Converting a school/college into MIT/Harvard/IISER

Would you be interested in transforming your school/college to have a culture which you usually see in premiere educational institutions like MIT/Harvard/IISER? Would great peer learning environment, inter-disciplinary problem solving, spontaneous and intensive brainstorming and original projects excite you? Or to put it in a simpler format, would you want to see your school or college change into a magic box? A magic box which churns out great thinkers and doers like a Richard Feynman or a Steve Jobs or a Rajeev Motwani?

I have a concept which can make this a reality. This post hopes to engage different thinkers/doers with this concept so the idea could be evolved and implemented in a few institutions. I would like to add a little context by stating that the Sciensation approach had helped 4th graders in presenting Evolutionary Design Thinking projects and 7th graders in presenting Lean Product Development Projects. Sciensation approach makes it very easy to internalize abstract management principles or technological paradigms by leveraging the Socratic Dialogue format with rigorous questioning and intuitive examples.

What distinguishes a faculty at an MIT/Harvard or IISER? What do they do apart from teaching? What do they do apart from research? Do they also take up consulting assignments? Why do they solve problems of the society? Does that trigger even richer learning and more case studies for discussion in the class? But how do we do this without world-class faculty? Well, would peer to peer networks help?

Student Learning Company: Students form a learning company which aims at nurturing real learning amongst all the students in the school/college. The learning company learns the Sciensation Leadership curriculum which covers Pedagogy, People Management, Governance, Leadership and Consulting case studies covering thought leaders like Eric Ries, Peter Drucker and Seth Godin. This equips leaders out of school children, who work with the goal of triggering real learning amongst the entire school.

Core Principle: Excellent content around Leadership, Consulting is available for free on the internet. With a little coaching and peer discussions, students are competent enough to learning management while solving a live problem- improving learning culture in their institution. The more they learn, they get better at management and that further augments the learning quality.

There is a lot of good content available on the internet, so the students could realize what real learning is. They could be exposed to Raghuram Rajan, Michael Porter , Lera Boroditsky and other amazing teachers so their thought process can be changed.

In a nutshell: In the 21st century, information is free, insights are rare. A little coaching and initial handholding can bring in great peer to peer learning culture which leverages free and open resources of the internet so the kids could take care of each other's learning.

Outcomes:

1- Peer to peer learning culture: Students mentor each other and try to maximize marks of the entire institution.

2- Better administration: The student learning company augments the efforts of the school/college management to ensure better management and governance.

3- Thought Leadership: The Learning Company releases a lot of videos and social media content which brands the institution by showcasing the thought leadership of the students.

People interested in brainstorming and helping me in structuring this thought can reach out to me on whatsapp on +91 7207001400. Thanks a lot for taking time to read my idea.

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The Author Tarun is an IISER Pune alumnus, Mathematician by training and Founder of Sciensation.tv. Sciensation nurtures ThoughtLeaders through Philosophy, DeepThought and Research based learning. www.sciensation.tv/pdf/TarunProfile.pdf www.sciensation.tv/pdf/SciensationProfile.pdf