Francis W. Parker School TIDES Teacher Facilitator Program
CHALLENGE
How might we equip a cohort of faculty facilitators to empower their peers through design thinking and problem solving skills?
PROJECT
After a collaboration at SXSWedu and connection through TheThirdTeacher+, innovation director Marty Moran invited me to help launch the TIDES teacher facilitator program (learn more below). I called on design strategist and friend, Maris Garcia, to join as a co-facilitator. Over the summer and fall, we worked with a group of 12 teachers across campus to train them in design thinking mindsets and facilitation methods, collaborate in an online forum, provide a personalized reading packet and design workbook, and set priorities for the coming year. Throughout our 3-day kickoff, TIDES teacher facilitators identified key pilot projects to launch in 2014-2015 including:
SOCIAL IMPACT DESIGN EXHIBIT + PROGRAMMING • FACULTY-WIDE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT DAY • TEACHER TO TEACHER CONSULTANCY • FACULTY PROBLEMS-SOLVING AROUND SCHEDULE REDESIGN • INDIVIDUAL TIDES TEACHER EXPERIMENTS
“[Thank you for] being our guides through all this. It was great to be around two people who knew just what questions to ask and exactly how to push us towards insight. You guys are tremendous teachers.”
ROLE + COMPETENCIES:
ENGAGEMENT LEAD• RESEARCH + STRATEGY + SYNTHESIS • WORKSHOP DESIGN + FACILITATION • ONGOING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT + COACHING + CONSULTATION
“TIDES incorporates the elements of technology and design thinking into Parker’s existing program. Creativity, innovation and entrepreneurial attitudes must become engrained in our students’ learning process. To date, an anonymous founding family has committed $2M in seed funds to kick off this transformational initiative.
An endowed fund for TIDES establishes a permanent and sustainable place within our program for a truly innovative and adaptive curriculum as well as inspired faculty leadership, and resources required to reinvent physical spaces within Parker.”
Teammates included Maris Garcia. Special thanks to George Aye of Greater Good Studio and PJ Macklin of gravitytank for speaking at our kickoff salon. Additional thanks to gravitytank for lending their space for a workshop and tour.