For Teachers Scaling an Educational Experience or Pilot
For Teachers Scaling an Educational Experience or Pilot
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The case study is the Innovation Club at Bringhurst Elementary in the Fremont Unified School District. Although it centers on an innovation framework, the strategies for expanding teacher capacity, increasing student access, and supporting long-term sustainability are transferable to a wide range of educational experiences and school initiatives.
Framework for Scaling Educational Pilots
Framework for Scaling Educational Pilots
For a teacher who is scaling a pilot, the following framework was designed for this ETP.
1. Supports Teachers
Accessible for Teachers – Low-cost materials and easy implementation make the experience approachable for all teachers, regardless of STEM background.
Practical Implementation – Requires minimal preparation and incorporates simple formative assessments.
Continuous Improvement – Teachers collect feedback and refine the learning experience over time.
Evidence
Teacher Participation and Feedback
Formative Assessments
Teachers report that the Innovation Lab requires minimal preparation and is easy to implement.
Growth in the number of teachers independently facilitating Innovation Labs.
Summative Assessments
Participation: At least 20 teachers independently facilitate an Innovation Lab.
Ease of Implementation: At least 70% of participating teachers agree or strongly agree that the Innovation Lab was easy to implement.
2. Supports Students
Accessible for Students – Learning is approachable and engaging for all students. Art serves as a low-risk entry point before STEM.
Student Agency – Students identify authentic problems and design original solutions.
Inclusive Participation – Every student has opportunities to contribute, regardless of background or prior knowledge.
Evidence
Student Participation and Work Samples
Formative Assessments
Yearly growth in the number of students participating in Innovation Labs.
Student work samples demonstrate creativity and problem-solving.
Evidence of student engagement (e.g., photographs and student work).
Growth in total instructional hours devoted to Innovation Labs.
Summative Assessments
Increase student participation by 10% annually.
At least 70% of student work samples demonstrate creativity and problem-solving through an original prototype and explanation.
Collect evidence (photos and work samples) from 100% of Innovation Lab sessions.
Increase total instructional hours by 10% annually.
3. Aligns with Academic Standards
Standards-Aligned – Activities naturally integrate academic standards, including CCSS in Art and the NGSS engineering design process.
Evidence
Student explanations
Formative Assessments
Student elevator pitches demonstrate understanding of the learning objectives.
Students explain:
What their invention is.
What problem it solves.
What its superpower is.
Stuctured Literacy Connection: The elevator pitch also directly supports California's AB 1454 structured literacy requirements. A Literacy Crosswalk (see Materials) maps each Innovation Lab mini-lesson to one of AB 1454's five pillars—foundational skills, language development, meaning making, content knowledge, and effective expression—showing how the pitch is the point where all five converge into a single spoken deliverable. Read More
Summative Assessments
At least 70% of students successfully explain their invention through a three-sentence elevator pitch.
Student elevator pitches demonstrate understanding of the lesson learning objectives.
Students explain:
What is your invention?
What problem does it solve?
What is its superpower?
4. Aligns with District Priorities
District Alignment – Learning aligns with existing district initiatives, educational priorities, and STEAM pathways.
Evidence
Site Priorities
Formative Assessments
Growth in the number of district initiatives or site priorities the pilot supports.
Increased administrator support for expanding the pilot.
Increased alignment with district initiatives.
Growth in the number of school sites implementing the pilot.
Growth in resources dedicated to sustaining the pilot.
Summative Assessments
The pilot supports at least three district initiatives or site priorities.
At least 70% of administrators who provide feedback support expanding the pilot.
At least one additional school site adopts the pilot each year.
Additional funding, materials, or staffing are secured each year to sustain the pilot.
5. Connects Beyond the Classroom
Community Connection – Learning experiences help students connect classroom innovation to local careers, organizations, and community needs.
Evidence
Community Engagement
Formative Assessments
Growth in community connections that support the pilot.
Community engagement through guest speakers, local organizations, career awareness activities, community events, and educational resource guides.
Summative Assessments
Establish at least one new community connection each year.
Provide at least two community-connected learning experiences each year (e.g., guest speaker, industry visit, community event, or career awareness activity).
Case Study Infographics
Information on Implementation (Universal)
Participation Tracking Tool
Participation Tracking Tool.pdfEducational Transfer Plan (excerpt)
Why Start Innovation Early?
Why Start Innovation Early?
Innovation identities begin forming at a young age. Research and classroom experience suggest that students' interests, confidence, and beliefs about future careers often begin developing during elementary and middle school. Early innovation experiences help students build curiosity, creativity, problem-solving skills, and the confidence to see themselves as future innovators.
In many school districts, STEM pathways formally begin in middle school. After leading innovation experiences for students in grades 1–6 and completing a summer fellowship at Gene Academy, I began exploring a central question:
What if innovation experiences began earlier?
Art and STEM are often viewed as separate disciplines—innovation as technical and art as expressive. In practice, however, they are deeply connected.
Engineering begins with sketching.
Prototyping is sculptural.
Design thinking is visual.
Iteration is creative.
When students build with simple materials such as cardboard, they are often less concerned with finding the "right" answer and more focused on exploring possibilities.
Classroom observations also revealed an important developmental pattern. Younger students tend to create freely and take creative risks. As students grow older, they often become more focused on rules, expected outcomes, and producing the correct answer. While this shift is a natural part of development, it highlights the importance of nurturing creative confidence during the elementary years, when students are most willing to experiment without fear of failure.
Between summer fellowships, I was invited to help think through an Innovation Day at another elementary school. The primary concern was not whether students would engage in innovation activities, but whether teachers would feel comfortable facilitating open-ended learning experiences.
This reflected a similar experience at Bringhurst Elementary's Innovation Club. When the club transitioned from themed, guided projects to open-ended tinkering, the instructional team initially questioned whether the activities would feel too unstructured or too messy. Instead, they observed organic collaboration, natural iteration, deeper student engagement, and increased confidence as students shared ideas and refined their designs. Innovation became less about producing the "right" answer and more about giving students permission to explore.
The experience also identified several factors that made open-ended innovation more approachable for teachers:
Simple, safe tools
A low barrier to entry
Opportunities to observe before facilitating
No requirement to launch an entirely new program
These experiences reinforced an important conclusion:
The greatest barrier to innovation is often not curriculum, but access and psychological safety.
Innovation does not necessarily begin with expensive equipment or a dedicated makerspace. Sometimes it begins with cardboard, markers, masking tape, and time to tinker.
If we create opportunities for creative exploration in elementary school, students don't have to start innovating later. They simply continue doing what they've always known how to do.
Coming Soon! Stay tuned for the Full Publication from Ignited!
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