The leadership and faculty at Ormondale Elementary School, a high-performing public school for grades K–3, sought to evolve its curriculum to better meet learning needs in the 21st century. They engaged IDEO to facilitate them through the process of imagining a new future, and to eventually help teachers define, implement, and measure opportunities for progressive instruction.

IDEO began by leading faculty through workshops to familiarize the school with a human-centered design approach and begin applying it to educational challenges. Participants looked at analogous systems to identify the characteristics and needs of 21st-century learners. With this profile in mind, teachers in the workshop began developing models and tools for use in engaging new learning experiences. They called this shift in their philosophy “Investigative Learning” (IL), which was largely directed toward inspiring students to be seekers of knowledge, rather than passive receivers of information. This new approach also required teachers to rethink the way they designed and delivered instruction.

Following Ormondale’s first year of creating IL experiences, parents, teachers, and members of the community began weighing in on its progress and effects. With feedback in hand, IDEO began working with teachers to establish goals and practices to organize their diverse work, codify accomplishments, and more deeply ground Ormondale’s IL curriculum in the expectations of public education. The outcome included a guidebook and tools that teachers can use to generate and reflect upon their lesson plans as well as a new set of standards around such 21st-century skills as investigation, responsibility, and the ability to synthesize experiences. Adopting these resources into their process, the faculty have continued to take increased ownership of instruction content and efficacy, and have committed to refining curricula as needed, providing dynamic learning experiences for more than 400 students each year.

The partnership with IDEO will continue as Ormondale examine ways to bridge IL with middle school curricula and continue to evolve their practice of creating life-long learning experiences that engage students.