Featured Workshops

Lisa Yokana has twenty years of experience as an educator and currently serves as the STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, math) coordinator at Scarsdale High School in NY, where she designs and teaches a STEAM sequence for Scarsdale’s Design Lab. In 2019, the program won the gold medal in the STEAMEX international contest for innovative curriculum design. Lisa also co-instructs Project Zero/Harvard Graduate School of Education’s online class: Thinking and Learning in the Maker Centered Classroom.

Lisa will speak with us about how to use the Agency by Design framework and best practices for building student agency as a resource through ideating, prototyping, and creating. Agency by Design (AbD) is a multiyear research initiative at Harvard’s Project Zero, investigating the promises, practices, and pedagogies of maker-centered learning experiences. The power of AbD helps students to co-inspire and redirect authority by sourcing knowledge from the community. This includes bringing in community experts, students in peer-to-peer collaboration, and students as teachers!

Lisa will share the pedagogical research and theory of AbD, her experiences using it, and some practical tools for us to try in a customized workshop. To access the session resource click here.

*Suggested list of household supplies to have on hand for the workshop: scrap paper, cardboard, scissors, glue, pipe cleaner, rubber band, string.

Educators shape the mindsets, behaviors, and skills their students will carry with them into the future. And while this has always been true, the global pandemic, nationwide public attention to social justice, and the need to dismantle historically inequitable systems have heightened our collective sense of urgency to design more equitable and abundant futures with — and for — our students. In these conditions we believe that design is more important than ever–to all educators, across and between schools. The ability to look further out, practice flexibility, rehearse critical decisions, and build capacity within school leadership is critical. We believe that intentional design and an optimistic approach are the superpowers that will shepherd us into a more preferable future. In this session with the d.school’s Ariel Raz, we’ll explore strategies to see what may happen from multiple perspectives and move from a passive to active attitude towards the future.

Ariel's experiences range from Teach For America to opening a charter school in the South Side of Chicago, IL. His technological explorations in Chicago led him to the Stanford d.School, where he is currently the Head of Learning Collaborations in the K12 Lab. To access the pre-read on "educators as futurists" click here.