What Students Want Andreas Marinopoulos

Our guest today is  Dr. Brenton White. Dr. White is the Superintendent/ CEO of A+ Charter Schools, INC. He has more than 23 years of experience in education, serving the last five years as a superintendent. 

In this episode, Dr. White discusses the challenges of being a leader, the importance of education for underserved communities, how competition improves school performance and gives insight into teacher shortages.

Quotes:


“When people say, “Oh, you can't color trees purple.” the ones that persist continue to be artists. The others acclimate to the norm.”

“I think any leader must jump in and do what's needed to make things happen.”

“We have a lot of students who graduate and become teachers. And in fact, we have five teachers right now who were students.”

“Retention has a lot to do with culture and so we're trying to create the best culture possible.”
Where to learn more about Dr. White:


LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brenton-white-ed-d-148b953b/A+ Charter Schools: https://www.apluscharterschools.org/301143_2
Where to learn more about Enrollhand:

Our website: www.enrollhand.com

Summary:
Our guest today is Brian Tobal. Brian used to be a teacher at the Harlem Children's Zone, then worked as a researcher, and then he spent the last few years building lots of educational software, and curriculum for schools, universities and businesses. Now, Brian has started SchoolHouse with his co-founder, to have parents get together and create microschools or learning pods in their own homes or in flexible spaces.In this episode, Brian and I discuss what it takes for an educational program to find product-market fit. This means that the students are happy and engaged, they are succesfull in their learning goals, and the experience is amazing for everyone involved, so that they all keep coming back for more.Listen and take note of how to find this magical fit in any learning experience you create.

In our discussion, we cover:
06:38 - "The founding principle is that the teacher's attention is the most valuable piece in the educational brew or ecosystem. If you really want to have a high quality educational experience, you'd increase the amount of teacher attention that each child is receiving."09:21 - "The bet was that we could take outstanding teachers and give them high autonomy, and it would produce better educational outcomes. And that turns out to be true."13:45 - "You're abstracting away whatever's unnecessary, you're matching the right teacher (with the right philosophy and experience) with the family and what they're looking for. And then a group is formed around that. So it's a bit like product-teacher-market fit. Market being the family. You're basically making sure that the right teacher and the right family are interacting ."23:04 - "The most interesting thing to me is that when we removed all the prescriptive schedules and cells and bells, (I can't remember who said that, but I thought it was a good phrase), they move faster. That's interesting. Let's push on that. Let's use that."27:37 - "Maybe the way of thinking about it: If you have an assembly line, attention doesn't matter. If you're a sculptor, attention is everything. And our teachers aren't on an assembly line anymore. They're working with the marble in front of them."Here are some resources mentioned in our discussion:
Can a School Have Product-Market Fit? by Brian TobalWhat is the Orton-Gillingham Approach?Bloom's 2 sigma problemLive Q&A with SchoolHouse CEO Brian TobalWhere to learn more about Brian:
Twitter - https://twitter.com/briantobalLinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-tobal-a4946911Website - https://www.getschoolhouse.com/Email - brian@getschoolhouse.comWhere to learn more about Enrollhand: 
Website - www.enrollhand.comWebinar - https://webinar-replay.enrollhand.comOur free Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/schoolgrowth/

Our guest today is Kelly from Galileo XP. Kelly and her co-founder Vlad redesigned school from scratch. Galileo a global online school soon to have access to physical spaces as well. 
Listen and take note of how Kelly and the Galileo team transitions students into self-directed learning, inject learning experiences with passion and provide a 10-star experience for everyone that joins.

Quotes:
9:35 - We have students as young as eight and even some seven year olds that are actually facilitating this meeting and asking their peers. "Can you show me your schedule? What did you do yesterday? How is that science project?" And yeah. They can have this conversation together.21:14 - A lot of online schools imagine "Oh, they can learn all the courses. It's all in asynchronous, it's self directed. You can do it by yourself", but if I want to learn something and really see progress, I need to be accountable to someone. Even for adults, they have these quiet focus groups where you can go and learn things and take breaks together. Putting this in for children as well and helping them. They're already meeting on zoom outside of their class time. So getting that peer to peer learning there.22:00 - We see it as a human-centered operating system. We have all of the resources within and then the educators are there to help bring this collaboration together. We need to negotiate, we need to connect and we need to work on projects together. How can students be prepared to go out in the world if they're in the same class with the same age group from K-12? Giving them different opportunities, different cultures, a lot of exchanges happening between ideas and across the world.31:20 - Everything we do is still an experiment. So whether or not the students are responding well to it, benefiting from it, learning from it, we're here for the students, listening to them, getting their input, also with the parents, and making sure that they are the focus of the growth here. 33:15 - We have a delight team. Every family that joins is assigned a delight officer and this person will see them in the transition period. So making sure that all their questions are asked, they have a point of contact. We know it takes more than one adult to help them there, making sure that this is a 10 star experience for everyone that joined.

Here are some resources mentioned in our discussion:The Galileo Daily Checkin https://galileoxp.com/check-inGalileo parent interviews https://galileoxp.com/parentsInside the Kernel podcast https://player.fm/series/inside-the-kernel-by-galileoFree Self-Directed Learning Course and Learning Network https://app.galileoxp.com/signupWhere to learn more about Kelly:Twitter - https://twitter.com/kelly_edtech?lang=enWebsite - https://galileoxp.com/Where to learn more about Enrollhand: Website - www.enrollhand.comWebinar - https://webinar-replay.enrollhand.comOur free Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/schoolgrowth/

Summary
Our guest today is Ryan Delk, the co-founder and CEO at Primer. Ryan spent the last decade building tech companies at Square, Gumroad and Omni. He has now co-founded Primer to free the next generation of kids to be more ambitious, more creative, and to think for themselves, starting with homeschool.In this episode, we discuss Ryan's ambitious plans for the future of Primer, how parents are equally important to kids in the learning equation, why observing the "user-experience" is so important, why not stratifying by age creates some sort of magic and much more.Listen and take note of how Primer creates ambitious, global communities of learners based first and foremost on children's interests.Where to learn more about Primer:
Twitter - https://twitter.com/withprimerWebsite - https://withprimer.comTeam - https://withprimer.com/teamWhere to learn more about Enrollhand:
Website: www.enrollhand.com
Our webinar: https://webinar-replay.enrollhand.com

Summary
Our guest today is Victoria Ransom, the CEO at Prisma. Victoria is a serial entrepreneur from New Zealand, having sold her last company to Google and is currently living in the U S with her partner and co-founder Alain Chuard. We are going to talk about their newest venture Prisma, a full-time virtual program (with a physical component) for middle school learners. Prisma is a full-stack connected learning network that is rethinking school from first principles.
Listen and take note of what happens when you combine a stellar team, great technology and a state-of-the-art, progressive learning framework.
In our discussion, we cover:
Many education leaders integrate peer learning, but at Prisma they have thought deeply about how learning from & teaching another child is so beneficial.
Victoria seems an inflection point before middle school, where kids start racing after grades and tests. Prisma catches them before middle school starts to keep and kindle their sense of wonder.
A coach appears as the governor of Wisconsin, a task force is put on a major water problem. Is it a classroom or a Hollywood set? Kids get clues and reports. Curiosity and motivation kick in. They launch a PR campaign, a budget...oh, and hit all their learning goals as well.
Teachers still do so much grunt work, so much waste, so much multitasking that takes their focus off the learners. Prisma is using technology and learning science to strip away the noise and let their coaches focus on delivering a pure, seamless learning experience.
Zoom doesn't cut it for the kiddos. Victoria is bursting with ideas, both for sync & async learning that enrich and gamify the learning experience. One example: Expressing support in a virtual setting
Here are some resources mentioned in our discussion:
The concept of Hard Fun by Seymour Papert - http://www.papert.org/articles/HardFun.htmlPrisma's Learning Framework - https://www.joinprisma.com/frameworkPrisma LIVE - https://www.joinprisma.com/prisma-liveWhere to learn more about the guest:
Prisma's Twitter account - https://twitter.com/joinprismaVictoria's Twitter account - https://twitter.com/victoria_ransomAlain's Twitter account - https://twitter.com/AlainChuardWebsite - https://www.joinprisma.comWhere to learn more about Enrollhand:
Website: www.enrollhand.com
Our webinar: https://webinar-replay.enrollhand.com

Our guest today is Felix Ohswald. He is the CEO of GoStudent, an online tutoring company that just raised 70 million euros and is growing like a rocketship in Europe. In this episode, we talk about the origin story of GoStudent, Felix's views on what makes a learning experience successful, his tips on operating a growing educational institutions, and his regional and global plans to consolidate the fragmented tutoring market.


05:24 - Felix and his team made a hard turn from a model that was very engaging for students but not financially viable to a business model that is both profitable and creates excellent learning outcomes.09:26 -  GoStudent is moving fast to be the first in Europe. A first-mover advantage is a key stragegy for them.11:25 - Educating prospects in a consultative sale process is becoming more important. Talking to prospects, Felix saw that they were not really understanding the offer and even what solution they want to experience.15:24 - You can think of managing students in a lifecycle like customers. They come asking for one thing, then you solve it and move to the next thing. Competency based or mastery based learning is the epitomy of a student lifecycle.27:52 - At the end of the day, convenience and the best products will always win. When you have this extreme focus on these things, you can, you can make it everywhere. And that's, that's where we focus on.33:48 - Analytics and metrics can inform the success of a learning experience significantly. Looking at KPIs, you find insights, you find bright spots and can double down on them.

Wheree to learn more about GoStudent:Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/company/gostudent-gmbhWebsite - https://www.gostudent.org/enArticle - https://medium.com/emerge-edtech-insights/idea-to-series-a-gostudent-65068968b68dWhere to learn more about Enrollhand: Website - www.enrollhand.comWebinar - https://webinar-replay.enrollhand.comOur free Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/schoolgrowth/