A Human-centered operating system, with Kelly Davis

"We see it as a human-centered operating system. We have all of the resources within and then the educators are there to help bring this collaboration together. We need to negotiate, we need to connect and we need to work on projects together. How can students be prepared to go out in the world if they're in the same class with the same age group from K-12?  Giving them different opportunities, different cultures, a lot of exchanges happening between ideas and across the world." - Kelly Davis

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Audio version:

Summary

• Our guest today is Kelly Davis, Co-founder + CEdO @Galileo XP.  Kelly and her co-founder Vlad redesigned school from scratch. Galileo a global online school soon to have access to physical spaces as well.
• Listen and take note of how Kelly and the Galileo team transitions students into self-directed learning, inject learning experiences with passion and provide a 10-star experience for everyone that joins.

In our discussion, we cover:

• 5:08 - When kids are learning the things that they want to learn, then the whole dynamic changes. When you can get down and tutor someone on a one-to-one level. There's so much more power there when you're asking the child to choose what they want to learn.
• 9:35 - In the beginning, a class, depending on what age they are, would be facilitated by adults. So a daily check-in, the adult would be guiding the students on whose turn is it. And they each have a role, but eventually this role will transition into the student facilitating on their own. So we have students as young as eight and even some seven year olds that are actually facilitating this meeting and asking their peers. "Can you show me your schedule? What did you do yesterday? How is that science project?" And yeah. They can have this conversation together.
• 21:14 - A lot of online schools imagine "Oh, they can learn all the courses. It's all in asynchronous, it's self directed. You can do it by yourself", but if I want to learn something and really see progress, I need to be accountable to someone. Even for adults, they have these quiet focus groups where you can go and learn things and take breaks together. Putting this in for children as well and helping them.  They're already meeting on zoom outside of their class time. So getting that peer to peer learning there.
• 22:00 - We see it as a human-centered operating system. We have all of the resources within and then the educators are there to help bring this collaboration together. We need to negotiate, we need to connect and we need to work on projects together. How can students be prepared to go out in the world if they're in the same class with the same age group from K-12?  Giving them different opportunities, different cultures, a lot of exchanges happening between ideas and across the world.
• 22:30 - They know that they can learn math out there but they come to math club by choice, to feel more energy from the teacher and to feel his passion. It's unbelievable how that math club has grown and how kids who hated math from that traditional school experience are now begging to go to math club every day. They even wrote a petition to me at the end of last year for more math club and they got 50 signatures to have another math club.
• 27:54 - Let's say a kid had a bad experience in math class and they hate math. "I'm not good at math. I don't want to go to math class." And the parents are like, "we know he needs to learn math every day. It's really important. We shouldn't let that go." Or we had a case where dad was working for Google: "Oh, we really want her to go to coding club, but she didn't like it at school, you know?" And I say, "let's give it a month and see what happens. They're going to go to this check-in, they're going to hear the students talking about all the learning experiences they're joining and the buzz about math club is a pretty, pretty high priority in all of these conversations. So I think they might find themselves in a math club. Let's see if they try it out, and if they try it out, they might be interested in what they're doing in that math club."  Really just trusting the student's choice, giving them that curiosity and letting them know that now they're in control. And of course they know that, yeah, mom wants me to try math, so maybe I'll get there later. In the beginning, it's all about trusting the process and letting them drive. We use the analogy of the car. Giving them the keys to drive the car of their own education and making them responsible can change a lot.
• 31:20 - Everything we do is still an experiment. So whether or not the students are responding well to it, benefiting from it, learning from it, we're here for the students, listening to them, getting their input, also with the parents, and making sure that they are  the focus of the growth here.
• 33:15 - We have a delight team. Every family that joins is assigned a delight officer and this person will see them in the transition period. So making sure that all their questions are asked, they have a point of contact. We know it takes more than one adult to help them there, making sure that this is a 10 star experience for everyone that joined.
• 22:30 - They know that they can learn math out there but they come to math club by choice, to feel more energy from the teacher and to feel his passion. It's unbelievable how that math club has grown and how kids who hated math from that traditional school experience are now begging to go to math club every day. They even wrote a petition to me at the end of last year for more math club and they got 50 signatures to have another math club.
• 27:54 - Let's say a kid had a bad experience in math class and they hate math. "I'm not good at math. I don't want to go to math class." And the parents are like, "we know he needs to learn math every day. It's really important. We shouldn't let that go." Or we had a case where dad was working for Google: "Oh, we really want her to go to coding club, but she didn't like it at school, you know?" And I say, "let's give it a month and see what happens. They're going to go to this check-in, they're going to hear the students talking about all the learning experiences they're joining and the buzz about math club is a pretty, pretty high priority in all of these conversations. So I think they might find themselves in a math club. Let's see if they try it out, and if they try it out, they might be interested in what they're doing in that math club."  Really just trusting the student's choice, giving them that curiosity and letting them know that now they're in control. And of course they know that, yeah, mom wants me to try math, so maybe I'll get there later. In the beginning, it's all about trusting the process and letting them drive. We use the analogy of the car. Giving them the keys to drive the car of their own education and making them responsible can change a lot.
• 31:20 - Everything we do is still an experiment. So whether or not the students are responding well to it, benefiting from it, learning from it, we're here for the students, listening to them, getting their input, also with the parents, and making sure that they are  the focus of the growth here.
• 33:15 - We have a delight team. Every family that joins is assigned a delight officer and this person will see them in the transition period. So making sure that all their questions are asked, they have a point of contact. We know it takes more than one adult to help them there, making sure that this is a 10 star experience for everyone that joined.

Here are some resources mentioned in our discussion:

• The Galileo Daily Checkin https://galileoxp.com/check-in
• Galileo parent interviews https://galileoxp.com/parents
• Inside the Kernel podcast https://player.fm/series/inside-the-kernel-by-galileo
• Free Self-Directed Learning Course and Learning Network https://app.galileoxp.com/signup

Where to learn more about Kelly:

• Twitter - https://twitter.com/kelly_edtech?lang=en
• Website - https://galileoxp.com/

Where to learn more about Enrollhand:

Website: www.enrollhand.com

Our webinar: https://webinar-replay.enrollhand.com

Our free Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/schoolgrowth/