Open Way Learning (OWL) is a 501(c)3 education nonprofit with a relentless focus on helping schools and other learning communities develop, sustain, and scale cultures of learner-centered innovation that better prepare students for the realities of the 4th Industrial Revolution, especially students historically furthest from opportunity.
Our mission is to co-design innovative school cultures
Our vision is that all learners can change their world. Innovative schools empower that change to happen, now!
The premise behind Open Way Learning’s work is based on three core beliefs and values:
1. Authentic innovation comes not from the traditional, inconsistent application of “buzzword strategies,” but when a learning community first attends to the difficult, but necessary development and the fostering of a school culture that allows continuous improvement and innovation to thrive.
2. Cultures of learner-centered innovation will thrive in schools that have the following four characteristics in place: a shared, living mission and vision; an intentional willingness to embrace collective leadership; a deep sense of systemic collaboration across the entire learning community; and the free and open exchange of ideas and resources. These elements then enable an atmosphere of powerful teaching and learning where all students are able to find relevance and meaning in their school experience.
3. The talent and skills needed to grow a culture of innovation already exist in any school or district. But rather than being encumbered by the institutionalized inertia of the status quo, schools can leverage these skills and talents through the application of “the open source way” (transparency, inclusivity, adaptability, collaboration, and community), thus catalyzing crowdsourced, positive disruption to better prepare students for a rapidly changing world.
OWL lives its mission, vision, and values by advocating for more open, equitable, and innovative teaching and learning strategies that have been proven to work through case studies, research, and other applicable evidence from and for public and independent k-12 schools. Such learner-centered strategies include an emphasis on experiential learning; a culture of relationships, belonging, and agency; a mindset of growth and continuous improvement; an emphasis on durable success skills; individualized mastery of academic content; and a commitment to open design as a driver of equity and excellence.