As this remarkable year of disruption in education reaches its final quarter, the importance of cooperation and collaboration has never been more clear. In education, we know that lasting change relies on the strength of relationships between families, educators, institutions, and learners. The learning ecosystems formed by these relationships are the bedrock of children’s development and preparedness for the future.
HundrED, in partnership with Remake Learning and The Grable Foundation, has just released a new report, Learning Forerunners Across America. The report identifies and highlights 16 innovations that power the most promising learning ecosystems throughout the United States.
This Forerunner report builds upon the success of our previous partnership, which began in 2019 with the release of the Spotlight on Pittsburgh. The Learning Forerunners Across America report expands the ambition and scope of the previous Spotlight by focusing on system-level best practices that foster innovation at scale.
The release of this comprehensive report coincides with the national launch of Remake Learning Days Across America, a yearlong festival that kicks off today, October 13. First launched in Pittsburgh in 2016, Remake Learning Days has since drawn international renown and taken root across the United States. This year, cities and regions from coast to coast will collectively host thousands of virtual (and, when safe, in-person) events designed to give families a firsthand look at the future of teaching and learning.
The Learning Forerunners Across America report highlights one innovation from each of the festival’s 16 regional hosts. The goal, says Chris Petrie, Head of Research at HundrED, is that the innovations featured in the report “will not only invigorate but galvanize action, inspiring others to adopt and adapt these innovations in their own contexts. We envision that learning in this way will help further our mission at HundrED to help every child flourish in life, no matter what happens.”
Each innovation included in the report has been evaluated based on effectiveness and replicability. Each innovation has been implemented across at least 10 schools or organizations for a period of one year or longer, and each has shown to be beneficial. Each innovation also has a contact person who can advise others who are interested in adopting these innovations in cities and countries around the world.
By partnering to produce the Learning Forerunners Across America report, HundrED, The Grable Foundation, and Remake Learning hope to help set the stage for a global ecosystem: one in which innovators worldwide can learn from one another, share promising practices, and ensure that every child has access to the nurturing relationships and material support required to thrive in the modern world.
“There may not be another moment in our lifetimes when educators are thinking as boldly about what education and learning might be than right now,”
says Gregg Behr, Executive Director of The Grable Foundation and Co-chair of Remake Learning. “We should embrace these innovations as signals about what’s possible. And if we introduce these possibilities to parents and communities, and if we genuinely invite families to learn alongside students and educators, then we just might actually remake learning for years to come. That’s what is so electrifying about what’s happening now.”
Cities and regions celebrated in the report include:
- Wisconsin: LRNG: Badgerland
- Central Pennsylvania: Connecting STEM research and practices to K-12 environments
- Chattanooga: Teacherpreneur
- Chicago: From conventional learning to connected learning
- D.C.-Maryland-Virginia: Promoting civic agency in the early years
- Eastern Kentucky: Re-envisioning community spaces
- Greater Cincinnati: Leveraging strategic foresight to guide today’s education systems
- Kansas City: KC STEM Alliance’s Senior Capstone Innovation Experience
- Knoxville: Building a path between “high school” and “hired”
- Northeast Ohio: Empowering students to design active learning experiences
- Southwestern Pennsylvania: The Fred Method
- San Diego: Pactful
- Southeastern Pennsylvania: Building environmental literacy through nature-based STEM learning
- North Carolina’s Research Triangle: Bringing real science into the classroom
- West Virginia: Simulated Workplace
- Oregon: STEM Hubs
You can find more information about each of these innovations and the HundrED Learning Across America Forerunners at https://hundred.org/en/collections/learning-across-america
