S ince the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic Yong Zhao and his partners have been doing a YouTube Live! show every Saturday called Silver Linings for Learning. These are fantastic conversations about reimagining “school” as a silver lining outcome of this crisis. In Episode 15, which featured students from Sydney, Beijing and Hawaiʻi, Ivanni Jamin, a recent graduate of Hawaiʻi Preparatory Academy , talked about her green sea turtle capstone project, guided by capstone coordinator, Aaron Schorn . If you are interested in what school could be and student voice, this episode is for you! 

M id-Pacific Institute's Kupu Hou Academy offers a series of workshops in Deeper Learning practices, because of the wealth of data demonstrating that learning is more engaging and lasting with a Deeper Learning approach. In public, private and charter schools with Deeper Learning cultures, teachers experience higher job satisfaction and create powerful school communities. Deeper Learning principles strengthen both how teachers teach (pedagogy) and how they gauge learning (assessment).

T his year the Schools of the Future Conference executed an amazing virtual pivot. The show goes on despite Covid-19! And, HAIS has teamed up with our What School Could Be in Hawaiʻi podcast to create a "track” within the conference’s program. Attendees may “follow the track” and attend informative, deeper learning talk story sessions over two conference days with eight guests from Season 1 of our show. Thank you, Deanna D’Olier at the Hawaiʻi Association of Independent Schools, for this partnership!

I am super stoked to be partnering with EntreEd Talk, a national podcast that features educators committed to entrepreneurship in education. My role is to create a “Hawaiʻi pipeline” of remarkable, innovative and creative educators and community members who are elevating project-based, problem-based, challenge-based, product-based, personalized, individualized, inquiry-based teaching and learning. EntreEd Talk hosts, Toi Hershman and Laura McCall interview our Hawaiʻi educators and elevate their stories to the world! 

O n March 18th more than 70 faculty members at Ewa Beach Elementary, and their principal, the awesome Shayne Greenland, heard from Ted Dintersmith about how he wrote his book, What School Could Be , a crazy 90-minute Zoom call. Huge thanks to Ted for providing copies to all faculty and staff at this West Oahu school! Please help Shayne and his faculty become #1 on the most followed DOE school list on Twitter!