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What Job Are Your Kids Hiring School to Do?

2/27/2015

As Clayton Christensen, Michael Horn, and Curtis Johnson thoughtfully argued nearly five years ago in a white paper on student motivation, “most of the ‘home runs’ of marketing history occurred when people sensed the fundamental job that customers were trying to do—and then found a way to help more people do it more effectively, conveniently, and affordably.“

They then share a wonderful anecdote about a fast food company that was attempting to sell more milkshakes. After extensive focus groups, subsequent product tweaks, and considerable expense, sales remained flat.

It wasn't until they asked the question: “What job is the milkshake being hired to do?” that they started making progress. They discovered that nearly half the milkshakes sold were bought in the early morning. The “job” for which they were being “hired”? Sustenance during a long, boring commute.

Coffee was guzzled too quickly. Bagels were too messy. The milkshake took awhile to finish, and the chilly container not only kept the driver alert; it fit beautifully in the cup holder.

The punch line? Once they understood the job the milkshake was being hired to do, they could build a better milkshake. In fact, they built what we now know as a smoothie.

So what “job” are kids “hiring” school to do? Christensen, Horn and Johnson hypothesize that “there are two core jobs that most students try to do every day: They want to feel successful and make progress, and they want to have fun with friends.” They go on to make a compelling case that many schools are not fulfilling either of these jobs very effectively at all.

At WonderLab we believe that the key to success and fun is one fundamental question: What will motivate this individual Learner to love learning? Our experience tells us that once we better understand a Learner’s unique strengths and passions, we can then help them make progress on a project that is as unique as they are—all while having fun with friends.

So for all you parents with the need for your child to be in a safe, productive place outside of school or a homeschool environment, over spring or summer break—or perhaps a new spot for a child’s upcomingbirthday party where the job-to-be-done might also include making the other parents a bit jealous that they didn’t think of it first—please keep in mind your child’s primary jobs-to-be-done: feeling successful and having fun with friends!

And do keep WonderLab in mind, as it’s a job that we most certainly love doing!

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Create Experiences and Relationships

1/30/2015

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I think those of us who are passionate about the future of teaching and learning can learn something from the world of retail.

In the last ten years, online shopping has gone from good to great. We can now buy just about anything online that we can from a brick and mortar store—and often at a better price.

What has brick and mortar retail done in response? The best have doubled down on experience and relationships. Makes sense, doesn’t it? In a world where I can buy nearly anything faster and cheaper online, the rationale for physically going to a store is often because it offers me an experience and/or a human relationship that online cannot (yet) provide.

Not surprisingly, education technology (edtech) is slowly, but surely, moving from good to great—and one of the many joys of building WonderLab is that we Mentor Guides have a front row seat. In our“Code It” Workshop last weekend, we marveled as WonderLab Learners in a few short hours invented their own game or animation using MIT’s Scratch platform, while others chose to use Code.org to acquire the skills they needed to improve a Flappy Bird game and make it their own.

Interested in other examples of edtech in action? Watch this terrific Code.org video. Listen to the stories of these iconic engineers and entrepreneurs. See the common threads of thought that connect them—the powerful spark of motivation. The motivation to make something fun for themselves and others. The motivation to solve problems, and then take on and tackle increasingly complex problems. Most importantly, the motivation to love learning.

Many parents’ fundamental concern with edtech is understandable. It’s the worry of comatose kids with eyes glued to their various devices’ screens. But that’s not what I saw in WonderLab last weekend. I saw good technology in the hands of Learners who will one day make it great. I saw kids working together. I saw good technology that was fueling powerful learning experiences and relationships.

I think we need to be clear that there is a fundamental difference between kids using technology to consume versus using it to create. When we understand that, we see a future of learning where experience and relationships matter more than ever. Then we begin to understand that the real opportunity for edtech is ultimately for it to free up humans to be more human with one another.

What online resources are you using to fuel your kids (or your own!) learning? To create? To build experiences and relationships?

Please share your answers to these questions, as we still have a lot to learn about edtech—and per our bigger theme, please share because we are genuinely motivated to love learning more about it!

Thanks for your time today, and thanks in advance for your thoughts,

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One year old and learning

12/16/2014

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As WonderLab's first year of operations comes to a close, I find myself reflecting --- per our questlamation mark logo --- over some of the bigger questions and inspired, exclamatory answers of 2014.

So as much as I do love a good top 10 list, in an effort to be brief, here's the #1 question asked at WonderLab this year: What is my child actually going to do here?!

My faithful readers are likely crying foul. After all, I kicked off 2014 with a blogpost stating that was the question that we receive most often.

The difference, however, is that after a year of learning by doing and figuring out what we are and are not --- I'm thrilled that I can now answer “What is my child actually going to do here?!” three different ways:

In words:

"The two most important days in your life are the day
you are born and the day you find out why."
--- Mark Twain

In an image (apparently a picture is worth a thousand words, though I'm certainly a fan of Mr. Twain's 21 words above):

And in a video (if a picture is worth a thousand words, apparently a video is worth a million --- but we'll let you be the judge):

I can only hope that these three answers provide as much clarity for you as they do excitement for me and the rest of the WonderLab Team --- excitement about all that we’ve learned together to date, and about all that we will learn in the year to come as we keep seeking big questions and inspired answers!

I’m grateful this holiday season to all the families who have taken the WonderLab leap this year. It's been an absolute honor to work with you, and we couldn't be more excited about seeing where your imagination will take you in the New Year.

Also grateful to those who forward this to a friend or loved one in the hopes that they get WonderLab. Better yet, why not give the gift that keeps giving: a WonderLab workshop or membership.

Thank you all for a wonderful year!

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Thanks giving tree

11/25/2014

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Hard to believe that it was 50 years ago that Shel Silverstein published The Giving Tree. Not only is it one of my favorite books, but I’m honestly hard-pressed to think of a book from which I’ve learned more. If it has been years since you read it -- or read it to your child, as I had the pleasure of doing last night -- please do yourself and loved ones the favor sooner than later.

And in the immediate, perhaps you should take a moment to watch the movie?

Now, I’m going to go out on a limb here (pardon the pun), and argue that The Giving Tree Movie is yet another case in point to the old adage that the book is always better than the movie.

Why is that?

Like all WonderLab Mentor Guides, my job is to ask questions rather than answer them, but in this case I’ll make an exception and offer one of many answers: movies often leave little to the viewers’ imagination. In a way, we make the movie in our heads as we read, while movies provide insight into one filmmaker’s imagination.

So we thought it would be a fun challenge to make a movie that did WonderLab justice (and by “movie,” I of course mean “two minute video”). Rather than leave little to the viewers’ imagination, however, our objective was for viewers to imagine the infinite possibilities at WonderLab.

So if you are like me — one of the many fortunate people on the planet who can genuinely say that you love learning — perhaps the people, places, and ideas that brought that to fruition should be at the top of your thank you note list this Thanksgiving?

And if like me you want nothing more than to raise children who genuinely love learning, perhaps you should consider reading them plenty of Shel Silverstein and giving the gift of wonder(lab) this holiday season?!

Thank you, happy Thanksgiving, and thanks Giving Tree,

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Predicting (and More Importantly) Projecting the Future of Learning

10/30/2014

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I’m actually writing today from a flight back to Austin from the Bay Area. Having once lived in San Francisco for a dozen years, needless to say, my visits always bring back memories.

This time, I recalled how I was once fortunate to take a few entrepreneurial beatings from Reed Hastings, the Founder and CEO of Netflix. Though he never actually hit me, he did ask me some of the toughest, most wonderful questions—questions that challenged me, my business plan, and ultimately, provided invaluable fuel for my mission. Precisely the kind of questions that we WonderLab Mentor Guides aspire to ask of our WonderLab Learners.

On this trip, I reflected on a question of Reed’s that continues to capture my attention and imagination—now more than ever: Why be an entrepreneur? As was often the case with our meetings, I was caught off guard and managed to come up with something that was both vague and verbose. To his credit, he didn’t dismiss my response, but offered one of his own: “I think the real opportunity for an entrepreneur,” he explained, “is to not just predict the future, but to project the future.”

I would argue that few entrepreneurs have predicted and projected the future as effectively as Reed. in the late 90’s, when potential Netflix investors told him that streaming content online was the future—a future that would arrive any day—Reed thoughtfully agreed and disagreed. He agreed that streaming was the future, but predicted it would take roughly a decade for streaming entire movies to be technologically feasible. In that time, he would build an army of subscribers with its movie-by-mail disruption, then move them over to streaming when the technology was truly ready. And after all, in keeping with this focus on said prediction/projection, the company wasn’t called “Movies by Mail,” but Netflix.

To build on my previous blogpost, WonderLab is not only an attempt to predict where learning is going, it’s an opportunity to project where it should be going.

And where might that be, you might ask?

It’s a place where more and more families are neither completely outsourcing learning to a school, nor taking it all on themselves by homeschooling, but “roamschooling”— where school remains critical, but part of one’s larger, personalized learning mosaic. A place where the focus isn’t on big school buildings and faculties, but learning labs like WonderLab that function as hives that kids buzz in and around while utilizing the various learning assets in their communities (museums, businesses, conferences, etc.). It’s a place where technology is not a gimmick in the classroom of yesteryear but a powerful tool in a learning lab like ours to do what, when done right it does best: lowers transaction costs and makes the job of learning more efficient and effective. In other words, it’s a place where technology frees up the humans to be more human with one another.

It was my great pleasure on this trip to the Bay Area to spend time with five phenomenal, fellow education entrepreneurs, with whom we hope to work to project this future.

And who might they be, you might ask?

I’ll save that for my next blog, but I’ll give you a hint: one is already a household name, and if you join us in projecting this future of learning, the other four soon will be.

As usual, I’ll leave you with a question (or two): Why not let your kids start predicting and projecting their futures? Why not email me and enlist WonderLab to project this future for your family?

Thanks in advance for your projection!

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Where Is the Puck Going to Be?! Where are You Going to Be on October 11th?!

9/30/2014

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Though it may be a little overused in the entrepreneuring/investing world, these days I’ve been thinking often of the old Wayne Gretzky-ism: "I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been."

As I joked with a friend the other day, there are days that I wake up and think that the proverbial education puck isn’t moving quickly enough, and that we at WonderLab should just be skating toward it. Tutoring and test prep seem to be what most people want today from a supplementary learning model—but those are often focused on testing, not real learning.

Yet, there are other days that I couldn’t be more confident that WonderLab is headed precisely where the puck is going. And good news for us is that we’re finding families that agree!

So where is the education puck going?!

A couple of years ago our friends at 2 Revolutions produced what I think is still one of the best Future of Learning videos. My favorite moment arrives at the 6:25 mark.

“...a future where schools help get kids get what they need to become successful learners—and to accelerate their learning. But while school remains critical, it’s not the only place where learning happens. Kids must be able to explore all their opportunities for learning—both in school and beyond. When we create a single integrated system, students will practice becoming lifelong learners.”

This is precisely what we’re doing at WonderLab. We are the place outside of school for kids to explore all of their opportunities for learning. Where with the help of a caring Mentor Guide, learners figure out what motivates them to love learning, and then harness the boundless resources available to them (online and in their local communities) to develop skills around their areas of passion and interest. All the while, they are practicing becoming lifelong learners—their greatest asset for realizing their future.

So today I invite you to see precisely what we are doing at WonderLab. On Saturday, October 11th from 9AM – noon, we are launching our “Invent It or Improve It” Workshops, where young learners will wrestle with a big, fun question (Would you rather invent something entirely new or improve something to make it better?) and develop their own, unique, inspired answers.

Can’t make that date? Per the online registration form, the Workshops will continue each Saturday morning throughout the fall—culminating with an Exhibition for all of Austin on December 6th.

So where are you going to be on October 11th?!

See you soon!

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Where's the motivation, America?

7/29/2014

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Every time I travel outside the U.S., I'm reminded that learning is fundamentally about access and motivation—access to information and the motivation to process it and do something with it. For many kids across the globe, access is the bottleneck, though this is certainly changing rapidly.

Yet, per my last blog post, most kids in the U.S. today now have more access to information an any generation previously --- often never further away than the smart phone in their pocket. Thus, I'd like to draw our attention to the motivation bottleneck in the U.S.

The reality for many American kids is that the longer they are educated, the less motivated they become. Gallup's work on student engagement shows that this alarming decline often begins in the middle school years.

At WonderLab, we believe that this is largely a result of an education approach and system that focuses on the transfer of knowledge, as opposed to the ignition of motivation.

That's why we are focused on what we believe are the three pillars of 21st century learning: motivation, skills and knowledge --- in that order. That's right. We're flipping the traditional approach on its head. We ignite motivation in Learners, which propels them to develop skills and knowledge around their passions.

So what are you passionate about? What will motivate you to love learning? Each of us has a unique answer. My sincere hope is that this post might motivate you to visit WonderLab and find yours.

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Guiding vs Teaching

6/30/2014

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As a college senior, I applied to Teach for America—and they had the good sense to turn me down. And I don’t say that facetiously or out of self-deprecation. They asked me a fundamental question and my answer was less than inspiring.

The question? "Why teach?"

It wasn’t until I received that rejection letter, and admittedly, until I stopped feeling sorry for myself, that a mentor of mine provided the inspiration and encouragement that enabled me to come up with a better answer. A more inspired answer. My answer.

My inspired answer ultimately secured my first teaching job, but more importantly, the process of finding that answer was some of the most powerful learning that I had ever experienced.

The other day, a good friend asked me a question.

The question? "Why 'guide?'"

He was asking, because at WonderLab, I’m one of four Mentor Guides. What he was really asking: Why “guide” and not “teach?”

My answer? Three reasons:

Over time our notion of the ideal teacher transitioned from someone who asked great questions to someone who stood at the front of a classroom with all the answers—and in turn, the best students became those that best received knowledge from their teachers.
With the advent of the internet and smartphone technology, we are attempting to teach the first generation in history with the ability to immediately access an incalculable amount of knowledge and answers at their fingertips (or in their pockets) at all times.
These days, as more members of the “Boomerang Generation” head back home from college to live with their parents and figure out what they want to do and who they want to become, young learners need mentors to help guide them to their answers now more than ever.

At WonderLab, we believe that mentoring and guiding kids to become more self-directed learners lays the foundation for them to become lifelong learners.

“...we are attempting to teach the first generation in history with the ability to immediately access an incalculable amount of knowledge and answers at their fingertips...”
We have started this work with middle school-aged learners because we believe this is the key moment in a child’s development when too many begin to lose their love of learning—when education becomes something that happens to them instead of something that they take a more active role in making happen for themselves.

We’re not a school, nor are we a substitute for school. We’re a self-directed learning supplement because we believe that though this kind of learning need not comprise an entire educational diet, it must be an increasingly larger part of a healthy one in the 21st century.

We believe in the power of big questions. What are your gifts? What are you passionate about? When do you become so involved in an activity or pursuit that you lose track of time? What opportunities and/or injustices do you see around you? Only then do we begin building a learning project, setting goals and providing the support and accountability for learners to come up with inspired answers. Their answers.

What are your answers? Please contact me, visit the Lab, meet our Mentor Guides, and let’s find out!

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“What Will My Kid Do at WonderLab?” Meet Four of Our Founding Learners

5/28/2014

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As we pointed out in a previous blog post, the one question we most often hear from parents is, “What will my child actually do here?” Now, with the benefit of several months under our collective belts, I wanted to circle back to this question and provide a different, more anecdotal answer by looking at a few key “case studies” — the kids themselves.

But first, a quick review of our approach to learning: Through a series of initial exercises, a Learner will identify something that inspires them—something that they are passionate about. Then, aided by the questions, encouragement and accountability of a WonderLab Mentor Guide, each Learner develops a project and plan to learn more about the things that inspire them.

We map this approach as a path along a trail to their Inspired Goal. It looks like this:

Per WonderLab's "questlamation mark" logo, what our Mentor Guides do at WonderLab is ask big questions (?), that lead to Learners' inspired answers (!), and then more big questions (?)...
So as you can imagine, what each individual Learner actually does at WonderLab is as unique as that individual child. Now, without further ado, I am delighted to introduce the following amazing kids, some of our “Founding Learners:”

MADDIE
Age: 9
School: St. Andrew’s (private)
Membership Level: Compass
Gifts Q&A?! Excerpt:

Ask five people who know you well what talents or gifts do I have that you don’t see in anyone else?
"Maddie has very strong leadership abilities that are a little bit under the surface --- which actually makes her a more effective leader, as people trust that she is genuine!"

Inspired Hypothesis: To become a veterinarian.
Parent Feedback: “I think it's going great... I really love this whole process.”

JAKE
Age: 9
School: Steiner Ranch Elementary (public)
Membership Level: Horizon
Flow Q&A?! Excerpt:

When do you lose track of time --- when does five hours feel like five minutes because you're "in the zone?"
Playing Minecraft and LEGOs!

Inspired Hypothesis: To make a LEGO movie that gets 1,000 hits.
Parent Feedback: “Jacob loves WonderLab. He keeps asking to go back, whereas other things I need to drag him by the hair!”

CARLOS
Age: 13
School: Homeschooler
Membership Level: Horizon
Opportunities and Injustices Q&A?! Excerpt:

What something that makes you angry or frustrated? Something that exists in the world but shouldn't?
Some kids don't have books or food! Species extinction and pollution!

Inspired Hypothesis: To publish my first novel.
Parent Feedback: “It has been great to see Carlos engaged and happy. He has really enjoyed the process so far.”

JACK
Age: 13
School: Kealing Magnet School (public)
Membership Level: Compass
Strengths Explorer Q&A?! Excerpt:

What are your top three themes from the Clifton Strengths Explorer?
Organizer (scheduling, planning, and organizing your world makes life better), Confidence (you believe in yourself and what you can do), Relating (you widen the circle of friends for yourself and others)!

Inspired Hypothesis: To design and build a magnet-powered engine.
Parent Feedback: “We always knew our son was a good student. But were looking for ways for him to think for himself and test himself in a ‘non-school’ environment. WonderLab has been great!”

These elementary- and middle school-aged Learners are still on their individual learning paths and have just begun to develop their Inspired Hypotheses. But they are engaged. They are giving voice to and taking ownership of their passions and inspirations. They are charting their own learning goals. And they’re having a blast!

I hope these profiles provide you with a better understanding of what we do at WonderLab, and that you can picture your kids – or those you may know – becoming part of this extraordinary experience.

We’re all about asking questions here. I invite you to come for a visit and ask more questions of us. I look forward to seeing you!

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Doing downtime differently

4/22/2014

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When and where did you do your best thinking as a kid?

Though written nearly a dozen years ago, Anna Quindlen’s “Doing Something is Nothing” could not be more relevant today.

In it she muses that “downtime is where we become ourselves, looking into the middle distance, kicking at the curb, lying on the grass or sitting on the stoop and staring at the tedious blue of the summer sky.”

Yet in the same breath she warns: “if downtime cannot be squeezed during the school year into the life of frantic and often joyless activity with which our children are saddled while their parents pursue frantic and often joyless activity of their own, what about summer?”

What about summer?!

Listen up, everyone: though there is certainly no excuse for frantic and joyless activity during the school year, aiding and abetting a frantic, joyless summer for a child should be a jailable offense!

Last week we announced WonderLab’s Summer Quest with this in mind. To borrow Quindlen’s language, WonderLab is where late-elementary and middle school-aged Learners become themselves. For us, it’s not as much about “what” as it’s about “who” they become.

I don’t know about you, but the magic of childhood summers was having the time to explore a curiosity around a passion. One summer it was the quest to build the greatest skateboard jump at my best friend Joe’s house. This resulted in a deep though short-lived passion for skateboarding, followed by a fractured wrist, and then a passion for remote controlled cars when I realized that I could get a car to do the jumping for me!

So though I appreciate Quindlan’s call for doing nothing, I think that going from far too much structure to far too little is not good for kids either. WonderLab offers something in between—the logical intermediary between curb kicking downtime and over-focused/over-structured camps.

That’s precisely what we designed Summer Quest to be: a place where kids have both the time and the right amount of structure to explore their curiosity. Where they have the opportunity to design and build fun projects around their individual interests and passions. Most importantly, where they build their confidence and become inspired, lifelong Learners.

Build a robot? Make a film? Create an app? Identify a great opportunity or injustice and do something about it? Where will your child’s creativity take them this summer? We’re here to help them make those discoveries in a safe, productive, fun environment.

If the upper-elementary or middle school-aged Learner in your life is ready to begin their quest, we’re certainly ready to guide the way. Reserve your spot now!

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What Job Are Your Kids Hiring School to Do?

Create Experiences and Relationships

One year old and learning

Thanks giving tree

Predicting (and More Importantly) Projecting the Future of Learning

Where Is the Puck Going to Be?! Where are You Going to Be on October 11th?!

Where's the motivation, America?

Guiding vs Teaching

“What Will My Kid Do at WonderLab?” Meet Four of Our Founding Learners

Doing downtime differently

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