Catching the Wave of Education’s Future, with Catherine Fraise

Catherine Fraise is passionate about creating educational spaces and environments within which children can innovatively realize their potential.

The academics actually end up being the easiest part of this to deliver. Building the community is the most important part, so the children are spending their days in an inspiring community and having access to the tools of their generation for hands-on, high-quality projects. - Catherine Fraise


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Summary

Catherine Fraise is passionate about creating educational spaces and environments within which children can innovatively realize their potential. She has a vision for changing education and is making it happen at her 32,000 square foot facility in Connecticut.

As the Founder and Executive Director at Workspace, Catherine takes us down an exciting trail of discovery as we learn how families are choosing and creating education in a way that benefits their children. From online classes to Maker space, from micro-schools to edupreneur fusions, Catherine is facilitating a smorgasbord of choices in education.

Join us as we catch the wave of education’s future with Catherine Fraise.

In our discussion, we cover:

00:25 Andrew asks Catherine to talk about the Workspace learning model and how it is different from what we see in traditional education.

01:25 Catherine responds to Andrew’s question about her role as a “curator” of educational resources.

02:44 Catherine tells about the parent onboarding process at Workspace, and how new parents get started.

06:20 Andrew asks - How does a parent know whether their child is benefitting from a particular way of learning?

09:30 Andrew asks Catherine about her familiarity and experience with OutSchool.

10:40 Andrew asks Catherine about her vision for how her concept might evolve and spread over time to new locations.

15:15 Catherine considers the challenges and possibilities for replicating the Workspace structure in towns across America, and shares what the interface with public schools might be like.

17:45 Andrew asks Catherine about “edupreneurs” and how they co-create in Workspace.

20:00 Catherine discusses the Acton Academy model and how it can be fused into the Workspace environment.

22:35 Andrew considers that self-directed, student-directed learning might be the bottleneck that prevents this model from replicating across a wider audience.

26:00 Catherine shares the objective of the International Association of Colearning Communities.

27:40 Andrew wonders about how the Workspace model might be difficult for families in which both parents need to work, and how this would affect underserved communities who might be interested in the concept.

31:15 Andrew asks - If you led a small school, how would you inject innovation into your program?

33:55 Catherine offers parting thoughts.

Quotes:

05:40 “If you can organize a terrific birthday party, you can definitely do project-based learning.

12:30 “The academics actually end up being the easiest part of this to deliver. Building the community is the most important part, so the children are spending their days in an inspiring community and having access to the tools of their generation for hands-on, high-quality projects.

14:25 “I think everybody deserves to have an educational format that suits them.

30:42 “We don’t need to take the lion’s share with this kind of education; we just need to be able to be a platform for people for whom (traditional education is) not working.”

Here are some resources mentioned in our discussion:

“Courage to Grow” by Laura Sandefer

Gallery of the facility: https://workspaceeducation.org/galleries/state-of-the-art-facility/

Work Space Curriculum Options: https://workspaceeducation.org/academics/foundational-literacies/

International Association of Colearning Communities - https://www.iaclc.org

Outschool - https://outschool.com/

Where to learn more about Catherine Fraise:

Workspace - https://workspaceeducation.org/

Twitter - @Workspace_edu

Catherine on Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherine-fraise-037361126/

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/