AFCOST Training 2018-19

The Design Lab provides an opportunity for communities to collaborate on bold ideas that make a difference in the lives of students. By using design thinking matched with an entrepreneurial mindset, we collectively transform ideas into solutions. The lab serves as a new model for the way we impact learning by focusing on student-centered innovation and cross-city collaboration. Educators want to create solutions to existing challenges. The Design Lab validates educators’ insights and provides a means for educators to experiment with transformative educational design. It creates the conditions for shared power, highlights teachers as innovators, and creates a mechanism for on-going innovation. The Design Lab capitalizes on educators’ experiences, expertise, and passions by changing the way in which problems are identified and addressed. By implementing design thinking, we foster partnerships and create solutions together. This mindset translates insights into novel ways of teaching and learning. Participants commit to regular meetings as a Design Team and are coached on their ideas. The Design Lab guides participants through an iterative process that involves gathering information, developing possibilities and evolving them into viable solutions. We learn together, from each other, and though our new insights.  (Registering in groups of 2-3 is preferred, but not required.)