Indigo Education Company

Student Voice: Abram

April 12th 2016, Written by Nathan Robertson and Abram

When talking to skeptics of personalized learning, a common argument I hear is, “Well, the students don’t care. Why put in the effort when they won’t put in the effort?”

For those who hold to that argument, Abram disagrees with you.

We are constantly getting feedback from students after working with them. They feel empowered to make changes in their schools and to advocate for themselves. Abram decided to put his thoughts about his Indigo Report and education down on pen and paper. It’s a powerful example of what students can do when you give them an opportunity to speak. Student voice, student choice.

I’ll let Abram take it from here.

Hello my name is Abram and I am a sophomore at New Technology High School;. My definition of being successful in life varies from the social norm of simply getting rich and owning a lot of things, my definition of being successful is being happy and feeling fulfilled with you life. The Merriam-Webster secondary definition of success is the attainment of wealth and favor this definition is entirely subjective. Now what is my interpretation of this? My interpretation is that we value materials over personal relationships. In a paper by Bill Mckibben he concludes that as our houses get bigger, our personal relationships become fewer. This is disturbing to me, how can we be so lonely but still want more? My question for the world is what’s the point of all of your hard work if you just want to spend it all on yourself. In The United States alone 53,000,000 million people face hunger, a large portion of this number being children.

I’m lucky to go to a new tech school because I can express myself more than kids at others. This is a hard fact to come to terms with since I don’t think I express myself and show my full potential. However I find it harder and harder to be truly happy and fulfilled with what I do as a student, as the “challenges” we are presented do not work our minds but simply require a google search or a calculator. Guidelines are getting stricter, lessening my ability to express myself through school. In one instance my teachers did this really neat simulation of what a school in the industrial revolution would be like, they referred to us by numbers and wore old timey clothing, and it was really interesting for me, but my classmate sitting next to me became angry as the figures of authority became stronger. This was an eye opener for me because it showed how it wasn’t just the older generation that prefered standard types of learning and routine.

What I would like to see in education is small groups of equally talented individuals given a real world problem to solve by a teacher and solving it. My school has given us a few of these real world projects and in my school’s environmental studies class that I TA for they are doing exactly this, they planted oak trees at Skyline Park and helped with taking out invasive species of plants at the Oxbow flood overflow. To add to the first part of that, I find that my teachers seem to disperse the more motivated students among the less motivated to take the brunt of the work from them. This is unfair to the more motivated, as it hinders them with what should be others responsibility. My favorite project I worked on was during my Freshman year. The project was to present a solution to a real world problem to our class. This was really interesting because we had to learn from others solutions and research, instead of just teaching about something that was already known about. For the final we presented a model of an easily constructible home for refugees.

As you can see from my report I am not motivated by traditions. I do respect them but I disagree with many that have lost their relevance. For example the division of labour between men and women was useful when we were dropping like flies to disease and conflict, but in our modern world basic survival is not a thing that we need to worry so much about. The discrimination of women in the working world is unacceptable. One of my least favorite phrases is “It’s always been done this way” this saying drags us as a society down because it provides no other reason than it was relevant to people before me. Times change rapidly and relevant information of the past becomes quickly irrelevant. In my opinion this is not a basis to make a decision. I do realize how helpful it is to base our decisions off of prior knowledge but their is a difference in relevant and irrelevant prior knowledge.

Thank you for listening.

-Abram

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Personalizing School Culture Causes Radical Transformation

Thoughts on Education / user

Personalizing School Culture Causes Radical Transformation

March 14th 2016, Written by Nathan Robertson

Your School is Struggling? Tacking on a New Computer Lab is not the Answer

I remember when my district began introducing smart boards into my high school. Teachers fought for a classroom outfitted with the new technology. Educators began to build lesson plans around the boards, excited as they imagined how students would gape in awe at the digital equivalent of a whiteboard.

However, as a current high school student at the time, I remember how my friends and I actually responded. A lackluster comment here, a raised eyebrow there, and any interest the smart board may have initially garnered dissipated within a matter of weeks. Math was still math, whether you wrote it with a dry-erase marker or a digital marker (we frequently mixed up the two types of markers, much to my teachers’ chagrin).

In college, the same trend continued. I remember how bullishly the journalism school fought for students to get iPads. The professors felt like rock stars handing out 100 iPads in a lecture hall – their class had now been validated as a “cool” place to learn because of 1:1 hand-held technology in the classroom. I am remember looking quizzically at the fresh iPad with a university branded cover, tossing it in my bag, and then opening up my computer where all of my files were stored. The majority of students followed the same behavior.

Technology in schools is a boon for innovation – new tech brings new applications and options for educators. However, smart boards and iPads are not the solutions – they are not the independent variables that drive educational outcomes. You need to go deeper than surface-level tech plugins to impact schools in meaningful ways.

Put simply, technology needs to be married with personalized learning. Schools need to be using more applications that facilitate tailoring pedagogy, curriculum, school culture, and even the school environment to students. Any technology that doesn’t contribute to personalizing learning holds little to no value in improving the quality of education.

Personalized Learning – Why it’s Important, Why it’s Hard, and What We’re Doing About It

Personalized learning means diversifying academic instruction, strategies, and experiences to meet the unique strengths and needs of individual students. In short, it’s the transition from a one-size-fits-all teaching approach to inviting students to help co-create their own education. It’s the power of listening for how students actually want to learn, and building a path that makes sense for each individual.

Although the modern wave of personalized learning is still nascent, schools that take on personalizing learning are seeing tangible impacts in their classrooms. Schools that are taking personalized learning are seeing major shifts such as 20% more students pursuing college and 14% more satisfactory grades across the board. Personalized learning isn’t just an interesting trend, it’s something that is unlocking student potential across schools.

In reality, however, personalized learning is difficult to implement because educators cannot copy and paste successful initiatives from one school to another. Since successful personalized learning is tailored toward an individual school’s culture and students, there’s no guarantee of repeated outcomes from any schools attempting to mimic them. While there are models that exist to help guide schools through the conceptual path, there is no easy solution. Because of this, 78% of teachers say meeting the personalized learning needs of students is too difficult.

So how does technology come into play with personalized learning? Schools are in need of technology that gives them more avenues to reach students. Cloud technologies and products that track meaningful student data provide new, innovative, low-cost avenues to make personalized learning possible in all types of school – from upper-end private schools in California to inner-city public schools in Detroit.

Technology that helps schools personalize education is what we need– but what does that technology look like? How do schools avoid throwing EdTech products at their teachers until something works? How do education leaders cobble together a series of ideas and philosophies that actually fit their students without getting frustrated by trial and error?

At Indigo Project, we believe that the most crucial piece of any personalized learning initiative is knowing the answer to the following three things:

Who are the administrators? How do they like to work?
Who are the teachers? How do they like to teach?
Who are the students? How do they like to learn?

We help schools find the answers to all three with the Indigo Assessment, a corporate-level assessment that measures the Behaviors, Motivations, Skills & Strengths, and Social Emotional Health of each individual. We test everyone – from the youngest freshmen to the most tenured administrator – and use the data to paint a picture of the school body. Once you understand who the administrators, teachers, and students are, how they operate, and what they want, you can start effectively personalizing the school to fit its people.

We’ve worked with more than 30 high schools and universities – more than 8,000 students and teachers. Below are three stories from schools that began to personalize their schools based on Indigo’s data and saw their schools begin radical, positive transformation.

Pinnacle High School – Identifying Leaders

In Pinnacle High School in northern Denver, Principal Todd Bittner and his teachers are using Indigo to identify potential leaders who may otherwise go unnoticed. Teachers are pulling in “problem students” into their office hours to talk about their strengths, skills and passions, and connecting them to clubs and opportunities where they can put those strengths to use in a positive way. For example, one teacher looked up the Indigo Report of a student causing issues in his class and discovered one of his top skills was leadership. Instead of shutting him down, he decided to give him a leadership position in the classroom and it transformed the entire dynamic of the class. The student went from being a “problem” to being an engaged, positive example of a leader.

“It’s giving students confidence,” Principal Todd Bittner said. “They start thinking ‘maybe I can go to college’ – Indigo is giving us hope.”

The Academy – Change School Culture

Indigo has the potential to change the whole culture in a school. At The Academy, Principal Cody Clark is giving students control of clubs and activities and watching the community thrive. The Indigo test identified that his students want to give back and make a positive impact in the community – and so he started providing opportunities to do just that. As a result, coat drive donations went up, food drive donations went up, the student council doubled the attendance at the homecoming dance, and classroom behavior referrals went down 50%.

“This has been transformational for the school,” Clark said. “It breaks down barriers.”

Peak to Peak – Building Strengths Improve Grades

Helping students understand their strengths improves academic performance. At Peak to Peak High School, Counselor Kimberly Gannett ran a 10-week group with failing sophomores. They all took the Indigo Assessment before beginning the group. Each week, they focused on the different strengths in their Indigo Reports and how they could use them in their school and in their futures. As a result, at the end of ten weeks the number of failing grades in the group went from 30 grades to only 3 grades.

“I really do feel it was the first time for those kids in their entire lives where we focused on what they were good at instead of what they were failing,” Gannett said. “I’ve never seen a change like that in my 20 years of education.”

The common denominator of change wasn’t new technology; it was creating opportunities for students that let them take charge of their education. If you give students the opportunity to connect their strengths to your curriculum, leaders emerge, referrals go down, and failing grades disappear. It’s all about leveraging your resources to create learning opportunities that make sense for students.

Indigo does use technology in our process – our assessment and online cloud-based platform are key parts of how we execute. Although they are key parts of what we do and help catalyze change, educators don’t walk away praising the tech. They walk away in awe that they found answers to the three questions Indigo solves when we begin working with any school – they discover who are their students, who are their teachers, and who are their administrators.

Conclusions

Indigo is pushing our schools into new territory. We’ll be launching a long-term personalized learning plan that will use our data as a base to guide schools to the next level of personalized learning; students and teachers will be working together to set school culture, seniors will be teaching social emotional resiliency to freshmen, and all students will be advocating with their community and school to find opportunities that enhance and push forward their studies in impactful ways.

As we continue to grow and add tools to our arsenal, however, we fight to make sure we don’t lose sight of why our work is important. It’s not because of the tools, the gadgets, and the plans. It’s important because of what that helps schools accomplish. We don’t celebrate Indigo’s accomplishes – we celebrate the accomplishments of schools like Pinnacle, The Academy, and Peak to Peak.

Indigo isn’t another EdTech thing to slap on the wall next to the smart board. It’s a process that engages with the one thing in school that’s not going out of style anytime soon – people.

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Highlighting Excellence: New Vista’s Success in Personalized Education

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Highlighting Excellence: New Vista’s Success in Personalized Education

March 9th 2016, Written by Nathan Robertson

It’s not everyday you hear about high school students restoring a 1969 Pontiac Firebird.

This past fall Indigo Project, an education technology company headquartered in Niwot, Colorado, peered behind the curtain of New Vista High School to see what makes the school tick. Through this work, Indigo discovered a school that is excelling at personalized education. Based on the data insights, New Vista has cracked the code on how to connect with students. It’s leading to the development of skills such as empathy and creativity, an open and collaborative environment, and helping students nail down who they are and what they are passionate about in life.

Indigo’s data proves this. New Vista’s faculty have the highest Steadiness Behavior (calm, loyal, patient) of any high school Indigo has worked with in Colorado. Additionally their Empathy Skill is far above the average corporate adult, and they are also highly motivated by giving back and making an impact in their students’ lives (Social Motivator). These characteristics, identified by the Indigo Assessment, indicate New Vista’s environment is a nurturing and stable place for a school that is “designed to cultivate the unique talents, gifts, and interests” of students.

To understand what New Vista is doing right, a deep dive is necessary to see who are the students, who are the staff, and what things are administrators doing to help align students, staff and themselves together. Understanding how Indigo shed light on what New Vista’s process is and why that process works can launch larger conversations about what is the current state of other schools who are trying – and maybe struggling – to figure out who their students are and what the school culture is.

What if Test Scores Aren’t the Most Important Thing?

Many schools today are focused on driving students toward the types of success that are easiest to measure. They would rather emphasize school-wide SAT scores and percentage of students going to a four-year university than evaluate how many students feel good about themselves and also feel prepared to pursue the future they want for themselves. It leaves out a lot of narratives about how schools are actually developing children as people.

Enter New Vista High School: a school of about 300 students in the heart of Boulder, Colorado. New Vista is one of the schools that champions the idea of creating a safe, supportive and trusting environment for students. It’s not about cutthroat competition. It’s about an open, collaborative place where individual differences are respected and students are held to high standards for the betterment of the community. It’s a nurturing environment that is designed to develop students in all aspects of their life.

However, this leads to a dilemma. How does a school like New Vista display these qualities to potential students and their families? How do they advocate for the model in a concrete way? What if test scores aren’t the most important thing to measure?

New Vista, an Overview

New Vista opened its doors in 1993. For more than 20 years, they have been providing an alternative education experience to students who do not thrive under traditional models.

“One of the things we do really well here at New Vista is focus on the whole student through individualized instruction,” Principal Kirk Quitter said. “ Ultimately, our aim is to meet students where they are and give them what they need to be more successful.”

As soon as you walk into New Vista, you can feel that the school is personalized for its students. The New Vista community is creative, and student artwork is all over the walls. The students are also environmentally conscious, with posters on the wall announcing meetings for groups like Earth Task Force and classes such as Community Adventure Program, a quarter-long outdoor course that focuses on survival skills and how to reduce your eco-footprint. This is not a one-size-fits-all model, but a school that is clearly honing in on how to best fit the students that are coming through their doors.

In the spirit of a collaborative culture, classes are not separated by age. Instead, all classes have a variety of students from freshmen to seniors. It breaks down walls that sometimes occur when grades are isolated in their own cohorts. The result is a strong community where 14-year-olds and 18-year-olds are interacting in the same room and learning together.

This community is not just internally focused however. Once a week students can go out and engage with their city in Community Experiences. CEs can take many forms, ranging from professional experiences like working in a local architecture firm to partnering with nonprofits in the community. Regardless of form, students are going outside of their schools and advocating for themselves in roles and responsibilities with real organizations. This builds a sense of autonomy, independence and confidence that is critical for the development of our youth.

New Vista brings all these unique experiences to head with their Culminating Projects. The projects are senior capstones a la personalized learning – students complete an original, rigorous piece of work that is relevant or of great interest to them based on who they are. It dovetails the intensity of a traditional capstone with the individualized streak of the student. With a community like New Vista, projects stay wide, varied and original; some past examples include ecological studies in Tasmania, interning at a school for autistic children, and restoring a 1969 Pontiac Firebird.

New Vista is a community based on the individual. It stresses individual discovery and provides opportunities to explore passions through a variety of projects and experiences. It also provides a collaborative space where all these individuals can engage in respectful dialogue with each other regardless of age. In terms of a school-student fit, New Vista fits its students like a glove fits a hand.

New Vista through the Lens of Indigo

This fall, the Indigo team worked with all the students and faculty at New Vista. Here’s some of the key insights on how the school is shaping students that the Indigo Assessment revealed.

A Steady Staff

One of the areas the Indigo Assessment measures is Behaviors – how people communicate or “show up” in a room. One of the Behaviors measured is Steadiness: it embodies consistency, patience, loyalty, and how nurturing an individual is capable of being. When looking at the staff at New Vista, teachers showed up nearly two standard deviations higher than the average adult in Steadiness. This is the highest Indigo has seen in any school.

What does this say about the school? It says they are doing a good job at hiring. If the school is truly focused on individualized education and growing students in a holistic way, that requires a lot of additional time from teachers to form one-to-one relationships with students and invest additional time in each person. It requires patience, understanding, and a non-aggressive demeanor. With a staff this high in Steadiness, this team of teachers will constantly be thinking about how they can help provide the right environment for their students – and it shows. Teachers want outside guests and speakers to understand who their students are and what the culture is before they come because they want to make sure anyone working with their students provides a personalized experience fit to them.

They don’t do it because of rules or compliance. They do it because they care that much about the students.

A Creative and Empathetic Student Population

Another area the assessment measures is Motivators – what drives a person, how they prioritize things in life. It measures between six different motivators. One of the motivators is Aesthetic: it embodies a desire for balance and harmony, and typically underscores a desire for some sort of creative or artistic outlet. Looking at the seniors, 50 percent of students indicated that Aesthetic was their number one Motivator.

Remember when I said there was artwork all over the school walls? That wasn’t some school program that forced students to paint – students there are looking for an artistic outlet. The fact that the school is hanging up their artwork everywhere just means that the school is listening.

As a result, when looking at students’ top 21st Century Skills on the test both Creativity and Empathy show up as top skills. Confidence in these skills are a direct result of being in an aesthetic, steady school built around student preferences.

A School that is Addressing Social Emotional Issues

The fourth and final section measured on the test is Social Emotional Health – measuring how people view both internal and external elements of who they are and the world around them. At Indigo, we typically see most schools have about 30 percent of their population showing up on the “Blue List” of students that may need additional social emotional support.

At New Vista, however, we see an interesting trend. While the school is known for attracting students that need social emotional help, the school is showing that the percentage of students in each grade that needs additional support is dropping marginally each passing year as they get older. The school is aware that its students need the additional support, and the test shows that they are doing things to help students that are working.

Conclusion

New Vista’s model is different than the other schools in its district. It has an environmental emphasis and cares deeply about the state of its student community. It gives students a lot of flexibility to pursue their own path and passions. The assessment puts concrete numbers behind their culture. They are a school with an incredibly steady staff. Their students are developing skills they wouldn’t be developing at any traditional school in the district. On top of all that, students are finding closure in their emotional struggles as they begin to feel more and more confident and empowered to go into the future.

In other words, New Vista is a model that excels at their mission, and they now have scores to show that.

So what’s next? New Vista will begin integrating curriculum around Indigo into their advisories. Additionally, counselors are beginning to use Indigo in one-on-one advising with students. More than anything, Quitter says it brings a lingua franca into the school to talk about the different attributes that make people who they are.

“The results mean a greater opportunity to serve the needs of our kids, and bringing that common language into our community is huge,” Quitter said. “This process has had some big ripple effects from the classroom, into the advisory level and out into the community amongst parents.”

It is our hope those ripples will continue to grow in starting conversations between students, parents and teachers about how to connect with students and help them find a college and career future that fits who they are.

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Homeboy Industries – A Story of Redemption

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Homeboy Industries – A Story of Redemption

February 28th 2016, Written by Nathan Robertson

I’ve heard it said before that one of the most humbling human experiences is to meet someone who may have less than you materially, but who possesses joy and hope beyond your personal understanding.

This past week, I spent some time in Southern California doing workshops and meeting with a few clients. Friday morning was free, so I decided to head north up the 405 into Los Angeles to visit Homeboy Industries. For me, it was a humbling human experience.

HBI provides help, support and training to gang-involved or previously incarcerated men and women. Services range from college and technical courses, counseling, case management, and a tattoo removal center that has removed more tattoos than any other institution in the world. They put people on an 18-month program to prepare for integrating back into the community. That’s all I really knew going into it. I wanted to avoid scraping Google beforehand so that I could experience HBI with as little bias as possible.

When I walk in, it’s unclear to me if I am in an office space or a pep rally. The staff has gathered 75 or more of their walk-ins for morning announcements. Every single staff member that will be working with the walk-ins is introduced to sound of applause. An Irish-American Catholic gives a quick anecdote on the health benefits of laughing often. Where I am at is standing room only, and more people are coming in the doors throughout the announcement.

What was interesting to see was the diversity in the staff. Some of them were Caucasian, corporate, with buttoned up shirts tucked into slacks. Others looked like they came from the community – not just because of their skin color, but also because of how they dressed and looked. It’s not just a multiracial team, but also a team that clearly comes from a range of backgrounds.

The morning meeting breaks, and then the place turns into organized chaos as everyone moves to a class, meeting, or to take care of the community garden outside. I’m quickly passed on to my tour guide, Jimmy.

Here’s where the humility begins to kick in. I spent an hour with Jimmy touring the building and walking through the gardens outside, listening to his story. If you ever meet Jimmy, he will tell his story to you as freely as he did to me: he was incarcerated at 16 for killing a man in an act of gang violence. Despite the fact he began to reform and change during his sentence, it would not be until 30 years later that he was released. The woman he married during his sentence, who was waiting for him to be released, died less than a week before he was free. He came back into the world in June 2015 with his wife gone and her son in need of a guardian.

Now, this level of trauma is enough to shut most people down. Some may be able to power through, but they would do so with gritted teeth and a jaded outlook on the world. They would numb themselves to the pain in order that they may cope.

But not Jimmy. Jimmy is a man of hope. Even if his wife’s 14-year-old son is not his biological son, he said he must be an example for him to follow. Even if two-thirds of his life has been spent behind bars, he said he must be an example for his community. That’s why he came to Homeboy to start his 18 months, and that’s why he volunteers to lead tours. That he may share not only his story, but his excitement and vision for the future.

During this conversation my mind is reeling. As Indigo continues to grow into more inner-city schools, we are beginning to run into this undercurrent of gang culture. I was all questions with him, but the biggest question I had was, “Jimmy, how do you connect with someone if that person feels like they have no value, if that person thinks they can’t succeed?”

Jimmy looked at me levelly and just smiled. “It’s about compassion, brother. It goes beyond just understanding where they are at, it’s connecting them to people that have been where they are at, and can show them the way.”

I sat with my notebook afterward at Homegirl Bakery (a spinoff company next door that employs incarcerated women and helps fund the services provided at Homeboy Industries) trying to process everything. What does this mean for how Indigo approaches education, I wondered? How can I translate this back to what we do for students?

I suddenly recalled the words of an Assistant Principal at a Denver inner-city school with which we work. “Education is important. Sometimes, however, we as educators need to step back and realize that life is more important than education.”

Indigo as a company stands for expanding how schools and educators can interact with students, but this takes things to another level. How can Indigo support boots-on-the-ground staff in servicing not only students’ educational needs, but also life needs through Indigo? If life is more important than education, how can we help students conquer the problems in their lives so that they can move forward to excel in their future education and career?

A day at Homeboy Industries answered questions, but also created many more that need to be explored. However, it is the pursuit of answers to these types of questions that will make Indigo more and more relevant in schools.

If we are designed to be partnering with the schools to help them push students forward, then we have to meet them on all fronts. But when I meet guys like Jimmy, I know that any student, regardless of their background, beliefs or situation, can unlock their strengths and find an outlet that allows them to become fully realized in the person they are uniquely designed to be.

In short, it reminded me why I do the work that I do.

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National Education Week: 7 Lessons from America’s EdTech Community

Thoughts on Education / user

National Education Week: 7 Lessons from America’s EdTech Community

January 14th 2016, Written by Nathan Robertson

Right before the Christmas season, I went to the National Education Week conference hosted by the EDGE EdTech Accelerator in New York City. As one of the directors at Indigo, I spend the majority of my time serving as the boots on the ground in schools throughout Colorado, Arizona and Nebraska. This was a rare opportunity for me to take a break after the 50 workshop I did last fall and see what else was going on in the EdTech world.

The conference exposed me to the heart of action in NYC’s education-entrepreneurism space, and here are the 7 insights with which I walked away.

1. The Education World of Today is Not the Education World of Tomorrow

Chancellor Carmen Farina pointed out that in her 20 years of working in education people spent too little time innovating and too much time reacting. There are great EdTech companies out there, but are they providing services that equip students for the world they live in today or the world they will graduate into tomorrow?

Farina challenged us to think more critically about the schools we serve. Based on your students, and their interests, and technology’s advances, and where the economy is predicted to be in five years, what are the best things you can pass on to your students that will prepare them for the future?

2. Students are “Digital Ready”—Use Those Skills

88 percent of teens have access to a cell phone, and 58 percent of them to a tablet (Growing Wireless, 2016). Some children carry in their pockets more computing power than my entire 5th grade computer lab possessed—and they know how to wield it. We need to see curriculum that leverages that skillset.

Last week I was in a school where the teacher commanded students to put up their phones before the class could move forward. Instead of suppressing the desire to use technology, imagine if we could find ways to redirect it through coding classes, research projects, or even incorporating apps in a blended model.

3. Teachers are – Surprise – Still Important

One of the startups I saw at the conference was an early-stage company that is building an artificial intelligence math tutor. That’s right, despite all the movies about AI taking over the planet, in the real world they are teaching Algebra I. Many companies are looking for ways to remove human interaction from education (Coursera, Khan Academy) by teaching online or removing teachers from the equation.

But General Assembly CEO Jake Schwartz brought up an interesting point. “We’ve have had the technology to spread knowledge for 500 years since the Gutenberg Press—and it still has not replaced our teachers.”

EdTech startups should spend less time thinking about how to work around teachers, and more time thinking about how to work with them. They are the true difference makers in students’ lives, and the ones with power to innovate in the classroom. We need them for successful, long-term change.

At Indigo, we see teachers as the pivot point that bridges administrators and students to communicate, generate ideas and implement new initiatives in schools. Teachers are not just important– they are absolutely critical.

4. We’re Forgetting about Community College Students

Imagine the stereotypical college student. Who do you see? 19-year-old frat star? 17-year-old coding genius? 22-year-old student council president?

How about 28-year-old mother who is working two jobs and taking night classes?

According to Dr. Gail Mellow, President of LaGuardia Community College, 50 percent of all undergraduate students are in community college, and most of them don’t look like they stereotype we imagine. Most of the time EdTech companies want to partner with Ivy League universities or similar to boost their prestige—as result 12 million students in community colleges are not getting solutions build for their problems.

For me, this was one of the biggest questions in my mind. How do you create a product that works for community college? How do you create a personalized education that can meet people who, while they may go to the same community college, are in all different phases of life?

This is one area that I think could be incredibly exciting for Indigo in the future. Since we are a strengths-based organization that focuses on the individual strengths of each student, we have the potential to help these non-traditional students find their voice. There will definitely be things to learn from them about the best way to deliver, but being able to impact students that other EdTech companies may be ignoring gives me a thrill.

5. Many Programs Give Only the Illusion of Learning

I have an app on my phone for language learning. I’ll spend 15 minutes jabbing buttons and repeating back words into my iPhone’s speaker, and just like that I’ve got 30 points and have passed the animals and pets lessons. Congratulations, you’ve just pass your fourth German course!

Many education programs take pains to make students’ progression very visible. Tracking points, multiple levels, badges and stars. How many of these types of programs are actually facilitating the learning they claim to provide?

Companies working with schools possess an ethical responsibility to test their products and really understand the impact it has on students. Did students really become better leaders? Are their writing skills truly better than they were last year because of what EdTech companies sold the school?

6. Students > Your Newest EdTech Idea

In an earlier point I mentioned the need for teachers to be involved in education innovation. Another fact that must be emphasized is that students need to be involved in change as well. Too often I wonder if companies are building products that meet the needs of the gatekeeper—an administrator, a district official—and miss the needs of students.

The reality is that students possess the power to drive demand in schools. Not only are there tax dollars associated with each student that chooses your school, but they deserve the highest standard of holistic education that an institution can provide.

If we want to look toward the future of schools, it’s not just in listening to the big picture from administrators. It’s listening to the every day problems of students who are living and learning in the system we have built for them today.

At Indigo, it’s not about the technology. We have technology, and building out our Indigo.Fathym platform will be one of the major developments for the company this spring, but that is not the focus. The focus at Indigo has always been, and always will be, the students. If we aren’t reaching and changing them, then we aren’t doing our job. It’s that simple.

7. Implementation is Everything

I heard a lot of great ideas while I was at this conference. Seriously, the best and brightest of EdTech entrepreneurs and education leaders were present. However, I think the most poignant quote came from Wendy Kopp, Teach for America Founder:

“Technology is not the answer. Implementation is everything.” –Wendy Kopp

It doesn’t matter how great our solutions are, how innovative our models, how competitive our teams, if we are not going into schools and doing something. Without action, all of our efforts just amount to more tools on shelves that do nothing for education.

The more time I spend in schools working with administrators, teachers and students, the more this truth resonates with me. Schools don’t just want another platform. They want a partner who works with them to help begin the kinds of changes they want to see in their school. It’s one of my favorite parts about the job. When I can look at a school and know that Indigo played a roll in impacting their culture and how they treat their students, it reminds me how much I love my job.

For me, this conference taught me a lot. It gave me a better sense of where Indigo fits in the world of education, and why what we are doing in schools is important. Indigo is not an EdTech product—we’re an EdTech process that can transform schools and spark changes that schools can sustain.

It’s been so encouraging for me to see the impact and hear the stories of changes that are happening in schools. I will go back to that conference one day—and when I do, I want it to be because my CEO is talking about how we’ve changed the way one million students receive education in this country by shifting school culture away from test focus and toward a holistic, student-centered education.

Catch you next time, New York.

Sources:

http://www.growingwireless.com/get-the-facts/quick-facts

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Hanging with the Timberwolves

Indigo Schools / user

Hanging with the Timberwolves

November 5th 2015, Written by Nathan Robertson

It’s hard not to like Pinnacle High School. We started working with 200 Pinnacle juniors and seniors right in the heart of spirit week; somewhere between watching four very public ask-the-girl-out-to-homecoming stunts in the cafeteria and having the Timber Wolf mascot itself come into our workshop, we knew we were going to have fun at Pinnacle.

What really draws us into Pinnacle are the stories we heard from students who stayed after our workshops to talk with us. Everything from one junior deciding he was dead set on pursuing culinary school, to a senior who recommitted herself to finding a career in the outdoors so that she wouldn’t get stuck in a desk job. While Indigo is all about scaling this mission to reach hundreds of thousand of students, we still get amped up by these individual stories.

What’s next for us and Pinnacle? They’ve already started using version 1.0 of our curriculum with students, and we’re looking ahead to see how we can integrate our Indigo Advisement Plan into their required ICAPs. One thing is for certain– you haven’t seen the last of us, Timberwolves!

P.S. A big thanks to our sponsors at KIND Bars– I think it’s safe to say the students are enjoying the snacks 🙂

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Indigo Moves to Niwot

Indigo News / user

Indigo Moves to Niwot

April 29h 2015, Written by Marie Campbell

Niwot, CO – The Indigo Education Company moves today from their current office on Pearl Street (Boulder) to Niwot Road. At their new location, Indigo plans to offer student workshops and community events geared toward college and career preparedness.

Indigo’s relocation to Niwot fits with the company’s goal to positively impact local communities. Niwot’s small-town feel makes it the ideal location, as do the personal company connections – Indigo’s current President, David Kalish, is a Niwot resident, and Indigo’s office manager grew up in the town.

Indigo’s new office will take on the title “Indigo Advising” and will focus on supporting the local community, while the Indigo Education Company will continue to offer support to schools and educators. Starting in June, Indigo Advising will conduct free workshops covering topics such as:

How to select a good college fit,
How to choose a major, and
How to channel your child’s unique strengths.

Additional upcoming events include an Artwalk Open House, a Free Cupcake Day, and a Mother’s Day Tea.

Indigo’s mission is to teach students the skills they need to succeed in all of life: at school, at home, among friends, and one day in the workplace. Through personalized, non-academic data analysis and advising, Indigo equips students to uncover their unique passions, motivators, and behavioral styles. Indigo then helps students apply this knowledge to major life decisions, such as college and career choice.

“We need to look at education from a different perspective,” CEO Sheri Smith wrote in a recentblog post. “What matters in the real world generally has little to do with book knowledge. Creativity, resourcefulness, grit, kindness, and passion … they constitute true brilliance,” Smith says. Indigo’s Niwot workshops are just one manifestation of this vision, as students learn to harness and apply their individual genius.

Indigo anticipates an official opening date of May 26th. Their new address will be:7960 Niwot Road Suite B-9, Niwot, CO, 80503. To view upcoming events, visit the events page for Indigo Advising.

About the Indigo Assessment

The Indigo Assessment is a 45-minute online questionnaire providing students, parents, and educators with non-academic data often missing from traditional education. The assessment was originally developed by Indigo’s technology partner Target Training International and has been used by CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies for over 30 years. In 2013, Indigo adapted the assessment to apply to students 9th grade and above. Thanks to the Indigo Assessment, students are equipped to understand their unique strengths, motivators, and learning styles.

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Indigo’s Alternative Education April Winner: The DO School

Thoughts on Education / user

Indigo’s Alternative Education April Winner: The DO School

April 24th 2015, Written by Jahla Seppanen

Indigo chose The DO School as its Alternative Education April Winner because we believe dreaming and doing is the future of education. The DO School has successfully allowed young people to make a difference, turning school into a space for real change and impact.

The DO School offers excellent educational programs that empower individuals and teams to turn ideas into action. Participants learn how to create social innovation hands-on, learn from passionate peers, engage with current experts and create impact for leading organizations.

Do you learn better when someone explains how to do something or allows you to try for yourself? Would you rather think about the next great idea that will change the world or go out and create it?

If you chose action, it could be the traditional college model of education will not fulfill your intrinsic goals and motivators. You might find yourself sitting in class wondering, ‘why can’t we put these ideas to use!?” Let’s call you, the Do-ers. You garner knowledge through application, dream big, and enjoy seeing the fruits of your labor come to life. For all you Do-ers, The DO School might be your perfect post-secondary path.

Students at The DO School are empowered to turn their great ideas into solid actions. Real action means real impact, and for all you Do-ers this sounds too good to be true. It can be difficult for young people to understand that post-secondary education is not reserved to the pre-req, sit-in-a-desk, take-notes, write-papers format. Shield your ears college professors but as they say at The DO School, “it’s not what you know, but what you do with it.” The DO School method enables students, or “Fellows,” to become innovators and have real positive social impact.

That’s why, during time on campus, the Fellows solve a real-life Challenge – a hands-on group task given by a company, governmental agency or NGO, next to preparing their own start ups. Recent Challenges have been the Green Store Challenge for H&M Germany or the Sustainable Cup Challenge given in collaboration with New York City’s Office of Long Term Planning and Sustainability.

Florian Hoffman, Founder and President at The DO School says,

“In today’s quickly changing world, innovation and social progress will come from individuals that reflect on their values and talents and learn the skills that are needed to seek opportunities and turn ideas into action. The DO School’s hands-on programs empower these leaders to create impact in the world.”

It doesn’t take long to realize The DO School might be on to something. Ask yourself why you go to college? To get a job. To survive in the “real world.” Students at DO have already created their “real world” job before their traditional counterparts start applying for post-grad positions. The DO School method, used in their One-Year Program, teaches Fellows how to focus their passions and talents to create positive and sustainable change in their communities. Past Fellows have created amazing projects including: a social enterprise called OneLamp, providing safe and affordable solar light bulbs to rural Ugandan families, a mobile ride-sharing app called Raye7, connecting friends and co-workers for easy and safe ride-sharing in Egypt, and an eco-brick manufacturing business “My Dream Home” to address the housing shortage for low income families in Cambodia. Take that college essay!

Read about other DO innovations here.

The DO School’s One-Year Program is open for enrollment to passionate social entrepreneurs between the ages of 21-31. Their admissions process is selective, only because applicants must be highly determined and willing to use DO to start or grow existing ventures. For more application information read on here. Other programs offered at The DO School include Leading for Impact with the Scoll Centre of Social Entrepreneurship at the University of Oxford, and the Intrapreneurship Program.

The DO School is supported by global organizations such as H&M, Newman’s Own Foundation, PlaNYC, EY, and more, and partners with other alternative education programs across the world including H&M Germany and EY.

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TTI Success Insights Wins Prestigious Leadership 500 Award By HR.com

Indigo News / user

TTI Success Insights Wins Prestigious Leadership 500 Award by HR.com

April 21st 2015, Written by Marie Campbell

TTI Success Insights (TTI SI) was awarded first place in the small business category during the Leadership 500 Excellence Awards Program, which salutes the world’s top companies for outstanding achievement in leadership development practices.

Scottsdale, Ariz., April 03, 2015 — TTI Success Insights (TTI SI) was awarded first place in the small business category during the Leadership 500 Excellence Awards Program, which salutes the world’s top companies for outstanding achievement in leadership development practices.

TTI SI’s top honor celebrated how the company has positively impacted businesses and employees’ lives through its suite of assessments, along with enabling its worldwide network of 7,000 Value Added Associates to meet and exceed their clients’ expectations.

“Our company has developed and shaped rising leaders for over 30 years, and we feel honored to be a spoke on the wheel in helping small businesses grow and better serve their clients,” said Bill J. Bonnstetter, chairman and founder of TTI SI. “As the workplace shifts with new generations entering the job market, leaders will thrive when they better understand how the fives sciences that make up the Science of Self™ impact their productivity and profits.”

Leadership 500 Excellence Award winners were announced March 31 at LEAD500, a three-day conference in Dallas keynoted by former President Bill Clinton. This year’s awards recipients were judged by an expert panel and selected based on both an application and nomination process, as well as feedback from each nominated company’s stakeholders

The top 500 leadership organizations receive recognition in HR.com’s annual ranking, and the winners in each category are featured in this month’s Leadership Excellence magazine.

“I think the Leadership 500 Awards, in combination with LEAD 2015, demonstrates top organizations that not only value leadership, but also have innovative programs,” said Debbie McGrath, CEO of HR.com. “This year’s list of winners reflect the importance of reinventing leadership development and the need to bring leadership to a wider audience.”

Established in 1984 by Bill J. Bonnstetter and his son, Dave Bonnstetter, TTI SI has helped businesses increase employee engagement, increase leaders’ self-awareness, improve team efficiencies, and provide clarity in purpose and communication.

Source: http://www.ttisuccessinsights.com/

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Bringing Humanity Back into Education: Thoughts from the ASU/GSV Summit

Thoughts on Education / user

Bringing Humanity Back into Education: Thoughts from the ASU/GSV Summit

April 13th 2016, Written by Sheri Smith

“So you are bringing ‘humanity’ back into the education process?” quipped Jamie Moran from the Florida Online School during the opening keynote of the ASU+GSV Summit. “Yes, can I quote you on that?” I replied. “That is exactly what Indigo is doing – and we are doing it in a scalable way that connects each student’s genius to something practical in the greater world.”

The ASU+GSV Summit (April 6-8) brought together some of the greatest innovative minds in today’s educational landscape, all addressing the question: “What is best for students?” Despite our deepest efforts to create an education system that empowers students, however, we have not been able to change the tragic fact that 20% of high school students have contemplated suicide. Somehow, we have been unable to communicate to these students the enormity of their potential impact – the difference one life can make in a community, a country, or the world.

Consider my friend Eric Gulstrom, who founded Educate at age 17. He has literally transformed the entire education system of Uganda with the simple idea that you can lift people out of poverty by incorporating social entrepreneurship into education.

Or what about Roberto Rivera, self-proclaimed “dope dealer converted to a hope dealer,” who found a way to inspire and engage inner-city youth through music, art, and self expression? There are countless stories of ordinary individuals literally changing the world, and it’s all possible for America’s youth. Yet the only thing many of them can see is an SAT score that won’t get them into a top university.

Where have we gone wrong?

When we reduce education down to academics, we inadvertently feed the children of America the lie that “if you don’t have straight A’s, you aren’t going to make it in the world.” However, the exact opposite is true: what matters in the real world generally has little to do with book knowledge. Creativity, resourcefulness, grit, kindness, and passion – these elements and many more are the defining characteristics of humanity, and they constitute true brilliance.

Throughout my work with Indigo, I have found that the “problem” students are often the most talented. At a recent teacher workshop we used one such individual as an example to help the teachers see students from a different perspective. When I revealed this young woman’s report to the teachers (she volunteered to share her information), I described her wildly creative mind, her capacity for futuristic thinking, and her extreme independence. I could see the teachers’ heads nodding; they all agreed that she was a bright light.

Then they began to voice their frustrations.

“. . . but she won’t read my books in English class.” “She won’t do her homework.” ”Her mind is always someplace else.”

I couldn’t help thinking, God bless her for being someplace else! I want to know what she is thinking about, imagining, and believing in, because it is quite possible that this high school student has answers to problems we haven’t even conceived of. What if her teachers’ goal was to harness her genius instead of corralling her into reading the “right” book in English class? That would be integrating humanity and education.

Like many at this month’s Summit, I believe that we need to look at education from a different perspective. Indigo makes it possible to incorporate hard science and measurable data into the education system, thus uncovering the specific qualities that constitute human brilliance. Since Indigo’s genesis in 2013, I have seen students once labeled “problems” begin to understand their own value, utilize their innate strengths, and take an interest in their education for the first time. It is my profound hope that by integrating non-academic skills with traditional educational structures, we can harness the human elements of an entire generation.

The ASU+GSV Summit is the Knowledge Economy’s Mecca of conversation and activism devoted to accelerating learning innovation around the world. The 2015 Summit brought together many of the greatest minds in education technology as well as innovators like Sir Richard Branson and Howard Schultz (CEO of Starbucks).

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