Dive Brief:

• The +Impact School at Tahoe Expedition Academy, a small, private school in northern California joins the learning management system founded by Summit Public Schools with funding from Facebook, becoming the first independent school to join the network.
• The Hechinger Report writes +Impact School’s concept of constructive adversity, wherein students face challenges that push them to their limits in order to grow, could reach public schools nationwide when they log into the Summit Personalized Learning Platform and access shared lesson plans.
• While +Impact School can send its students on international and domestic trips to get these experiences, public schools will have to adapt to what is possible in their budgets and find more local adventures.

Dive Insight:

The idea of being pushed to one’s limits and giving student chances to fail and try again, developing perseverance and a passion for problem-solving, is catching on in multiple areas of education. Makerspaces create these opportunities without ever leaving school buildings. But students need time to pursue their own projects and problem-solve solutions as necessary. This is much less likely to happen during short, sporadic trips to a makerspace. The best opportunities come when students are given regular exposure to this type of learning and innovation in their classrooms.

As public schools may struggle to fund field trips like students at +Impact School get, they also struggle to carve out the instructional minutes to allow for exploration. The Every Student Succeeds Act, which takes away some of the pressure to focus on test prep, could help change that and usher in a new era of instruction. It will take strong leadership, however, and a long-term commitment from administrators.