David Lee EdTech

  For years, I’ve had a recurring conversation with school leaders and passionate teachers. It usually starts with a spark of inspiration—perhaps from a YouTube video on Project-Based Learning or a keynote on Design Thinking —and ends with a difficult question: "David, can you help our school with this approach?" As a consultant, my answer has always been a mix of excitement and hesitation. I love the energy of a live workshop, but I’ve also seen the limitations of the "consulting model." We spend a couple of days together, we build momentum, and then... life happens. The bell rings, the emails pile up, and that "innovation" gets pushed to the back burner because there wasn't enough time to truly embed the change. In a VUCA world (one defined by Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity) where the ground is constantly shifting beneath our schools, educators don't need more one-off 'PD days' to prepare their students for a world of...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb5CrlE_vpU When we think of a “classic” album—something like Kendrick Lamar’s good kid, m.A.A.d city —we aren’t just listening to a collection of random songs. We are experiencing a curated narrative, a cohesive world where every track serves a specific purpose in a larger story. As educators, we are essentially the “designers” of our students’ learning experiences. When we design Project-Based Learning (PBL) units, we aren’t just stacking lessons; we are composing a learning narrative. The realization that high-quality units share the same DNA as high-quality albums came during a conversation with my colleague Ben Summerton . As we listened to his record collection, the parallels became undeniable. Both require an overarching theme, an intentional structure, and interconnected elements that lead to a meaningful outcome. Starting with a Concept Just as Kendrick Lamar uses the theme of a “coming-of-age story” to anchor his tracks, a PBL unit must be anch...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JdJoz8j-Vo Are you looking to take your learning space design to the next level? When we set out to design new environments for our students, we started by defining our vision and understanding what the learning experience should look like. But having a vision is only the first step. To bridge the gap between our ideas and a functional reality, our STEM team leaned heavily into the principles of design thinking—specifically, the practice of prototyping. Through this practical, hands-on process, we went from early conceptual models to ultimately launching five new makerspaces that truly support dynamic, hands-on learning. Why Prototype Your Learning Space? Prototyping is an essential step that brings ideas into the physical world. Even with a clear vision, it’s crucial to see how those ideas will work in practice. A prototype allows you to visualize how teachers and students will interact within the space, making it much easier to iden...