3 Questions to Ask Yourself After Making New Connections

At the 21st Century Learning Conference in Bangkok, I had the opportunity to speak about purposeful learning and connect with like-minded educators. The conference left me feeling validated, inspired, and challenged all at the same time.?

Thank you to the co-founders Justin Hardman and Graeme Deuchars for creating this space for 21st century educators to come together. It’s so important to have conferences like this to share best practices, brainstorm with each other, and take the industry to new heights.?

My mind is usually brimming with ideas after attending a conference and making new connections. To process my thoughts, I find it helpful to ask myself and our team these three questions:?

• How can we use constructive feedback to find a new way forward??

At #21CLBKK, I met educators who immediately understood what we do at OWN Academy , which is to help schools provide real-world experiences to learners through companies and professionals who want to develop the next generation talent.?

One of them is Simon Horsey , a music professional turned educator at the International Schools Group (ISG) in Saudi Arabia, who invites his wide network of musicians to the classroom. With over two decades in education, he said he hadn’t seen anyone do what we do in our own unique way.?

I talked to other educators who were actually looking for the support that we offer, and it was gratifying to hear this validation of our mission. But the thing is—they hadn’t heard about us until the conference, even though we just hit our seven-year milestone. It’s a humbling reality check that shows we have more work to do to reach more people.?

How can we sharpen our storytelling and strategy? How can we engage our connections to become our champions? How can we go to the next level? It’s one thing to receive feedback—it’s another to sift through it and run with what resonates with our goals and values.?

• How is the industry evolving and how do our goals evolve with it?

It was wonderful to hear about the inspiring work of fellow change makers. I met Ennis V. Johnson Jr. , a former music and graphics professional turned educator at the American School of Dubai . He’s also the CEO of The Tomorrow Teacher, which provides support through instructional design, technology integration, and curriculum development.?

At one of the workshops, I happened to sit next to Susan Bell , the Chief Program Officer at Mastery Transcript Consortium? (MTC) , a nonprofit organization that makes competency-based education available to all learners. Thank you, Susan, for giving us a shout-out at your presentation and for attending mine!?

It was great to reconnect as well with Teresa Tung , the Secondary School Principal at Hong Kong Academy . The institution is one of the consortium schools of Global Citizen Diploma , a high school credential that recognizes that a learner’s story is more than just numbers.?

All the amazing work that these educators do certainly resonates with me. It aligns with what we’re launching soon, which is the OWN Degree, the world’s first real-world degree coexisting with an academic degree. It gives me hope that more educators are moving in a similar direction in our own unique ways, recognizing what learners actually need to be 21st century-ready.?

• How do we build on these new insights with the whole team??

Since our team is fully remote across Asia, it was my first time to meet Lezeth Garcia , our Experience Engineer, at the conference! It was wonderful to finally brainstorm and hang out with her in person.?

We gained a lot of insights which opened the door to more questions—a good sign of a conference well spent. Though it was only the two of us on the ground, we’ve been discussing with the rest of the team and building on each other’s ideas to find better solutions.??

There’s a long road ahead of us but I’m confident that with our growing team, we can figure things out together.?

The conference got me thinking about the future of OWN Academy in the best way possible. I’m curious to know how making new connections changes your perspective and challenges you to move forward. Share your stories in the comments!?

#ownacademy #owndegree #problemsolving #futureready