What Students Want

Summary

Our guest today is Victoria Ransom, the CEO at Prisma. Victoria is a serial entrepreneur from New Zealand, having sold her last company to Google and is currently living in the U S with her partner and co-founder Alain Chuard. We are going to talk about their newest venture Prisma, a full-time virtual program (with a physical component) for middle school learners. Prisma is a full-stack connected learning network that is rethinking school from first principles.

Listen and take note of what happens when you combine a stellar team, great technology and a state-of-the-art, progressive learning framework.

In our discussion, we cover:

Many education leaders integrate peer learning, but at Prisma they have thought deeply about how learning from & teaching another child is so beneficial.

Victoria seems an inflection point before middle school, where kids start racing after grades and tests. Prisma catches them before middle school starts to keep and kindle their sense of wonder.

A coach appears as the governor of Wisconsin, a task force is put on a major water problem. Is it a classroom or a Hollywood set? Kids get clues and reports. Curiosity and motivation kick in. They launch a PR campaign, a budget...oh, and hit all their learning goals as well.

Teachers still do so much grunt work, so much waste, so much multitasking that takes their focus off the learners. Prisma is using technology and learning science to strip away the noise and let their coaches focus on delivering a pure, seamless learning experience.

Zoom doesn't cut it for the kiddos. Victoria is bursting with ideas, both for sync & async learning that enrich and gamify the learning experience. One example: Expressing support in a virtual setting

Here are some resources mentioned in our discussion:

• The concept of Hard Fun by Seymour Papert - http://www.papert.org/articles/HardFun.html
• Prisma's Learning Framework - https://www.joinprisma.com/framework
• Prisma LIVE - https://www.joinprisma.com/prisma-live

Where to learn more about the guest:

• Prisma's Twitter account - https://twitter.com/joinprisma
• Victoria's Twitter account - https://twitter.com/victoria_ransom
• Alain's Twitter account - https://twitter.com/AlainChuard
• Website - https://www.joinprisma.com

Where to learn more about Enrollhand:

Website: www.enrollhand.com

Our webinar: https://webinar-replay.enrollhand.com

Summary

Our guest today is Victoria Ransom, the CEO at Prisma. Victoria is a serial entrepreneur from New Zealand, having sold her last company to Google and is currently living in the U S with her partner and co-founder Alain Chuard. We are going to talk about their newest venture Prisma, a full-time virtual program (with a physical component) for middle school learners. Prisma is a full-stack connected learning network that is rethinking school from first principles.

Listen and take note of what happens when you combine a stellar team, great technology and a state-of-the-art, progressive learning framework.

In our discussion, we cover:

Many education leaders integrate peer learning, but at Prisma they have thought deeply about how learning from & teaching another child is so beneficial.

Victoria seems an inflection point before middle school, where kids start racing after grades and tests. Prisma catches them before middle school starts to keep and kindle their sense of wonder.

A coach appears as the governor of Wisconsin, a task force is put on a major water problem. Is it a classroom or a Hollywood set? Kids get clues and reports. Curiosity and motivation kick in. They launch a PR campaign, a budget...oh, and hit all their learning goals as well.

Teachers still do so much grunt work, so much waste, so much multitasking that takes their focus off the learners. Prisma is using technology and learning science to strip away the noise and let their coaches focus on delivering a pure, seamless learning experience.

Zoom doesn't cut it for the kiddos. Victoria is bursting with ideas, both for sync & async learning that enrich and gamify the learning experience. One example: Expressing support in a virtual setting

Here are some resources mentioned in our discussion:

• The concept of Hard Fun by Seymour Papert - http://www.papert.org/articles/HardFun.html
• Prisma's Learning Framework - https://www.joinprisma.com/framework
• Prisma LIVE - https://www.joinprisma.com/prisma-live

Where to learn more about the guest:

• Prisma's Twitter account - https://twitter.com/joinprisma
• Victoria's Twitter account - https://twitter.com/victoria_ransom
• Alain's Twitter account - https://twitter.com/AlainChuard
• Website - https://www.joinprisma.com

Where to learn more about Enrollhand:

Website: www.enrollhand.com

Our webinar: https://webinar-replay.enrollhand.com

Summary

• Our guest today is Ryan Delk, the co-founder and CEO at Primer. Ryan spent the last decade building tech companies at Square, Gumroad and Omni. He has now co-founded Primer to free the next generation of kids to be more ambitious, more creative, and to think for themselves, starting with homeschool.
• In this episode, we discuss Ryan's ambitious plans for the future of Primer, how parents are equally important to kids in the learning equation, why observing the "user-experience" is so important, why not stratifying by age creates some sort of magic and much more.
• Listen and take note of how Primer creates ambitious, global communities of learners based first and foremost on children's interests.

Where to learn more about Primer:

• Twitter - https://twitter.com/withprimer
• Website - https://withprimer.com
• Team - https://withprimer.com/team

Where to learn more about Enrollhand:

Website: www.enrollhand.com

Our webinar: https://webinar-replay.enrollhand.com

Summary

• Our guest today is Ryan Delk, the co-founder and CEO at Primer. Ryan spent the last decade building tech companies at Square, Gumroad and Omni. He has now co-founded Primer to free the next generation of kids to be more ambitious, more creative, and to think for themselves, starting with homeschool.
• In this episode, we discuss Ryan's ambitious plans for the future of Primer, how parents are equally important to kids in the learning equation, why observing the "user-experience" is so important, why not stratifying by age creates some sort of magic and much more.
• Listen and take note of how Primer creates ambitious, global communities of learners based first and foremost on children's interests.

Where to learn more about Primer:

• Twitter - https://twitter.com/withprimer
• Website - https://withprimer.com
• Team - https://withprimer.com/team

Where to learn more about Enrollhand:

Website: www.enrollhand.com

Our webinar: https://webinar-replay.enrollhand.com

Our guest today is Kelly from Galileo XP. Kelly and her co-founder Vlad redesigned school from scratch. Galileo a global online school soon to have access to physical spaces as well. 
Listen and take note of how Kelly and the Galileo team transitions students into self-directed learning, inject learning experiences with passion and provide a 10-star experience for everyone that joins.

Quotes:

• 9:35 - We have students as young as eight and even some seven year olds that are actually facilitating this meeting and asking their peers. "Can you show me your schedule? What did you do yesterday? How is that science project?" And yeah. They can have this conversation together.
• 21:14 - A lot of online schools imagine "Oh, they can learn all the courses. It's all in asynchronous, it's self directed. You can do it by yourself", but if I want to learn something and really see progress, I need to be accountable to someone. Even for adults, they have these quiet focus groups where you can go and learn things and take breaks together. Putting this in for children as well and helping them. They're already meeting on zoom outside of their class time. So getting that peer to peer learning there.
• 22:00 - We see it as a human-centered operating system. We have all of the resources within and then the educators are there to help bring this collaboration together. We need to negotiate, we need to connect and we need to work on projects together. How can students be prepared to go out in the world if they're in the same class with the same age group from K-12? Giving them different opportunities, different cultures, a lot of exchanges happening between ideas and across the world.
• 31:20 - Everything we do is still an experiment. So whether or not the students are responding well to it, benefiting from it, learning from it, we're here for the students, listening to them, getting their input, also with the parents, and making sure that they are the focus of the growth here. 
• 33:15 - We have a delight team. Every family that joins is assigned a delight officer and this person will see them in the transition period. So making sure that all their questions are asked, they have a point of contact. We know it takes more than one adult to help them there, making sure that this is a 10 star experience for everyone that joined.

• Here are some resources mentioned in our discussion:
  • The Galileo Daily Checkin https://galileoxp.com/check-in
  • Galileo parent interviews https://galileoxp.com/parents
  • Inside the Kernel podcast https://player.fm/series/inside-the-kernel-by-galileo
  • Free Self-Directed Learning Course and Learning Network https://app.galileoxp.com/signup
• Where to learn more about Kelly:
  • Twitter - https://twitter.com/kelly_edtech?lang=en
  • Website - https://galileoxp.com/
• Where to learn more about Enrollhand: 
  • Website - www.enrollhand.com
  • Webinar - https://webinar-replay.enrollhand.com
  • Our free Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/schoolgrowth/

Our guest today is Kelly from Galileo XP. Kelly and her co-founder Vlad redesigned school from scratch. Galileo a global online school soon to have access to physical spaces as well. 
Listen and take note of how Kelly and the Galileo team transitions students into self-directed learning, inject learning experiences with passion and provide a 10-star experience for everyone that joins.

Quotes:

• 9:35 - We have students as young as eight and even some seven year olds that are actually facilitating this meeting and asking their peers. "Can you show me your schedule? What did you do yesterday? How is that science project?" And yeah. They can have this conversation together.
• 21:14 - A lot of online schools imagine "Oh, they can learn all the courses. It's all in asynchronous, it's self directed. You can do it by yourself", but if I want to learn something and really see progress, I need to be accountable to someone. Even for adults, they have these quiet focus groups where you can go and learn things and take breaks together. Putting this in for children as well and helping them. They're already meeting on zoom outside of their class time. So getting that peer to peer learning there.
• 22:00 - We see it as a human-centered operating system. We have all of the resources within and then the educators are there to help bring this collaboration together. We need to negotiate, we need to connect and we need to work on projects together. How can students be prepared to go out in the world if they're in the same class with the same age group from K-12? Giving them different opportunities, different cultures, a lot of exchanges happening between ideas and across the world.
• 31:20 - Everything we do is still an experiment. So whether or not the students are responding well to it, benefiting from it, learning from it, we're here for the students, listening to them, getting their input, also with the parents, and making sure that they are the focus of the growth here. 
• 33:15 - We have a delight team. Every family that joins is assigned a delight officer and this person will see them in the transition period. So making sure that all their questions are asked, they have a point of contact. We know it takes more than one adult to help them there, making sure that this is a 10 star experience for everyone that joined.

• Here are some resources mentioned in our discussion:
  • The Galileo Daily Checkin https://galileoxp.com/check-in
  • Galileo parent interviews https://galileoxp.com/parents
  • Inside the Kernel podcast https://player.fm/series/inside-the-kernel-by-galileo
  • Free Self-Directed Learning Course and Learning Network https://app.galileoxp.com/signup
• Where to learn more about Kelly:
  • Twitter - https://twitter.com/kelly_edtech?lang=en
  • Website - https://galileoxp.com/
• Where to learn more about Enrollhand: 
  • Website - www.enrollhand.com
  • Webinar - https://webinar-replay.enrollhand.com
  • Our free Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/schoolgrowth/

Summary:

• Our guest today is Brian Tobal. Brian used to be a teacher at the Harlem Children's Zone, then worked as a researcher, and then he spent the last few years building lots of educational software, and curriculum for schools, universities and businesses. Now, Brian has started SchoolHouse with his co-founder, to have parents get together and create microschools or learning pods in their own homes or in flexible spaces.
• In this episode, Brian and I discuss what it takes for an educational program to find product-market fit. This means that the students are happy and engaged, they are succesfull in their learning goals, and the experience is amazing for everyone involved, so that they all keep coming back for more.

Listen and take note of how to find this magical fit in any learning experience you create.

In our discussion, we cover:

• 06:38 - "The founding principle is that the teacher's attention is the most valuable piece in the educational brew or ecosystem. If you really want to have a high quality educational experience, you'd increase the amount of teacher attention that each child is receiving."
• 09:21 - "The bet was that we could take outstanding teachers and give them high autonomy, and it would produce better educational outcomes. And that turns out to be true."
• 13:45 - "You're abstracting away whatever's unnecessary, you're matching the right teacher (with the right philosophy and experience) with the family and what they're looking for. And then a group is formed around that. So it's a bit like product-teacher-market fit. Market being the family. You're basically making sure that the right teacher and the right family are interacting ."
• 23:04 - "The most interesting thing to me is that when we removed all the prescriptive schedules and cells and bells, (I can't remember who said that, but I thought it was a good phrase), they move faster. That's interesting. Let's push on that. Let's use that."
• 27:37 - "Maybe the way of thinking about it: If you have an assembly line, attention doesn't matter. If you're a sculptor, attention is everything. And our teachers aren't on an assembly line anymore. They're working with the marble in front of them."

Here are some resources mentioned in our discussion:

• Can a School Have Product-Market Fit? by Brian Tobal
• What is the Orton-Gillingham Approach?
• Bloom's 2 sigma problem
• Live Q&A with SchoolHouse CEO Brian Tobal

Where to learn more about Brian:

• Twitter - https://twitter.com/briantobal
• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-tobal-a4946911
• Website - https://www.getschoolhouse.com/
• Email - [email protected]

Where to learn more about Enrollhand: 

• Website - www.enrollhand.com
• Webinar - https://webinar-replay.enrollhand.com
• Our free Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/schoolgrowth/

Summary:

• Our guest today is Brian Tobal. Brian used to be a teacher at the Harlem Children's Zone, then worked as a researcher, and then he spent the last few years building lots of educational software, and curriculum for schools, universities and businesses. Now, Brian has started SchoolHouse with his co-founder, to have parents get together and create microschools or learning pods in their own homes or in flexible spaces.
• In this episode, Brian and I discuss what it takes for an educational program to find product-market fit. This means that the students are happy and engaged, they are succesfull in their learning goals, and the experience is amazing for everyone involved, so that they all keep coming back for more.

Listen and take note of how to find this magical fit in any learning experience you create.

In our discussion, we cover:

• 06:38 - "The founding principle is that the teacher's attention is the most valuable piece in the educational brew or ecosystem. If you really want to have a high quality educational experience, you'd increase the amount of teacher attention that each child is receiving."
• 09:21 - "The bet was that we could take outstanding teachers and give them high autonomy, and it would produce better educational outcomes. And that turns out to be true."
• 13:45 - "You're abstracting away whatever's unnecessary, you're matching the right teacher (with the right philosophy and experience) with the family and what they're looking for. And then a group is formed around that. So it's a bit like product-teacher-market fit. Market being the family. You're basically making sure that the right teacher and the right family are interacting ."
• 23:04 - "The most interesting thing to me is that when we removed all the prescriptive schedules and cells and bells, (I can't remember who said that, but I thought it was a good phrase), they move faster. That's interesting. Let's push on that. Let's use that."
• 27:37 - "Maybe the way of thinking about it: If you have an assembly line, attention doesn't matter. If you're a sculptor, attention is everything. And our teachers aren't on an assembly line anymore. They're working with the marble in front of them."

Here are some resources mentioned in our discussion:

• Can a School Have Product-Market Fit? by Brian Tobal
• What is the Orton-Gillingham Approach?
• Bloom's 2 sigma problem
• Live Q&A with SchoolHouse CEO Brian Tobal

Where to learn more about Brian:

• Twitter - https://twitter.com/briantobal
• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-tobal-a4946911
• Website - https://www.getschoolhouse.com/
• Email - [email protected]

Where to learn more about Enrollhand: 

• Website - www.enrollhand.com
• Webinar - https://webinar-replay.enrollhand.com
• Our free Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/schoolgrowth/

It has become popular to sneer at our education system’s factory model. 

We call for the death of schools in favor of Airbnb-like learning communities. Our SAT/ACT testing culture, our boring direct-instruction content-dumping, our mental health issues - these are easy targets.

But schools can thrive, and many are doing so. Only the job of the school, and the teacher, needs to change.

To accompany our recent interview, I wanted to write a short book review of Thrive: How Schools Will Win the Education Revolution by Grant Lichtman. Grant is a thought leader and author. He speaks, writes, and works with fellow educators to help them innovate. Educational leaders, as well as a wider array of pundits on education, need to internalize the ideas Grant lays out in his most recent book. 

For example:

• How to ask your community what your value proposition should be
• How to learn from what the corporate world is doing
• How to make hard choices: “A strategy is choosing what not to do”
• How to accelerate movement by removing barriers. (Change is like a muscle)
• How to research, design, prototype, test, again and again, slowly then faster
• How to reveal what your new job is!
• How to take more risk
• How to increase the innovation DNA of your school (most schools lack innovation DNA)

At Enrollhand, we often meet school leaders who feel out of touch, whose schools are stagnating. We share with them many of the concepts below, but Grant has a silver tongue and does a way better job of telling it like it is!

It has become popular to sneer at our education system’s factory model. 

We call for the death of schools in favor of Airbnb-like learning communities. Our SAT/ACT testing culture, our boring direct-instruction content-dumping, our mental health issues - these are easy targets.

But schools can thrive, and many are doing so. Only the job of the school, and the teacher, needs to change.

To accompany our recent interview, I wanted to write a short book review of Thrive: How Schools Will Win the Education Revolution by Grant Lichtman. Grant is a thought leader and author. He speaks, writes, and works with fellow educators to help them innovate. Educational leaders, as well as a wider array of pundits on education, need to internalize the ideas Grant lays out in his most recent book. 

For example:

• How to ask your community what your value proposition should be
• How to learn from what the corporate world is doing
• How to make hard choices: “A strategy is choosing what not to do”
• How to accelerate movement by removing barriers. (Change is like a muscle)
• How to research, design, prototype, test, again and again, slowly then faster
• How to reveal what your new job is!
• How to take more risk
• How to increase the innovation DNA of your school (most schools lack innovation DNA)

At Enrollhand, we often meet school leaders who feel out of touch, whose schools are stagnating. We share with them many of the concepts below, but Grant has a silver tongue and does a way better job of telling it like it is!