This September, leaders from seven school districts and one local nonprofit embarked on a professional learning experience to address challenges they face in supporting students.
Through two professional development options – one 25-hour virtual course and one 50-hour in-person course – school and nonprofit leaders identify challenges and work with stakeholders in their own communities to move forward in addressing specific needs with a human-centered lens.
Participants in both courses quickly identified connections between the design tools and the human-centered challenges they were actively working through prior to joining their cohorts. Multiple principals are exploring solutions for student achievement challenges in math and English language arts. Two participants from a local education nonprofit are looking at ways to include students and board members in new ways as part of their fundraising efforts.
With Session 1 behind them, where they’ve focused on identifying a challenge and the related stakeholders, participants will take time between sessions to go back and find quantitative data to support their understanding and work with colleagues to refine their understanding of the challenge. In future sessions, participants look to use new strategies to engage stakeholders in developing understanding, brainstorming, prioritizing, and gathering feedback to develop more collaborative solutions that align with the needs of their communities.
Both the 25-hour and 50-hour courses follow a similar arc, but vary in breadth and depth of knowledge; the extent of practice and coaching; and opportunities for learning among participants.
