogy to production economy: Subsistence farming — possible with minimal shared knowledge, skill, trust.

Level 2 – Structured but Isolated Projects (Responsive Integrators)

Typical work product: Posters, essays, science fair tri-boards, classroom presentations.
Characteristics: Some student choice in format, but still teacher-directed in topic and process; Limited integration of real-world constraints or external feedback; Collaboration is minimal and often within a small, closed peer group.
Analogy: Basic manufacturing — standardized outputs that many schools can produce with moderate coordination.

Level 3 – Authentic, Audience-Facing Projects (Learning Designers)

Typical work product: Published writing, recorded performances, digital media, prototypes tested with external audiences.
Characteristics: Students engage with authentic problems or audiences beyond the school; Projects may require applying multiple subject areas; Teachers still scaffold most logistics and production, but student agency is growing.
Analogy: Specialized crafts — requiring higher skill, trust, and planning.

Level 4 – Integrated, Cross-Disciplinary Solutions (System Navigators)

Typical work product: Multi-disciplinary design challenges, community research reports, functional products or services adopted by real users.
Characteristics: Students manage significant parts of the project lifecycle (planning, roles, quality control); Work draws on networks beyond the school — experts, community partners, other student groups; Projects often integrate business, social impact, and technical elements.
Analogy: Advanced manufacturing — products that require specialized knowledge, collaboration, and trust.

Level 5 – Sustained, Student-Led Enterprises & Innovations (Learning Portfolio Managers)

Typical work product: Ongoing student-led organizations, start-ups, research teams, or social enterprises addressing complex challenges;
Products and services that function and persist beyond the school year.
Characteristics: Students demonstrate entrepreneurial thinking, system-level problem solving, and adaptive iteration; Teachers act as advisors/mentors rather than directors; Trust and collaboration networks extend far into the community and sometimes globally.
Analogy: Cutting-edge technology production — requiring the highest levels of knowledge, skill, trust, and coordinated effort.

The Big Picture

The Teaching Team, Student Capability, and Student Work Product Maturity Models form a unified framework to look at schools through a product development lens:

Teachers as product developers — building the environment and practices.
Students as developing producers — building the capacity to take on increasingly complex work.
Student work as the physical embodiment of the knowledge, skills, and relationships a school is able to develop.

Understanding where a school is on each of these axes can highlight mismatches. When the teaching team operates at a higher level than students, they risk overdesigning beyond student readiness. When students are capable of working at a higher level on the scale than teachers, schools miss opportunities to have a greater impact. When teaching teams and students are assessed at higher levels than student work, then at best we have missed opportunities to further challenge students, and at worst, are kidding ourselves about where teachers or students are.

Moving up the Scale

Our efforts are focused on helping teaching teams move up the scale from Level 2 or higher. We help teachers identify, develop and implement opportunities for Community-Engaged Learning Experiences at Levels 3 & 4. We focus on projects that can grow to include multiple schools, so for those teachers just wanting to dip their toes in, we can also offer opportunities to participate in ongoing projects at whatever level is right for them.

Community-Engaged Learning Experiences are central to our approach. It’s not possible to effectively engage at Level 3 as Learning Designers if the work products of students are aimed at isolated projects. It is the work to engage students in higher level projects that provides the opportunity for teaching teams to develop higher level practices.

We help teaching teams identify the goals they have for community-engaged projects, the practices that can support that work, and how to leverage community-engaged projects not just as a learning opportunity for their students, but as a product development exercise in their own right. We support teaching teams in this journey by building in feedback, coaching, and access to expertise to the projects we develop and support.

Curious where your school is? We have a short self-assessment tool here.

Collab Lab 71: Recap & Notes
November 25, 2025

Our November Collab Lab explored how TRUE Skool’s work to to envision and develop a new campus for their programs could be leveraged as an opportunity to engage youth throughout the process and help them build the skills, and relationships useful to pursue careers in architecture, construction, real estate and related professions. Some Background The idea for the Collab Lab was the result of several threads coming together. TRUE Skool has been thinking about new space for their programs, that would get them out of lower level space within The Avenue. While TRUE Skool wants to remain downtown, a location broadly seen as accessible to all in an otherwise highly segregated city, it also wants greater visibility for their programming and the work their students do. In 2023, Wisconsin Chapter of the National Organization of Minority Architects (Wisco NOMA) launched it’s first Project Pipeline Camp — a 3 day design workshop for middle and high school students interested in architecture. The work students did there focused on space planning for TRUE Skool. Wisco NOMA has run Project Pipelines Camps each summer since then, expanding to offer camps in Madison and Milwaukee for each of the last two years, always with the participation of a number of students from TRUE Skool. In parallel, TRUE Skool as continued working with its students to explore what a new campus might look like. This spring, with support from Community Design Solutions (CDS), TRUE Skool students participated in a design challenge to envision what spaces within a new campus might offer. Conversations over the summer with Wisco NOMA and TRUE Skool highlighted how aligned goals could build to a much larger opportunity. Wisco NOMA has wanted to connect students participating in it’s camps to further opportunities during the school year. TRUE Skool wants to see students engaged as active participants in realizing it’s vision of a new campus. Those conversations led to the idea of Future Builders– putting together a network of individuals, organizations, and programs that engage youth in architecture, construction, real estate, and related professions, that could use TRUE Skool’s vision for a new campus as an opportunity for collaboration, that could offer students a connected series of opportunities over an extended period of time. The first effort on this front was the Future Builders Studio, a weekend design camp earlier this month, focused on a new campus for TRUE Skool, in collaboration with Wisco NOMA, leveraging practices and curriculum developed with CDS, and Project Pipeline. It’s a lot of threads coming together, but its simpler to think of it as aligned efforts operating at three different levels: The What: A Future TRUE Skool Campus — TRUE Skool’s new, permanent home The How: TRUE Skool Legacy Project — An overarching, youth-engaged effort to envision, design, and realize TRUE Skool’s future and document its story. The Who: Future Builders Network — Individuals and organizations ready with expertise, programing, or resources to engage young people in real world projects that prepare them for careers in the building professions. Our discussion focused on the how and the who. Discussion We began the discussion with a brainstorming exercise to identify existing programs and resources that touch some aspect of what TRUE Skool might need to take on between conceptual design and opening a new campus. It’s a long list: Understanding the ecosystem BLEST Hub’s Ecosystem Mapping project Exploration of potential operating models Genera8tor Lubar School Bader Institute for Nonprofit Management Existing spaces/organizations that could serve as models/inspiration Coworking spaces Milwaukee Maker Space Reflo Trust for Public Land Discovery World Milwaukee Public Museum First State Black Holocaust Museum Juxtaposition Arts (Minneapolis) Hip Hop Architecture Avis-Elsmere (Detroit) Defining Humanity Data Resources City of Milwaukee Property Data Data You Can Use Architecture & design UWM Community Design Solutions MATC’s Architecture Program MIAD Real estate & local economic development Marquette’s Real Estate Program Downtown Bid ACREs program Northwest Side CDC LISC CARW WCREW NAIOP Mandel Group Construction ACE Mentorship AGC Resources in higher education UWM Center for Student Experience & Talent Experiential Learning Service Learning Marquette Trinity Fellows Youth Engagement City on the Hill Milwaukee Youth Council Journey House Boys & Girls Clubs Mentoring HPGM Mentor Milwaukee Potential Funders Northwestern Mutual Zilber Bader Baird Milwaukee Tool Potawatomi Generac Alliant Energy We Energies Harley Davidson Foundation Key Opportunities From here we moved on to explore the roles partners might play and areas that will be key to advancing the project. As each discussion group shared their thoughts, three things stood out: In order to engage students from conceptual design through construction, TRUE Skool needs a plausible model for how a new campus would be funded. Regardless of the funding model, TRUE Skool would benefit from greater visibility of both its offerings and approach. There are other organizations and facilities within and beyond Milwaukee that could inform the design of spaces within a new campus, potential synergies with other partners who might share space or facilities with True Skool, and/or potential funding models to support development of a new campus. Operating Model While TRUE Skool has a strong vision for what they would like a new campus to offer and represent within the community, pulling together funding to lease, acquire and build out that space will require a plausible operating model for that new space. It is the understanding that the project could come to fruition that allows students to see that they are working on something real. It also provides a greater incentive for those who could support or engage students in aspects of this effort– it allows the work they might do with young people to be cast as supporting something much bigger. Visibility TRUE Skool and its students have been doing some really interesting work in Milwaukee over the past 10 years. Yet even among the people who came for the discussion, many were unfamiliar with everything TRUE Skool has been involved with and how they approach working with young people. TRUE Skool’s desire to get out of the more….

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Collab Lab 70: Recap & Notes
October 18, 2025

Our tenth season of Collab Labs kicked off last week with a session co-hosted with Adriana Vázquez, Director of Education & Public Programs, and Maisie Buntin, Outreach Programs Coordinator for the Milwaukee Public Museum. Every year, the Milwaukee Public Museum hosts its annual BioBlitz, a 24-hour event where scientists survey the biodiversity in a park or natural area. Our session focused on a nagging issue for Adriana and Maisie– BioBlitzes don’t happen during the school year, so the museum misses opportunities to engage school audiences. The Museum is working to adapt this big event into smaller, student-driven “mini-BioBlitzes” to be held at schoolyards, community organizations, and more. The Collab Lab provided an opportunity to explore that idea with educators and potential collaborators. Discussion Our conversation covered how attendees currently engage with students or community on biodiversity or other environmental topics, and what is missing from that engagement, how MPM mini BioBlitzes might play a role in addressing those gaps, and what’s needed to make that work. Over the course of the evening, several broad themes emerged. The need to build hands-on, real-world learning into school culture Getting students excited and connected to the content can be a challenge: Students need to see illustrate real-word relevance to lessons When schools have even just one teacher or admin motivated to provide these hands-on, real-world experiences, students show more interest and excitement Giving students the opportunity to work on something real, present their work and ideas to an authentic audience are key motivators, environmental justice and civic engagement– focus on a local park or site, are useful entry points, particularly for those that aren’t (yet?) “Nature Nerds” How can we do better to “operationalize” this type of learning – turn it from one person’s project into school culture and expectations? Make it easy for teachers to take on the work: cover their time to participate in training provide funding and resources to implement effectively explicitly tie to standards engage community resources to support efforts within K-12 empower older students to support the work of younger peers start with the easiest entry points for teachers and build out from there Scaffolding – build capabilities to participate across grade levels. As examples, for mini-BioBlitz, kindergarteners do a color walk, elementary might look at various stages of categorization (ex. # insects, # plants, # of birds, etc.), up to high school (working with dichotomous keys, doing biodiversity index, etc.) Biodiversity education is largely missing from afterschool/out of school programming. Teens Grow Greens offers a model for how that can be done. Data collection and interpretation is a possible unexplored avenue of BioBlitz engagement Using data from mini-BioBlitzes, at different locations, or from MPM full BioBlitz, Potential alignment with AP exam topics re: data collection and analysis Incorporation of GIS provides could provide additional entry points for exploration Tap expertise who may know of similar projects in other parts of the country Curate and interpret data as an asset within the school Integrating technology into this work Identify apps/tools like iNaturalist that schools might leverage Opportunities for students to create digital tools As focal point for conversations around AI and how teachers are being asked to incorporate teaching about it – this could be an avenue to illustrate appropriate use of AI (ie. for species recognition) Going beyond science Tie in the arts (conveniently, the theme for our March Collab Lab) Representation/social justice/environmental justice, e.g. how is biodiversity/access to biodiverse habitats correlated with socio-economic status? Connect to student identity and background What’s Next We’ll have a chance to explore these topics further in our December and April Collab Labs with The Society for Conservation Biology North America (SCBNA), whose 2026 conference will be in Milwaukee. SCBNA has some upcoming webinars exploring the value of scientific assessments to communities and policy makers. You can find the schedule and registration information here. In November we will take on another project in the works, to explore how TRUE Skool’s planning for a new campus might serve as through line to connect K-12 students to programming, expertise, and experiences over the course of that effort– from planning and design, through site acquisition and construction. Thanks A big thanks to Adriana and Maisie for working with us to pull the session together and facilitate the conversation. Thanks also the MSOE’s STEM Center our host for another season of Collab Labs.Thanks also to Leah Rosenbaum from STEAM Milwaukee who was able to join us for the session. She notes that STEAM Milwaukee has a number of resources in their lending library for teachers who want to dive deeper into environmental explorations. These include sampling nets (not pictured on the website) as well as 8 microscopes and a set of Vernier probes. Leah also mentioned Dear Data, as offering examples of both the simple ways data can be shared (via hand drawn annotated diagrams on postcards) and the range of ways data might be presented to illuminate an area of focus.

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Collab Labs Return for Season 10
September 18, 2025

When we started Learn Deep 10 years ago, we recognized the need to get those with a vision for what education in Milwaukee could look like in the same room– K-12 educators, those working in industry, higher-ed, nonprofits, or government. Not just to flesh out that vision, but to build the relationships that are central to brining that vision to life. Collab Labs give participants a chance to connect across silos, find others who share their passion, and where discover where goals can align to support much richer opportunities for both students and teachers. Our 10th season of Collab Labs begins on Thursday October 9th with #70: Schoolyards as Science Labs, with Adriana Vázquez and Maisie Buntin from the Milwaukee Public Museum as our cohosts. For the 2025-26 season will be back at MSOE’s STEM Center, our home over the past four years. We look forward to another year of lively discussion, new and deepened connections, and the possibilities that arise when inspired educators are able to collaborate with the peers and partners to take on something big.

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Collab Lab 67: Recap & Notes
March 19, 2025

Last week’s Collab Lab served as a follow on from our November’s session on Place Based Engagement. At that session and in follow up conversations, Joe Kaltenberg, MKE Parks Manager with the The City of Milwaukee noted that input from students, residents, property owners, and other stakeholders can offer the department not only a clearer picture of the roles the playgrounds and parks oversee play in those neighborhoods, but also a richer vision of the roles they could play. That prompted us to use Collab Lab 67 to explore how and where K-12 students might engage at different points in the City’s playground redevelopment process as a means to foster community input and engagement in those efforts. During the discussion participants identified three areas where engaging K-12 students could offer a rich experience for students and support key areas of the City’s process — stakeholder mapping, storytelling, and design. Stakeholder Mapping Stakeholder mapping allows the City to understand who uses, cares for, or is concerned with a particular playground or park, and who ought to have input or otherwise be involved as part of the redevelopment process. The work to identify stakeholders, their relation to a playground or park, the issues they see and the goals they have, is an opportunity for K-12 students to gain a much broader perspective on civic engagement. It’s a chance to understand who in a community cares about what happens on a specific site, the reasons behind that and where they may conflict and align with goals others may have. Storytelling For a park or playground to be of the neighborhood in which it sits, the City needs to hear the stories of those who use, care, or are impacted by a park or playground, and what takes place there. Storytelling offers methods to understand where stakeholders are coming from and communicate those hopes, fears, and dreams to a broader audience. Collab Lab participants noted that a storytelling event focused at or on a particular site would allow K-12 students to collect stories from a variety of stakeholders. It would also serve as a way to draw attention to that site as a candidate for redevelopment. Ideation Involving students in the design of a playground or park, where they can see their ideas take shape and have an impact on the community is a wonderful idea. Yet, as Collab Lab participants noted, unless the process were constrained to proposals for the arrangement of pre-selected components, it is unlikely that they would ever see their designs implemented as envisioned, and even in this scenario, be able to recognize their contributions to what was put in place. More importantly, this approach fails to leverage the fact that these are students. We shouldn’t be asking them to act as engineers, we should be asking them to dream, to think outside the box, and challenge the assumptions of engineers. Here the request of students ought to focus on how they or others experience a playground or the features or equipment under consideration. We ought to be asking them what adults involved in the process fail to see or understand about how a park or playground is experienced by those who use it. We need to probe behind suggestions for features that would never be implemented to understand the problem a student sees that an impossible feature solves. Constraints A common set of constraints cuts across all three of these areas for engagement. Central among them is the ability of teachers to effectively engage their students in this work: Finding the time to do so Establishing connections to curriculum standards Synchronizing school calendars with the City’s, particularly when the seasons and weather can further constrain the time students can spend on-site The availability of community partners to support student efforts The ability of teachers to collaborate across classroom or school boundaries for shared success The proximity of parks in the City’s pipeline to teachers and students ready to take on this work The Collab Lab did not provide an opportunity to dive into all of these issues, but we were able to identify a strategy in one area. Most schools, particularly at the middle and high school level draw students from well beyond the neighborhood in which the school sits. Thus, while a park or playground may be near a school, many students will have limited exposure to it or be able to access it outside of school hours. For any of the opportunities noted above, this limits the ability to rely on students themselves as stakeholders, storytellers, or users of their own designs. What we can do is ask students to work at a higher level, to be the mappers of stakeholders, the collectors of stories. We can ask them to be the designers who can communicate what the users of a park or playground that is near their school want from it or hope that it could become. Where do we go from here The work to organize teachers, students, and community stakeholders to participate in the planning process would be a lot for MKE Parks to take on. While useful to have that input, it’s not really something for them to take on. We’re exploring with Joe a different approach– developing a framework that, recognizing the timelines and constraints faced by each of these participants, allows them to work outside of a City managed process while offering their input and results of their work at the most useful points in the process. We plan to spend time between now and the end of the school year to understand what this framework would need to look like to make this work for educators. If you are interested in participating in that process, let us know.

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Collab Lab 66: Recap & Notes
February 21, 2025

Our discussion at February’s Collab Lab focused on engaging families. As we explored goals we have for family engagement we considered: Who we include as “family” in “family engagement” Who family engages with Where/When it happens Who benefits/how While parents, siblings, and caregivers of students are obvious starting points for who to include as family, the discussion quickly broadened to include a much broader group. The extended families of students, individuals and families in the community which surrounds a school, those who may work or own businesses in the community around the school. In no small part, this expansive view family reflects a deeper goal — that the school is not simply a place where students and teachers spend the day, but that it is deeply embedded in the life of the community. This broader approach to engagement changes the way one thinks about who the school and it’s families engage with. It’s not just about caregivers connecting with their student’s teachers. It’s about giving those families a chance to connect with each other, individuals and organizations who support their school, and in particular. It looks to move past one way communication, simple reporting out of what a school thinks families ought to know. It looks to build the relationships and trust that allow disengaged families to engage and for the community to come together not just to support the work of students and their families, but to support each other. It changes as well, where engagement might take place. It moves beyond family coming to school. It’s the school coming out into the community. This expansive view of engagement only works if all participants see benefits, and they see that their contributions to the school community, as students, teachers, family members or neighbors are valued. What do members of the school community need to engage? As we moved the discussion to what’s needed to engage, the word “dignity” came up early. Again, not just dignity for caregivers, but dignity for students, teachers, and members of the broader community who schools do or seek to engage with. For caregivers, this means recognizing both the time, financial, and other constraints and obligations they work face, but that they have something to of value to offer, that they are partners in the education of their child. Often it comes down to the simple things– if we are asking for something more of any of the participants, what burdens can we remove? A time that works for those we want to engage with Providing food at events that may overlap with meal times Helping with transportation Activities for children that may need to come when a caregiver is there for an adult conversation Most importantly, don’t waste someone’s time. This means not asking teachers, caregivers, or members of the broader community to participate in engagement activities they don’t value or benefit from. The process starts with how we invite the engagement. Are we asking for engagement because we see a caregiver or a student as a problem or the one that needs to solve it, or are we asking for engagement to work together for a better outcome. In the end, it comes down to recognizing that members of the broadly defined school community each come with a different set of goals. Effective engagement doesn’t mean that everyone needs to share the same set of goals. It requires that we acknowledge the goals they do have, understand where they align, and find something useful to work on together that allows everyone to come out ahead. It’s how trust is built. A special thanks to our featured guests, Amber DuChateau — Art Teacher at the Milwaukee Academy of Science Aubrey (Ellickson) Fulsaas — Environmental Educator, Schlitz Audubon Nature Center Bernie Traversari — Director of Operations and Programs, Society for Conservation Biology North America & STEM Education Consultant Additional thanks to Bernie for his help facilitating the session. Bernie joined us to record a debrief of the session that you can find on inspirEd. As always, we’re appreciative of MSOE for letting us make use of the NM Lab in the WE Energies STEM Center every month. Up Next Collab Lab 67: Connecting to Community Thursday March 13th, 5:30 to 8:30 pm at MSOE’s STEM Center Actively using some form of PBL with your students and looking for ideas or encouragement from others? Consider joining your peers in the inspirED Community.

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Collab Lab 65: Recap & Notes
January 16, 2025

Capacity Building as an Outreach Strategy The Freshwater Collaborative of Wisconsin’s mission to advance freshwater education and research relies on attracting and developing talented individuals who are passionate about water science. The conventional approach to community outreach is traditionally focused on the delivery of programming — offering experiences or content to K-12 teachers and students through curriculum, site visits, summer camps, or other activities. We worked with the Freshwater Collaborative to use our December Collab to explore a different approach. We view teachers, students, and schools not simply as recipients of programming, but as potential partners that can support and extend the work of Freshwater Collaborative members. This model empowers K-12 schools to become active partners in research and education, creating experiential learning opportunities that benefit both students and researchers. To provide a concrete basis from which to explore this approach to engagement, we framed the discussion around a budding collaboration between Dr. Ashley Lemke, an underwater archeologist working out of UWM’s School of Freshwater Sciences, and Peter Graven, a middle school science and high school robotics teacher from St. Francis. Over the past several years, his students have developed underwater ROV’s of increasing sophistication. The immediate opportunity is to deploy an ROV in service of Dr. Lemke’s research. The bigger vision is to develop additional capabilities at St. Francis and other schools to serve the specific needs of FCW researchers and its partners. Discussion The set-up for our discussion centered on a single faculty member working with an individual teacher on a specific project. What came out of that was a number of insights about how and where those efforts could catalyze opportunities for other K-12 teachers and schools, as well as faculty pursuing other research interests. We split the attendees into four discussion groups, each focused on a different capacity needed to allow a K-12 school, to support research efforts of Dr. Lemke. These included: An ability to engineer, prototype, and test components An ability to collect images, data, water, and sediment samples An ability to provide ongoing monitoring of conditions An ability to document findings, tell, and share a story A fifth set of needed abilities we had not planned to introduce as part of the discussion, was nonetheless covered as part of a broader conversation between discussion groups: An ability to deploy, operate, and maintain an ROV The discussion which followed covered opportunities to directly engage students, the importance of cultivating a sense of wonder, and the importance of soft skills — the ability of students to work effectively as a team to take on any of these challenges. Across the participants we saw interest and excitement around: The types of collaboration that might ensue What K-12 students might gain from the experience What individual participants or organizations might be able to do to support the efforts of Dr. Lemke and Mr. Graven directly, or to support FCW/K-12 collaboration in another area. Given the discussion at the Collab Lab and follow-up conversations we see six areas to build upon to validate and scale the approach we’ve suggested, starting in the spring 2025 semester. Facilitate the work of Dr. Lemke and Mr. Graven Share that story as it evolves Identify opportunities for other schools to support this effort Identify additional opportunities for collaboration Recruit participation from additional K-12 schools Understand and document what has enabled this initial collaboration and a path forward to extend the depth and reach of these efforts Notes From Initial Brainstorming Ability to engineer prototype and test components Teachers need to have a framework/plan to structure students’ learning experiences to develop their design & making skills Teachers need to be able to and actually model failure & Learning so that students know what it looks like and what it produces Students need self awareness & self management skills to monitor and adjust their emotions to persist and create Students need to have practices or skills to stretch their thinking and ideate broadly so their ideas break new ground Students need to be able to sketch/model their ideas so they can discuss and make Students need to have clarity about the connection between the design and real world application so they can test effectively Students need to have multiple experiences of the make-test-revise cycle and feel a sense of accomplishment and to believe there is value in failure Students need to be able to see their efforts and failure as a part of a lifelong learning journey so they persist and learn Students need to be able to let go of their ideas and take an adversarial approach to find flaws so they can go farther faster Students need to develop an appreciation for the discomfort that comes from presenting their ideas, getting, feedback, being wrong, and being uncertain so they remain open to growth All parties deal with failure — playing it safe leads to not enough prototyping Ability to collect images, data, water, and sediment samples Modular construction for multiple purposes — right tool for the tasks Generalized tool vs specific tasks Photography Lighting High quality camera Shutter speed Video vs photos Coring Water Samples Sterility, DNA, Grabber hand for artifacts Mapping Endless types of data (interdisciplinarity) to collect. Explore & let the science happen– don’t lock yourself in too soon Underwater mechanics important to take into account Streamlined Multi-perspective balanced/shifting balance Transform something that works on land to something that works underwater Research & Art Videography – stabilization of film (See film all too clear film) Need to know where you are explore/make questions Underwater special challenges Design thinking Project management Give up control Deal with failure Visual thinking Resilience Ability to provide ongoing monitoring A Reason Why Creativity – draw from other disciplines Story purpose Community Contributing (leads to story) Reasons to do it in a certain way — e.g. being scientific Model scenarios for winter tests simulations Drill through pond ice (winter strategy to get out on smaller lakes) Big challenge is precise location Get practice in an accessible more….

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