Another Amazing Kickstarter (A Vital Resource for Inquiry-Based Teachers by Watershed Collaborative —Kickstarter) has been published on http://crowdmonsters.com/new-kickstarters/a-vital-resource-for-inquiry-based-teachers-by-watershed-collaborative-kickstarter/
A NEW KICKSTARTER IS LAUNCHED:
We have the power to chart the course of our constantly-changing world.
Will we let the future be defined by close-mindedness, divisiveness, and fear? Or will we be defined by openness, collaboration, and opportunity?
Our future depends on creative and resilient youth who will rise to meet unforeseeable challenges in new ways.
Our future depends on people who know how to embrace what is unfamiliar and complex – who know how to learn.
Fostering the success of the next generation is the essential goal of education, and no one has more potential for impact than classroom teachers. A teacher’s role in the 21st century is more complex and important than ever. As education evolves to support students better, our approach to supporting teachers must evolve too.
Watershed Collaborative is on a mission to better equip classroom teachers for the complex task of enabling students to ‘learn how to learn’ for success in school, work, and life in the 21st century. We believe that teachers using inquiry-based, student-driven practices most effectively support students to learn how to learn. We’re building a highly affordable, vital online resource to meet their daily needs.
We need your help to convene an unprecedented network of teachers regularly using inquiry-based, student-driven practices to ensure young people are engaged and experience success in school everyday.
This Kickstarter campaign will fund the piloting of our first course – in Visual Thinking Strategies – for 2,000+ K-8 teachers, and construct a collaborative community of teachers to share insights and innovations.
If we are successful beyond our initial campaign goal we hope to develop additional capacities on our platform to support greater community functionality and expanded databases of content.
If you are a teacher, enroll in our course! And spread the word. Join us, and join a powerful community striving to assess and respond to their students’ interests and needs.
We will learn from you, just as you learn from us. You will help us build a vital platform and community that is responsive to your needs. If you already have training in VTS, we would love to have you along for the ride – to refresh and reinvigorate your practice, and share your experience with those just getting started with VTS or IBL.
We will help you ignite your students’ curiosity and personalize their learning like only a caring and reflective human being can do.
If you are not a teacher, you are still vital to our success!
Spread the word to family, friends, coworkers, and all the educators in your life
Sponsor a teacher that we will help identify that works in a under-resourced school (Title 1)
Sponsor a teacher, school, or district that you care about by purchasing enrollment for the specified person, school, or district of your choice
VTS is a simple and profound teaching technique both students and teachers love. Proven over 20+ years through research and implementation around the globe, VTS starts with rich, visual art images to spur open-ended inquiry and exploration of multiple possibilities through discussion.
Watershed is taking VTS to the next level. We’re making training more widely-available at highly-affordable prices, and supporting teachers to apply VTS and other inquiry-based methods to any subject area, within any curriculum.
Watershed Cofounder Philip Yenawine, who created VTS, will be hosting our pilot course.
With VTS, students learn to:
Think creatively and critically
Pair reasoning with evidence
Develop robust theories and questions
Empathize and engage in respectful dialogue with peers
Confidently express themselves and elaborate complex ideas
Approach anything they don’t know by collaboratively building upon what they do know
With VTS, teachers are able to:
Enrich their existing curriculum
Enable high-quality learning experiences beyond the norm
Excite and engage students with deep thinking and discussions
Let student interests, ideas, and questions drive learning and discovery
Be surprised and delighted by the insights of their students
Assess student abilities, interests, and needs with every discussion
Meet the demands of new standards and expectations while simultaneously meeting the individual needs of their students
VTS engenders profound thought patterns and collaborative mindsets in both teachers and students that transfer outside of the classroom. It provides precisely the type of learning experiences that fosters the creative and resilient citizens of tomorrow that we so desperately need.
See VTS with art here and VTS applied across the curriculum here.
So much! We’re so glad you asked.
8-week video-based training in VTS methods, published weekly
1 year of course content access
A community and cohort of peers to learn along with
Rich images for immediate VTS classroom implementation, published weekly
45+ videos of K-8 teachers demonstrating VTS techniques with their own students
Live Q&As and ‘office hours’ with VTS creator Philip Yenawine, other VTS experts, and classroom teachers, hosted weekly
Masterfully designed interactive course interface to enable ease of use and practical functionality
Personal and shared logs for notes and insights (integrated with partner teacher account)
Access to a collaborative PLC of over 1,000 teachers using the same methods with similar needs and objectives
Discounted pricing to support collaborative course completion with a colleague
Supplemental readings, videos, and suggested activities
Oral language and writing sample assessment rubrics
Classroom observation and peer coaching rubrics
If we are able to raise $40,000 in 40 days, Watershed will be able to launch the pilot of our interactive platform and our first video-based course with over 1,000 teachers on March 4.
With your support we will be able to:
Complete post-production on all course videos and supplemental materials
Complete the first stage of platform development
Conduct user testing of all content and technology
Conduct a pilot of our first course and beta platform with thousands of teachers
Ignite a joy of learning in the hearts and minds of tens of thousands of students
Provide 1,000 free course enrollments to teachers working in under-resourced schools
If you choose to not collect the rewards associated with your generous contribution, your addition will help us maintain hyper-affordable prices and prioritize impacting the students most in need of top-quality learning environments and experiences.
Note: We will have an open enrollment process to attract and verify teachers working in Title 1 schools if successfully funded.
At Watershed Collaborative, we are taking an atypical approach to digital technology in education. We design products and services – and prioritize evidence-based, developmental-based approaches – that give both teachers and students agency to drive their own learning.
We prioritize hyper-affordability so that any teacher – no matter where they are or how under-resourced – has access to strategies and resources that are effective and easily implemented.
Our online professional learning ecosystem for K-12 teachers will grow to offer:
Teacher training in research-backed instructional strategies through interactive, video-based courses
Vetted visual content for deployment in class
Job-embedded practice exercises to help teachers map student- and self-assessment onto every work day
Features that encourage in-person peer coaching and ongoing online peer-to-peer dialogue
A collaborative community to support peer learning and share innovations
Expert coaching to further support implementation
Our professional learning is cost-effective, time-efficient, impactful, enjoyable, and integrated within a teacher’s daily work life.
Learn more about how we are supporting teachers
through our platform, courses, and community on our website.
Sign up for our newsletter – Follow us on Facebook (/watershed collaborative), Twitter (@watershed_ed), or LinkedIn (/company/watershed-collaborative).
If our campaign is successful, we are confident we will be ready to pilot the course with 1,000+ teachers this spring. Our interactive course platform is on schedule and undergoing user testing in late February. Our first course episodes are entering post-production and should be ready to be published weekly by early March.
Our main challenge is securing additional funds to supplement the cost of our operations. With support, we can make further investments in content and functionality while maintaining low prices. Watershed is committed to affordability alongside top-notch quality.
Officially registered as a nonprofit in the State of New York, Watershed is awaiting approval of federal 501(c)3 status by the IRS as well as fiscal sponsorship. Kickstarter funding is an important avenue to help us get off the ground with our first offering while waiting for our application for tax-exemption to be approved.
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