Athena: A Prospectus

Let’s bring this project to scale. This document shares reflections on an approach to solving a problem that is resource intensive but has a scalable impact. Ultimately, it addresses the absence of a professional memory for educators not by looking for a magic wand fix, but by being a powerful lever in the complex system that is education. If we can strengthen the critical step in education of supporting teachers in the practical, day-to-day work of developing meaningful learning experiences — not with guides, or frameworks, or principles, but with a diverse, easily navigable, dynamic and ever changing library of practices and community of teachers — then we can make an enormous impact. These are basic needs for teachers, and they are so far unmet.

Providing for teachers’ basic needs is the best way to support teachers.  The length of this document is a testament to the complexity of this basic task.  While national discourse ricochets from trendy to solution to trendy solution, and while futurists fantasize about digital tutors, the education technology sector overlooks more fundamental problems that were solved in other industries decades ago.  Many people are trying to build the tools of tomorrow before we have succeeded at the tools of yesterday.

This prospectus does not propose a solution that will “transform education” across all contexts.  It is likely that no such solution exists.  There are simply too many different schools serving too many different students, teachers, and leaders — and the variety of human experience is simply too great — to expect that it is feasible to implement a total solution for student success in nearly any context, large or small.  

However, what we know is that there are basic needs that all teachers have, and if we can meet teachers’ basic needs in a way that makes teachers’ work easier or better — and preferably both — then we have the opportunity to empower the whole teacher community in ways that move all educators towards the most effective practices in each context. This is more likely to be the rising tide that lifts all boats.

If we can meet teachers basic needs, we can lift the overall quality of education.  Enable intuitive curriculum sharing.  Provide practical, relevant, self-directed professional development.  It takes a thoughtful and deliberate — and also innovative and unlikely — approach to build not just community, and not just content, but community around content.

Technology has the extraordinary opportunity to aggregate knowledge and connect teachers in ways that will support and enhance all teachers.  These are goals of over a decade ago, but goals that our current capabilities are even more suited to reach.

These pages offer a different approach to fulfilling this opportunity. A colleague once said, “Smart people have put hundreds of millions of dollars behind solutions to this problem, and none have fully succeeded. What makes you think this is any different?” My answer is in the pages that you have read to get this far. They don’t solve every problem, but they do offer a different approach that has shown with an initial audience of thousands that it is useful and effective.

This prospectus aims to do two things: 1) It aims to foster conversation about the many different parts of what would create a professional memory for the field of education. 2) In doing so, it aims to identify a critical mass of people who can help bring this project from validation to scale.

To those ends, I am grateful for your comments, corrections, pointers, and general feedback on any element of this prospectus, including and especially how to either bring this project from validation to scale, or to better approach the challenge of establishing a professional memory for the field of education. One that is comparable to our peer professions — or, that is superior in its design and implementation proportional to the complexity and importance of education in relation to our other human needs.

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Introduction

The (Unrealized) Promise of the Internet

• Content: knowledge aggregation
• Community: connectivity
• What do teachers actually use?

The Persistent Challenges

• Design
• Quality
• Habituation
• Business models

Fulfilling the Need: Platform

• Design
• Quality

Fulfilling the Need: Program Design

• Habituation
• Business Models

What now?

References

Appendix A — Mission: Improvement

• Why “improvement”?
• Seismic and incremental change

Appendix B — Research Platform

• Core research possibilities

End Note: History and Gratitude