Beyond NTLB
NTLB alumni
“First... my position at Rocketship is Manager of Leadership Development, which means I'm working on
setting up a pipeline of future leaders within our organization. I work on recruiting, selecting, supporting,
training, and evaluating people from within the organization to become deans and principals as Rocketship
scales up (which as you know, we're working to do in a BIG way). My very interest in both this type of
work (thinking creatively about human capital in education) and this organization (Rocketship) both come
directly from our class last spring, which should speak volumes about how valuable I found our class!
In terms of specific things I recall from our class that feel relevant in my work, a few things come to
mind. Design thinking, and particularly considering the "user" is something I've thought about a number
of times. It might seem obvious, but considering the implications of a new program or process or tool on
one individual as opposed to users in general has been helpful. (I'm not sure I'm remembering this
correctly, but I recall doing it for some of our projects and whether it's design thinking or not, it stuck!)
Most importantly though, what I took away from our class was a lot of inspiration from our guests whose
commitment to educational reform though courageous and innovative thought impacted me
deeply. Education - and particularly education systems for our nation's poorest kids - is so ripe for
innovation, and our class really reinforced this for me. I loved that our class showed me real places doing
totally new things...and that I got to be playful and bold and pitch ideas that were refreshingly different
from so many of the practices I've seen in schools around the country. I especially latched on to the idea
of innovation in human capital - how we find, support, and develop excellent teachers and school leaders
for all children. I was interested in this topic before our class, but the class made me realize there's so
much space to innovate on this...from how we structure teacher work days to how we train teachers to
how the career looks for veteran teachers to how we share lesson plans to how we provide development
opportunities for teachers and school leaders.” Meg Robinson-Li
NTLB alumni
Senior research analyst education SRI
•
“On a recent project, our team was a bit stuck and short on ways to organize our
thoughts. I proposed that we do a group brainstorm, d.school style (no bad ideas;
writing on post-its, etc. and organizing thoughts on a board into a rough prototype
of our deliverable). The team (mostly academics) definitely wasn't too crazy about
it at first, but once it got going, we all got into it. We used the post-it-covered wall
as an orienting map for the rest of the project, and it stayed up for a
while. Afterwards, one of my colleagues told me that she had been converted
from a skeptic into a believer :)
•
On a different project, I had proposed creating a database to organize our data
collection and analysis process. The design considerations were a bit complex and I
was getting the sense that a rapid prototype would be helpful, so I made a quick
mock-up of how it would work and brought it to a meeting. The prototype allowed
the team to better understand what I was proposing and to provide constructive
feedback on the design.” - Gabe Novais
Pursuing your idea
• Network, network, network – talk about your
idea, get feedback, meet people doing the
work
• Map out the market– understand the
landscape, who are the players, who are the
customers, where are the gaps
• Build a prototype – make it public and begin
the feedback cycle
Resources
Education Incubator:
www.StartL.org –
Design Boost – 5 day bootcamp to prototype digital learning products
Accelerator – 3 month residency/immersion into design methods and business practices for early stage
learning enterprises
FUNDING:
Nonprofits
• Venture Philanthropies: NewSchools Venture Fund, Charter School Growth Fund, Venture
Philanthropy Partners
• Foundations: Draper Richards Foundation, Tipping Point/Robin Hood Foundation, local foundations
• Fellowships: Ashoka, Echoing Green, Mindtrust
For-profits
• Venture Philanthropy
• Social Investors: Noyce, Kellog, Stupski, Goldman Sachs, Omidyar
• VC seed funding/Angel investors: First Round Capital, Sandhill Angels, Maveron
Keep in touch – we would love to hear from you!
• D.school K12 Lab newsletter
• Email:
jcarolan@newschools.org
sgoldman@stanford.edu
rich.crandall@gmail.com
adam.royalty@gmail.com