AN ATOMIC METAPHOR FOR ENVISIONING ACCELERATED IMPACT
A HUMAN-CENTERED
SYSTEMS APPROACH
NEUTRONS
Think of EVERY learner as a NEUTRON. They come to our learning environments with the widest set of potential. While they are not a blank canvas, they are the essential building blocks of our education systems, just like the neutrons are essential components of an atom. The learners have a unique perspective and contribute their curiosities, passions, and enthusiasm to every classroom environment and learning experience.
PROTONS
Educators, like protons, are positively charged with the responsibility of guiding, instructing, and leading their students. They provide direction and instruction, much like how protons provide the atomic nucleus with a positive charge. Together, teachers and learners connect to form the nucleus of every education system.
ELECTRONS
Every design, operational, financial, and technological partner, should focus like electrons, seamlessly orbiting around our teaching and learning nucleus, supporting and guiding the learning experience. It is critical for these systems and their interactions, while in constant motion, to remain aligned and interconnected, providing the structure for what is taught and learned.
WITH CAREFULLY ORCHESTRATED, FULLY INTEGRATED SYSTEMS,
WE CAN MAXIMIZE
OPPORTUNITIES FOR POSITIVE CHANGE
CASE STUDY: LEADING THROUGH MOMENTS OF OPPORTUNITY AND MOMENT OF FRICTION
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION
THINK TANK
The AAIE Global Think Tank brought together a diverse group of international school leaders, systems thinkers, and educators for a transformative, in-person experience centered around future-oriented leadership. Through a carefully designed process grounded in human-centered principles, participants engaged in courageous conversations, shared bold questions, and co-constructed solutions aimed at reimagining education. This photo captures a reflective moment of deep dialogue, illustrating the collaborative spirit and collective wisdom that emerged as attendees navigated uncertainty together and committed to shaping more just, adaptive, and student-centered learning ecosystems.
CLIENTS
BRINGING TOGETHER A WORLD-CLASS TEAM OF EDUCATION THOUGHT LEADERS TO DELIVER EXTRAORDINARY RESULTS FOR OUR CLIENT PARTNERS...
REPURPOSE AND REVITALIZE
Veritas Preparatory Academy, a founding member of the prestigious Great Hearts Academies, serves 6th-12th grade students by providing the finest liberal arts education possible for families in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Offering a challenging yet rewarding curriculum focused on the development of deep appreciation for the true, the good, and the beautiful. Embodying those values in design, the Veritas facility was born through the renovation of a vacant Motorolla Adminstrative Building. While adaptive reuse projects require careful site selection and attention to due diligence, the potential benefits to both communities and school systems are substantial. A revitalized ghost box can spur tangible impacts on community development, reduce landfill impacts, reduce sprawl, preserve greenfield sites, and promote recycling on a large scale. And the Intangible For schools, adaptive reuse of these buildings may offer significant time savings in providing much-needed school facilities, and generate opportunities for innovative design, state-of-the-art educational facilities, and inspiring spaces in which to teach and learn.
MOTOROLLA CONVERSION
SPOTLIGHT: INNOVATION FOR NEXT LEVEL LEARNING
THINK TANK 2.0
GRADED: THE AMERICAN SCHOOL OF SAO PAULO
Sao Paulo Brazil, Spring 2024
SPOTLIGHT: TEACHER APPRENTICESHIP
A LARGE SUBURBAN SHOOL DISTRICT
ASPIRING EDUCATOR PATHWAY
The district's Aspiring Educator Pathway aims to disrupt traditional teacher preparation programs with a transformative approach to the development of educators through a primary focus on classroom experience. Through creative public private partnerships, this innovative, competency-based program aims to provide a solution to the national challenges of teacher recruitment, retention and longevity.
Through a paid professional apprenticeship, the Aspiring Educator Pathway is grounded in the strengths of hands-on experiences and research-driven professional practice.
These aspiring educators have a spiraled set of experiences that include 5,000+ hours partnered with a mentor teacher, an embedded, best-in-class professional learning curriculum, and a customized set of higher education courses.
Successful completion of this four-year program will culminate in a Colorado teacher license, a university bachelor's degree, and a full-time teaching position in the school district.
SPOTLIGHT: A CULTURE OF COLLABORATION
Teachers are essential to achieving Cherry Creek Schools’ vision and mission. The Aspiring Educator Pathway Program is an innovative approach to developing the most effective, passionate, collaborative teachers who will create the most impactful and personalized learning experiences for each of their 53,000 students. Under the authority granted by Colorado State Senate Bill 23-087 and in partnership with The Colorado Department of Education, The Colorado Department of Labor, and The Community College of Aurora, Cherry Creek has pioneered a new model for teacher prpartion and support.
Cherry Creek Aspiring Educator Pathway
SPOTLIGHT: TEACHING AND LEARNING INTEGRATION
Avenues World Elements (AWE) was developed to showcase the unique global perspective of Avenues and define the global intended curriculum for graduating students across the globe. AWE captures the essential and enduring outcomes for graduates of Avenues. For example, the first Avenues World Element is empathy: the ability to recognize, understand and experience the feelings of others. Empathy is often considered a building block of morality. Empathy may have limits on its own, but when combined with other elements like persistence, beliefs and ethics, the result can direct moral action. Empathy can also be combined with creativity, design and entrepreneurship to lead to solving problems in a more user-centered manner. In these ways, curricular elements combine to form a wide variety of programmatic molecules within Avenues’ curriculum, which form the very building blocks of the thought and behavior of an Avenues student.
The World Elements
Avenues The World School
