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When the school was created, a research and design studio known as Mission Lab was integrated into the design of the school by founding partner Institute of Play. The goal of Mission Lab is to help teachers teach the way they wish they could — the way they dream of engaging their students, were it not for the lack of support and other obstacles that often get in the way. Mission Lab supports teachers by pairing them with a game designer and a curriculum designer (staffed by the Institute of Play) who help make the teacher’s vision a reality, providing support throughout the process of design and implementation.

Teachers in their first year at the school have two weekly curriculum meetings built into their schedule, and meetings for returning teachers are scheduled on an as-needed basis, usually once a week.

he mission narrative, or context, is developed once the teacher, game designer, and curriculum designer have identified the big ideas, learning goals, and standards for the trimester.

In short, their ability to be creative, to share complex knowledge across locations, contexts and cultures and to manage global innovation and product development teams effectively is precisely why multiculturals in integrative roles in the innovation process do make such a positive difference.

In addition, they identified intercultural, cognitive integration (one’s ability to simultaneously hold and apply several culturally different schemas and thus to think as a member of one culture or another depending on need and context, or to think simultaneously as member of several cultures) as the key to creative, adaptive and leadership skills fostering their career success. As one of the managers Hae-Jung Hong interviewed put it:

The most important skill I need in order to develop and launch this product line successfully is to exploit what I’ve got from one part to other parts of the world, which brings something innovative in the market. I am able to do this because I have references in different languages— English, Hindi, and French. I read books in three different languages, meet people from different countries, eat food from different countries, and so on. I cannot think things in one way only. That’s not my way.

Organizations maximize innovation if they embrace distributed leadership that truly amplifies opportunities for anyone in the organization to imagine, prototype, and build on new ideas. 

nnovative schools focus on teaching each individual user, not on the process of content transfer.  Differentiated learning, truly adapting the learning experience to the needs of the student-user, leveraged through the differentiated resources of the teacher-user, will be the tsunami of educational change in the next decade.

uccessfully innovating organizations make numerous bets, many of which are small, and some of which shoot for the moon.

we revamped our tech support structure, merging the media staff to expand the scope and provide a broader range of technology integration support.

number one mission of our tech-media team is evolving into a Disney-style imagineering approach to expanding our 1:1 and use of technology tools for learning.

The superintendent must provide the team with the vision, resources, and freedom to strike out on their own and maximize their creativity. They must feel safe to take risks and have the public backing of the superintendent that enables them to support school administrators and teachers in adapting to new technology changes.