This week IEN follows up on HundrED’s Innovation Summit by providing a brief overview of some of the 100 innovations featured in their new Global Collection for 2021. The HundrED summit included presentations from Mitchell Resnick on creativity in education, Kiran Bir Sethi Solutions for Inclusion & Equity, Fred Swaniker on the Future of Africa, Vicki Colbert on quality education in challenging environments, and a special tribute from Kate Robinson to her father Sir Ken Robinson. At the summit, along with the launch of the latest Global Collection, HundrED also released a Spotlight Report on Creativity in Education in partnership with the LEGO Foundation and then shared highlights of the summit along with a full recording on YouTube.
HundrED has been curating these collections of 100 innovations every year since 2016 as part of their effort to support the spread of “pedagogically sound, ambitious innovations” in multiple contexts. To create the collection, 150 academics, educators, innovators, funders and HundrED staff reviewed nominated programs based on each program’s impact and scalability.
In their report on the 2021 Global Collection, Christopher Petrie, head of global research and Katija Aladin a researcher at HundrED described the latest collection as including many innovations in “areas where there is often a lack of—or a gap—in traditional school education; for example, empathy, social skills etc.” Notably:
- 63% of the innovations focus on holistic skills like empathy, mindfulness, etc.
- 55% target the development of 21st century skills
- 47% develop traditional academic skills
- 41% Require digital devices to augment learning
- 35% Use pedagogical approaches that involve playful learning
- 20% develop vocational skills
Many of the innovations were created within the last five years, but five were created before 1999. Among the 2021 collection are organizations from many different parts of the world including:
Genius Lab is a for-profit organization founded in 2013. It has designed more than 600 STEAM and maker education courses in use in over 800 kindergartens, primary and secondary schools with branches in 30 cities around China. It’s “Genius Hour” provides a 21-day online camp consisting of course modules focusing on science, engineering, and design.
Educate Girls has identified 5% of villages that hold 40% of India’s out-of-school girl population. They work in partnership with the government and community volunteers to empower these girls to go back to school. Since its establishment in 2007, Educate Girls has enrolled 750,000+ girls in school.
NaTakallam builds on the expertise of refugees in several different contexts to connect them with opportunities to provide language instruction and translation services to users worldwide. Currently, NaTakallam’s conversation partners offer language sessions in multiple Arabic dialects, French, Persian and Spanish.
The Metis Collective offers a fellowship program for local innovators with ideas for reimagining teaching and learning. The fellowship provides access to a design thinking approach to innovation, a learning community, and coaching. The program has supported 63 Fellows who have created learning experiences for over 1.3 million learners across Kenya.
Agora replaces the courses, tests, schedules and homework of conventional secondary schools with challenges, collaboration and coaching in order to give 12-18 year-old students control over their own education. As one article described it, Agora is a school with no classes, no classrooms, and no curriculum. Founded in 2014 in Roermond, there are now 12 Agora’s in the Netherlands and beyond.
Self-Sustaining Agricultural School Model, Paraguay
Fundación Paraguaya’s Self-Sustaining Agricultural School Model combines classroom learning in agricultural methods and business practices with hands-on training in the schools’ enterprises. Those enterprises include organic vegetable gardening, dairy processing, beekeeping, tending to goats and chickens, and managing a tree nursery, a rural hotel, and roadside stores. Fundación Paraguaya is now responsible for four self-sustaining schools in Paraguay.
International Education News 