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"Talk to technology people at school districts, and nearly everyone wants to take their community in the same direction. The most progressive districts today are moving away from teacher-focused education and toward student-centric learning." "Teachers really need to understand this instructional shift," she says. "They must become 21st-century learners before they can be 21st-century teachers."

""Design your own shoe." That's what high school students thought they were signing up to do when they volunteered for an immersive experience in design thinking. Truth be told, the course description was not quite accurate. Shoe design "is really a Trojan horse for solving problems in a new way," acknowledged Chad Faber, director of the Knight Family Scholars Program at Catlin Gabel School, an independent K-12 school in Portland, Oregon. He facilitated the four-day, hands-on learning experience along with Greg Bamford (@gregbamford) from the Leading is Learning collaborative in Seattle. Several more Catlin Gabel staffers took part to learn by doing, building a cohort of teachers with design chops. "

"Text sets are resources of different reading levels, genres, and media that offer perspectives on a theme. By collecting materials ranging from fiction, nonfiction, and poetry to maps, charts, historical documents, photographs, songs, and paintings, teachers can add voices and perspectives to the study of any complex issue. This is especially important in classrooms where the whole class is using a single textbook or novel. Putting together a text set also provides all students -- regardless of reading level or learning style -- with a "way in" to a subject."