EDUC 338X 2011

EDUC 338X 2011 DP2 Project Descriptions

A couple of notes. . . • The education challenges in this DP2 book are snapshots of the full proposals which can be found on our class wiki: https://dschool.stanford.edu/groups/k12/wiki/a79b9/EDUC_338x_2011_DP2.html. • If nothing excites you here, please feel free to develop your own solution • There will be a small budget available for teams to receive reimbursement for items such as conference fees, travel costs, printing materials

GoalPost Labs • Who are they? GoalPost Labs is an early stage, for-profit startup with plans to build a student motivation layer for K-12 that rapidly cycles feedback about incremental learning progress to students, parents, and teachers in a social and game driven environment. First product is a social, reading tracking tool. • The Project: How do you design the collection, sharing, discussion, and display of incremental learning progress data as a motivational experience for students in K-12? How can we use this data to make learning feel iterative (students see failure as a learning opportunity for a future success--as in the best video games) rather than a high stakes assessment of a student's aptitude? • Contact: Matt Pasternack (CEO & Founder)

Who are they? An early stage, for-profit technology and services startup that provides online speech language pathology to school districts. • The Project: How might occupational therapy happen remotely for kids? • Contact: Jack Lynch (CEO and Co-Founder)

Who are they? NTC is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to improving student learning by accelerating the effectiveness of teachers and school leaders. NTC strengthens school communities through proven mentoring and professional development programs, online learning environments, policy advocacy, and essential research. • The Project: NTC’s core business is in-person mentoring for beginning teachers. This project is about developing the right strategy and user experience to grow their new e-mentoring program so it can benefit every beginning teacher nationwide. • Contact: Alyson Mike

Who are they? TFA recruits the most promising recent college graduates and trains them to teach in America’s most challenging schools. • The Project: Employ the best social networking strategies to improve and promote TFANet – an online community for corps members and alumni to share, communicate, and collaborate. • Contact: Melanie Hoffert and Meg Loucks

Who are they? The W.K. Kellogg Foundation supports children, families, and communities as they strengthen and create conditions that propel vulnerable children to achieve success as individuals and as contributors to the larger community and society. • The Project: Researching commonalities between the most effective K-3 teachers in order to inform the foundation’s funding strategy. • Contact: Arelis Diaz

EdSurge • Who are they? EdSurge is a new (pre-launch) news/information startup for education technology. Their aim is to be the central hub connecting education entrepreneurs and the teacher community (techcrunch for education). • The Project: Researching & designing the best way to help teachers discover and make informed choices about adopting education technology products. • Contact: Nick Punt

Who are they? Education Elements seeks to transform public education by enabling CMOs (Charter Management Organizations) and districts to develop and deploy cost effective hybrid learning environments. • The Project: With the growth of blended schools, where online learning provides a material % of the core instruction, teachers need to understand how to easily modify their lessons based upon student progress in the online courses. The project is to develop an application which helps teachers integrate the face-to-face instruction with online instruction, particularly around scope and sequence and lesson plans. • Contact: Anthony Kim (CEO & Founder)

Who are they? A company that partners with institutions of higher education to deliver online degree programs to students globally. • The Project: How might we use game mechanics to help train new teachers? This project asks you to design a customizable online simulation tool for new teachers to practice teaching techniques in a variety of realistic scenarios so they are better prepared to manage and make academic gains in their classroom. • Contact: John Katzman (CEO)

Formative Teaching • Who are they? A learning management system for educator training, certification and accreditation. • The Project: We are building targeted online communities around individual areas of teacher practice. One theme that we are exploring is how to provide individual teachers (in very unsupported environments) with guidance from experts using forums, online discussions, and book-based resources. The project will explore current online teacher communities, perform empathy work about what teachers are looking to get out of the experience, and then prototype tools that would be most helpful in supporting this use case. • Contact: Jason Lange (CEO & Founder)

Who are they? “HMH” is the world’s largest publisher of pre-K-12 learning products. • The project: Less than 70% of students entering high school will graduate. Furthermore, the highest dropout rates are concentrated in major urban districts where the graduation rates drops below 60%. However, one bright light remains constant when considering why students do NOT drop out: parental engagement. The project goal is to improve parental engagement in these large urban districts, especially among the most at risk student populations. • Contact: Jim O’Neill & David Lawson

Classroom Sense, Inc. • Who are they? An early-stage startup founded by two Harvard Business School grads. The venture will “provide school administrators and teachers with a suite of tools and applications that will improve how they leverage data to run schools and classrooms.” • The Project: “Of the three elements in our business model - open development platform, killer apps, app store - there is the greatest uncertainty around the app store…Answering these questions will involve end user research as well as rapid prototyping / design iteration and we look forward to working with you on these critical issues.” • Contact: Ben Glazer and Stuart Frye

Who are they? Aspire is the largest charter management organization (CMO) in California. • The Project: Create an iTunes-like platform for content mapped to the Common Core, so that all curriculum companies, districts, individual teachers, etc. can plug their stuff in and download what they need. The days of Googling stand-alone lesson plans will be over! • Contact: Liz Arney, Manager of Curriculum Dev.

Envision Schools • Who are they? A charter management organization based in Oakland, with 4 high schools in the Bay Area. The schools are designed around performance assessment with a rigorous portfolio defense system. • The Project: Our performance based portfolio system prepares students for college and career. However for teachers - the ultimate guides of the process - the vision of success driving our portfolio feels too complex, leaving them wondering how the pieces fit together. What changes in our materials and language can we make in order to clarify how the pieces of our vision fit together so that success feels possible in daily practice? • Contact: Erika

Education.com • Who are they? A for-profit website servicing the education industry broadly defined. Top 5 websites for parents and fastest growing. • The Project: Can learning to read be as addictive as Angry Birds? Extend the reach of Education.com's web platform by designing a captivating app that works on the fundamentals of reading for children ages 4-7, within an addictive gaming environment. • Contact: Ron Fortune

Innovate Foundation • Who are they? Family Foundation focused on improving K12 education, especially for underserved kids.

DP 2 = d.thinking + education problem • Select a topic/problem that interests you • Work in a team • Develop “solution” using design thinking • Consult with industry mentors/advisors for feedback • Interim check-in on May 3rd - feedback • Present solution on May 26th - reviewers

Presentation on May 26th -10 minute presentation x3 to “reviewers” - partners, funders, thought leaders, practitioners, industry leaders Feasibility Viability Desirability & Usability

Feasibility Viability Desirability & Usability

Feasibility Viability Market Risk Desirability & Usability

Feasibility Viability Market Risk Desirability & Usability Will the dog eat the dog food? Does it address a major pain point?

Feasibility Viability Business Risk Market Risk Desirability & Usability

Feasibility Viability Business Risk Will the dog hunt? Do the economics work? Is the risk worth the reward? Is it sustainable? Market Risk Desirability & Usability

Feasibility Viability Technology Risk Business Risk Market Risk Desirability & Usability

Feasibility Viability Technology Risk Business Risk Will it work? Is it possible? Market Risk Desirability & Usability

Feasibility Viability Technology Risk Business Risk Team Risk Market Risk Desirability & Usability

Feasibility Viability Technology Risk Business Risk Team Risk Should I bet on this team? Market Risk Desirability & Usability

Feasibility Technology Risk Viability Business Risk Desirability & Usability Market Risk