In her inaugural commentary, Tatiana explores the rapidly evolving role of artificial intelligence in education. She acknowledges both the excitement and the apprehension surrounding AI, describing the current moment as one where schools are “at the crest of the wave,” navigating innovation while trying not to lose sight of human-centered learning. Rather than framing AI as a threat, she emphasizes the importance of establishing thoughtful guardrails that allow technology to serve as an extension of instruction, not a replacement for teachers or student agency.

Check out our conversation with Tatiana at FETC 2026 here:

Drawing on her experience as a math educator, Tatiana compares AI to the introduction of calculators, a tool that, when used intentionally, removes barriers and promotes equity without diminishing critical thinking. She advocates for embedding AI responsibly, ensuring it supports students, strengthens instructional practices, and fosters a new form of literacy educators must now develop.

Tatiana’s voice aligns closely with Thinkering’s mission: humanizing education while embracing innovation. As an Impact Board member, she will help shape strategic direction, and as a guest columnist, she will continue to challenge educators to thoughtfully balance emerging technologies with meaningful, relationship-driven learning experiences.

how do we create a space where all students, including those using wheelchairs and those who struggle with sitting still, can explore learning in a meaningful way outside the classroom?

During a recent Thinkering capstone presentation, one educator outlined a thoughtful plan to transform an underused school courtyard into an accessible outdoor learning environment. The goal was not just to create a garden or a quiet outdoor area. The goal was to design a flexible space where science, math, art, and music could intersect through exploration, movement, and creativity.

At the center of the proposal was accessibility. The first step focused on building a table that could accommodate students in wheelchairs while also allowing others to stand and collaborate. This table would serve as a hub for manipulatives and hands on activities tied to curriculum standards. The educator emphasized that creating one functional space would help teachers visualize the potential and encourage broader adoption.

Beyond physical accessibility, the project addressed instructional accessibility. Teachers often want to take students outside but face logistical barriers. Locked spaces, missing materials, and lack of ready to use lessons can discourage outdoor learning. To solve this, the plan included ready to go lesson materials aligned with standards, along with manipulatives such as rulers, measuring tools, and math resources that could be quickly used outdoors.

The vision extended even further. The courtyard would include designated exploration areas that blended disciplines. Music elements such as wind chimes or instruments would allow students to investigate sound. Art opportunities would invite students to draw, create, and observe nature. Math concepts such as area and perimeter could be explored using real world measurements. Science learning would emerge naturally through observation and experimentation.

What made this project particularly compelling was its emphasis on students who benefit from movement and alternative learning environments. The educator described how some students struggle with traditional sit still instruction. An outdoor space with structured exploration could provide a proactive support, allowing students to engage productively rather than reactively managing behavior challenges.

This approach reflects a broader shift in education. Instead of viewing outdoor learning as enrichment, the project treats it as an integral instructional tool. The courtyard becomes a place where creativity is not separate from academic rigor, but intertwined with it. Music connects to math. Art supports conceptual understanding. Movement enhances focus. Learning becomes multi dimensional.

The timeline for implementation is intentionally practical. The initial goal is to use available funding to install the first accessible table by the end of the school year. Once that anchor is in place, additional features such as musical elements, art stations, and curriculum resources can be added over time.

A reflection on the kickoff to the second cohort for our outdoor learning fellowship:

This incremental approach reflects a key principle of Thinkering. Transformation does not require everything at once. It begins with one meaningful change that invites others to participate.

The conversation also highlighted the importance of interdisciplinary learning. Outdoor education often centers on science and math, but this project intentionally integrates music and art. This focus recognizes that creativity and expression are essential components of learning and engagement, particularly for students whose strengths lie outside traditional academic pathways.

Ultimately, this capstone project is about more than redesigning a courtyard. It is about rethinking how space shapes learning. It is about creating opportunities for students to move, create, explore, and connect concepts across disciplines. It is about supporting teachers with tools that make innovative instruction feasible. And it is about ensuring that every learner, regardless of ability or learning style, has access to meaningful educational experiences.

When educators design spaces with intention, they do more than change the environment. They change what is possible.

This courtyard, once quiet and underused, is poised to become a living classroom. A place where students measure shadows, compose rhythms, sketch leaves, and test ideas. A place where learning is active, inclusive, and connected. And a reminder that sometimes the most powerful innovations begin not with new technology, but with a table, a few tools, and a vision for what learning can look like outdoors.

Join Our Mission

Do YOU want to co-build something truly amazing for your classroom with us? Fill out our Fellowship interest form here and we will get you set up with SUPERPOWERS to change learners lives.'

“There’s really no safe space in a building for neurologically diverse students… I wanted them to connect with nature and recenter themselves.”

From that insight, a seed was planted, literally and metaphorically.

During a recent Thinkering Collective capstone presentation, one educator shared her vision for a sensory garden designed to support neurologically diverse learners while enriching the entire school community. What emerged from that conversation was not just a project, but a living example of human-centered learning, student agency, and community-rooted design.

Learning Through the Senses

The core idea was beautifully simple: create an outdoor space where students could touch, smell, listen, observe, and interact with nature. The intention wasn’t just aesthetic, it was deeply pedagogical.

Students would:

• Run sand through their fingers

• Smell different plants

• Listen to grasses swish in the wind

• Observe water movement

• Engage in hands-on outdoor learning

These sensory experiences, especially for neurologically diverse learners, create opportunities for regulation, focus, and connection. But as the educator noted, the benefits quickly expanded beyond one group. All students became more engaged, confident, and excited about learning outdoors.

What began as support became transformation.

From Garden to Project-Based Learning

The project evolved into a fully integrated, student-driven learning experience. Multi-age teams would collaborate to design sections of the garden around the five senses, researching plants, journaling observations, and building installations together.

This is Thinkering in action:

• Students researching real-world solutions

• Learners designing physical spaces

• Cross-age mentorship happening organically

• Reflection embedded through nature journaling

One of the most powerful moments came when students were asked to draw what they noticed in nature journals. Initially, they struggled, they were used to being told exactly what to record. But when given autonomy, something shifted. They began documenting what mattered to them, not what was scripted.

That’s when learning becomes personal.

Did you know? Our Chief Visionary Officer heads up Belouga, an online platform designed around great educational content and project-based learning.

Community as Co-Designer

The capstone didn’t stop at classroom walls. Volunteers, local conservation organizations, parents, and school teams were invited to help build and sustain the space. Composting lessons, gardening clubs, and partnerships with other schools expanded the vision.

Even more inspiring, students began designing furniture and features for the garden themselves. Some created LEGO prototypes, then translated them into CAD models and 3D printed designs for possible installation.

When learners design the environment, they don’t just use it. They own it.

Legacy Over Project

Throughout the presentation, one theme kept resurfacing: legacy.

This wasn’t about one teacher or one year. It was about:

• Documentation for future educators

• QR codes for plant learning stations

• Student-designed infrastructure

• Community partnerships for sustainability

• Research opportunities to study long-term impact

The educator herself described it perfectly: she had “laid the seeds” and now needed to nurture what grows next.

And that’s what Thinkering is all about.

Phase Two: When Capstones Become Movements

In the Thinkering model, capstone presentations don’t mark the end, they mark the transition. From mentorship to network. From idea to implementation. From individual project to shared learning ecosystem.

Support continues through:

• Subject matter expert connections

• Research partnerships to measure impact

• Community funding and volunteer coordination

• Cross-school collaboration

Because meaningful innovation in education isn’t a one-time event. It’s a living process, just like a garden.

Watch Loudoun County Public Schools Principal, Ashley Barkley unite her community around outdoor learning.

The Bigger Takeaway

This capstone reminds us that powerful educational transformation doesn’t require complex technology or sweeping mandates. It requires:

• Observing student needs

• Designing with empathy

• Giving learners agency

• Building community ownership

• Embracing growth over time

When we create spaces where students can slow down, notice, build, and reflect, we aren’t just teaching science or gardening.

We’re cultivating patience.
We’re nurturing curiosity.
We’re growing agency.

And sometimes, the most important thing we can do in education… is plant something and trust that it will grow.

Join Our Mission

Do YOU want to co-build something truly amazing for your classroom with us? Fill out our Fellowship interest form here and we will get you set up with SUPERPOWERS to change learners lives.

In this Thinkering Fellowship spotlight educator Meg Miles a division instructional coach shares the story of the Belonging Garden Initiative. The project was designed to cultivate not just vegetables but connection identity and student voice across an entire school community. What started as a barren courtyard evolved into a living ecosystem for belonging collaboration and authentic learning.

I visited Meg at her school in Virginia to learn more about her Belonging Garden.

Planting the Seeds of Belonging

The Belonging Garden grew from a district wide focus on student belonging. Rather than treating belonging as an abstract concept the team chose to make belonging visible and experiential.

The initiative began with school wide activities centered on defining belonging including conversations sparked by The Circles All Around Us. From there the idea expanded into creating a physical space where students could experience belonging through shared creation and outdoor learning.

This shift from discussion to lived experience is at the heart of Thinkering learning by doing reflecting and co creating.

From Empty Courtyard to Living Classroom

The school’s unused courtyard became the canvas. Through collaboration with a community partner a three phase plan was designed to transform the space into an inclusive outdoor learning environment.

Phase one brought together students teachers families and administrators to build raised garden beds and plant seasonal crops. The effort was deeply participatory involving learners across grade levels and embedding responsibility into the process.

Students did not just observe the garden they:
Built beds
Planted vegetables
Maintained crops
Participated in nature journaling
Connected learning to science literacy and SEL

Belonging began to take root.

Student Voice Shapes the Garden

One of the most powerful aspects of the project was the intentional inclusion of student voice. Every student participated in a survey exploring their experiences with gardening cultural food connections and learning interests.

This data was used to guide planting decisions and ensure the garden reflected the identities and cultures of the students themselves.

This is Thinkering in action. Students are not recipients of learning spaces they are co designers.

Community bonded together in building the “Belonging Garden.”

Beyond Gardening Academic and Emotional Impact

The garden is not an extracurricular add on. It is integrated into learning across disciplines

Math through measurement and data collection
Science through soil composition and plant growth
Literacy through journaling and reflection
SEL through collaboration and mindfulness
Community engagement through shared events

Educators observed that outdoor learning provided a reset improving emotional regulation and engagement. The team also emphasized the connection between belonging and academic achievement noting that when students feel seen and valued learning deepens.

Building in Phases Designing for Sustainability

The Belonging Garden was intentionally designed as a multi phase initiative

Phase 1
Raised garden beds
Initial planting
Student engagement

Phase 2
Accessible concrete learning space
Outdoor learning table
Expanded instructional opportunities

Phase 3
Sensory garden elements
Pergola for shade
Tool storage
Expanded accessibility

This phased approach allows the project to grow organically while inviting new community partnerships.

Community as Co Creators

The initiative quickly expanded beyond the school walls. Partners included

Local businesses
Construction companies
Garden experts
PTO organizations
Families
Volunteers

Events like a planned Seed to Salad experience will bring chefs students and families together to celebrate learning from plant to plate turning the garden into a community hub.

This reflects Thinkering’s belief that learning ecosystems extend beyond classrooms into communities.

Ashley Barkley’s story is another example of community aligning through her capstone

Sustainability Built Into the Model

Meg emphasized that sustainability requires more than enthusiasm it requires structure

Cross stakeholder leadership teams
Ongoing funding streams
Community partnerships
Summer maintenance plans
Annual traditions

By designing for longevity the Belonging Garden becomes more than a project it becomes a school culture shift.

A Living Example of Thinkering in Action

As the conversation concluded one reflection captured the essence of the initiative this project represents exactly what Thinkering hopes to see in classrooms across the country student centered community connected and rooted in authentic experience.

The Belonging Garden is not just about growing plants.
It is about growing

Agency
Connection
Collaboration
Cultural identity
Joy in learning

Another capstone project tying the community together with a garden

The Thinkering Takeaway

When students build something together they do not just create a space they create meaning.

The Belonging Garden reminds us that
Belonging can be designed
Community can be cultivated
Learning can be rooted in real world experiences
Transformation sometimes begins with a seed

This is what happens when educators tinker co create and trust students to help shape the learning environment.

Join Our Mission

Do YOU want to co-build something truly amazing for your classroom with us? Fill out our Fellowship interest form here and we will get you set up with SUPERPOWERS to change learners lives.

They are not waiting to be inspired. They are waiting for a door to open.

That is what the Thinkering Collective fellowship model was built for. And right now, several of those doors are open at once.

NY Inspired: For Educators Across New York State

The NY Inspired Fellowship is a ten-week program for K-12 educators who want to design and launch projects that go beyond the classroom. Not projects that look good on a unit plan. Projects that move into communities, address real problems, and leave something behind that outlasts the school year.

The structure is honest about what it takes. Fellows spend roughly two to three hours a week in live sessions, workshops, and independent work. The first three weeks are about foundations — getting to know your cohort, setting personal learning intentions, figuring out what you actually care about and how it connects to where you teach. The middle stretch is where the real work happens: developing a capstone project with measurable outcomes, building in student voice, learning how to tell the story of what you are making and why it matters. The final two weeks are presentation and planning for scale. You do not graduate with a slide deck. You graduate with something you are already running.

You do not need a fully formed project to apply. You need a challenge you care about. The program is built to help you figure out the rest.

The five-year vision behind NY Inspired is worth sitting with. The goal is to activate at least one educator per school building across the entire state — one person per building who is leading change, whose work gets added to an open-access library that any other district can pick up and adapt. It is not a conference. It is not a workshop series. It is an attempt to build a living, human-first infrastructure for how good ideas travel through education.

If you are a New York educator, or if you know one who has been carrying an idea they cannot get off the ground, this is the program. Applications are open now.

Apply Here, New York!

To watch the recent live Q&A, check this out!

Thinkering x Early Childhood: A Human-Centered AI Fellowship

The second program is a collaboration between Thinkering Collective and the University of Chicago’s Behavioral Insights and Parenting Lab. It is called the Human-Centered AI Implementation Lab, and the name is doing real work there.

This is not a fellowship about learning to use AI. It is a fellowship about learning to use a specific research-backed platform — Chat 2 Learn — in a way that keeps the teacher at the center of the room.

That distinction matters more than it might sound. Most of the conversation around AI in education right now is moving in one of two directions: either wholesale resistance or wholesale adoption, neither of which is especially useful to the person standing in front of thirty kids every morning. What Thinkering and the BIP Lab are building together is a third path — a model for human-centered technology implementation that treats AI as a reflective co-pilot rather than a replacement.

The fellowship runs eight weeks. Fellows work directly with Thinkering and BIP Lab to develop implementation use cases for Chat 2 Learn in their specific classroom contexts. The projects that emerge from this cohort will become the first case studies in what is intended to be an ongoing research partnership — a model that other educators and districts can adopt and build from over time.

AI is landing in classrooms right now whether educators feel ready for it or not. The question is not whether it shows up. The question is who shapes how it shows up. This fellowship is an answer built by people who believe student inquiry and teacher agency are non-negotiable, even when the technology is moving fast.

Apply here today!

Loudoun County: Outdoor Learning and a District Built Differently

Thinkering Collective has partnered with Loudoun County Schools in Virginia on something that does not happen often enough — a district-level commitment to actually overhaul how learning is designed, starting with the outdoors.

Here is an awesome example of Thinkering in action!

This fellowship is specifically for Loudoun County educators and is built around outdoor learning as both a context and a catalyst. The premise is that the natural environment is not a field trip destination. It is a classroom, a laboratory, a community space, and a place where students who struggle inside four walls often find their footing. The fellowship asks educators to design projects rooted in that premise — work that uses outdoor learning as the engine for the kind of community-connected, student-driven experiences that Thinkering is known for building.

The partnership with Loudoun County is not a pilot. It is the beginning of a longer relationship between Thinkering and a district serious enough about change to invite people in to help redesign from the inside. If you are a Loudoun County educator, this is a rare and specific opportunity to be part of something at the ground floor.

Ten weeks. A cohort of colleagues working on the same problems in the same communities you are.

Apply here, Loudoun County Educators!

The Thinkering Collective Fellowship: Open to Any Educator, Anywhere

Every program described above is built for a specific place or focus. This one is not.

The Thinkering Collective Fellowship is open to educators from anywhere — any grade level, any subject, any state or country — who are ready to take an idea seriously for ten weeks. The structure is the same: foundations, design and development, capstone delivery. The mentorship, the cohort, the open-access library of projects that comes out the other side. All of it.

Seats are limited and they fill. If you have been reading this and thinking that none of the other programs quite fits where you teach or what you are working on, this is the one. You bring the problem. The fellowship helps you build toward something real.

The application takes a few minutes. The work takes ten weeks and will follow you long after that.

If you know an educator who belongs in a room like this — nominate them. Forward this. The people most likely to do something extraordinary with a fellowship like this are often the last ones to apply for anything.

Apply here, rockstar educator!

Thinkering Collective builds fellowship experiences, mentorship ecosystems, and learning programs that put educators and students at the center of real change. Learn more at thinkeringcollective.org

What would school look like if we designed it from curiosity instead of compliance? What would change if one educator in every building was supported to lead meaningful, human-centered work?

NY Inspired is built in that moment.

On paper, it is a ten-week fellowship. In practice, it is a five-year vision to activate educator-led design across New York State. The goal is simple and ambitious at the same time: empower at least one educator in every school building to design and launch projects that reflect the culture, needs, and aspirations of their communities.

From Program to Statewide Ecosystem

In internal discussions, the framing was clear. This is not about running a successful cohort. It is about activating the entire state. Spring and fall cohorts anchor the calendar, but conferences, BOCES networks, district communications, and partner ecosystems are all part of the architecture. The intention is alignment, not fragmentation.

“How do we activate the entire state?”

The fellowship itself moves in three phases. The opening weeks focus on foundations, clarifying purpose and aligning personal passion with community need. The middle stretch centers on design and development, where fellows build capstone projects with measurable outcomes and integrate storytelling and student voice. The final weeks are dedicated to presentation and scaling, preparing projects to move beyond a single classroom.

This progression reflects a design mindset. Ideas are not simply discussed. They are prototyped, refined, and positioned for longevity.

Sustainability as Strategy

One of the defining elements of NY Inspired is its emphasis on sustainability. Fellows are not just encouraged to think creatively. They are supported with mentorship, funding pathways, research partnerships, and continued guidance so projects move from concept to classroom to community.

“This isn’t about a one-off idea. It’s about building something that lasts.”

The model grows intentionally. As participation increases, additional mentors are activated to maintain quality and support. The goal is not scale for its own sake. It is scale with structure.

New York is too diverse, too complex, and too important for scattered innovation. The work must be durable.

A Living Archive of Educator Work

The long-term vision includes a living, open-access archive of fellowship projects across New York. Over time, projects from Buffalo to Montauk will populate an interactive map of educator-led innovation.

“Imagine being able to zoom into any region of the state and see what educators are building.”

This visibility changes conversations. District leaders can see what is possible in contexts similar to their own. Policymakers can observe how human-centered design translates into real classrooms. Educators can learn from one another rather than operating in isolation.

The state becomes a network of shared practice instead of scattered experimentation.

Designed for Educator Reality

The fellowship is structured with educator life in mind. Participants commit approximately two to three hours per week. That time includes live sessions, workshops, and independent design work, calibrated to fit into demanding schedules without becoming another burden.

Educators do not need to arrive with a fully formed project. They can begin with a question, a challenge, or a tension they care about.

“You don’t need a fully baked idea. You need curiosity and a willingness to build.”

Enrollment is typically supported through district professional learning funds, grants, or partner-backed investment to ensure access across regions and contexts. The structure lowers barriers rather than raising them.

Human First. Always.

The guiding principle is simple: human first.

In a time when educational discourse is dominated by standards, policy shifts, and emerging technologies, this positioning is deliberate. The fellowship is built around harnessing curiosity, creativity, and essential skills to design projects that matter in classrooms and communities.

“Human first. Always.”

Innovation here is not about novelty. It is about relevance. It is about reconnecting learning to lived experience.

Change Begins With Curiosity

Across New York, educators are already imagining better ways to connect learning to life. NY Inspired offers structure, mentorship, and statewide visibility to help those ideas move from spark to implementation to scale.

If you are a New York educator carrying an idea quietly, something you believe could strengthen your classroom or community, this is an invitation.

You do not need a finished blueprint. You need curiosity and the willingness to design.

The Empire State has long shaped national conversations in education. This is an opportunity to humanize that influence from the classroom outward.

Join us!

Apply. Or nominate a colleague who is ready to lead.

Inside, something else was being cleared. Educators were discovering that many of them were working with similar passions and goals in outdoor learning.

Here’s a look behind the scenes.

The Winter Outdoor Learning Cohort did not launch in a district office. It happened at Creative Gardens, an early childhood learning center. The educators sat in small chairs at child-sized tables. They leaned forward. They laughed more. They looked different in those seats.

When adults lower themselves into the physical space of children, perspective shifts.

Outdoor learning begins there. Not with curriculum. With posture.

This Is Momentum, Not a Pilot

This is the second cohort to emerge from the Outdoor Learning Partnership between Loudoun County Public Schools and Thinkering Collective.

The first round proved something simple and powerful. When educators are given time, trust, and thoughtful mentorship, they build boldly. They design projects rooted in place. They rethink how students experience school.

This winter cohort builds on that foundation. It is not an experiment. It is not a one-off initiative. It is continuation.

Loudoun is not asking if outdoor learning works. It is investing in how to deepen it.

The Silos We Don’t See

Midway through the session, two fellows discovered something unexpected. They had worked in the same school building for years. They had never met.

Same hallway. Same students. Different silos. The fellowship brought them into the same room. Outdoor learning was the entry point. Connection was the breakthrough.

Innovation does not stall because educators lack ideas. It stalls because they rarely have structured space to find one another.

Start With the Why

Evin did not begin with logistics. He began with a question. Why did you become an educator? Why are you still here?

Then he said it plainly:

“I think in education today, everyone’s talking about the how… but somewhere along the line, we lose that why, which is, we’re human.”

Outdoor learning is not enrichment. It is not a field trip strategy. It is a return to being human in school. To curiosity. To movement. To learning that touches the real world.

The Numbers Are Not Subtle

The data was direct.

“Eighty-five percent of teachers feel their voices are never heard.”

“Teacher attrition has doubled.”

“Forty-four million teachers will be needed globally by 2030.”

Then came the line that reframed the room:

“Something has to give.”

This cohort is not about adding more to educators’ plates. It is about redesigning what is already there.

Imagine Without a Ceiling

At one point, Evin made something clear:

“There’s no limitation here. We want the craziest ideas of how do we change and impact education.”

No one opened with budget concerns. No one led with approval chains. They talked about outdoor classrooms. Environmental literacy. Mental health. Interdisciplinary projects. Community partnerships. When imagination is not interrupted by constraints in the first sentence, it expands.

Teacher Agency Before Student Agency

grounded the conversation in something deeper.

“My work in student agency really taught me so much about teacher agency.”

Student voice grows from adult permission. If educators do not feel trusted to design, students will not feel trusted to explore.

She added:

“If we can look at time in a way where we can have more control over how we use our time… that is so important.”

Outdoor learning demands that kind of control. It requires collaboration. It requires time used differently. It requires educators who feel ownership over their design.

This Is Not the Traditional Fellowship

The broader Thinkering Fellowship supports educators across the country on a wide range of innovation themes. This partnership with LCPS is different. It is district-embedded. Outdoor-specific. Built to strengthen Loudoun from within. The goal is not individual spotlight. The goal is ecosystem strength.

Infrastructure, Not Enrichment

Outdoor learning is not being treated as an optional layer. It is being treated as infrastructure. Infrastructure for movement. For belonging. For environmental literacy. For interdisciplinary work. For deeper engagement.

When districts make that shift, culture changes. Educators begin to see space differently. Students begin to experience learning differently.

This cohort is underway. As are others focused on any dream project you can imagine.

Below, we will share recent capstone projects from our fall outdoor learning partnership with LCPS and continue telling the story of what is taking shape this winter.

If this is something you want at your school, or if you want to join a future fellowship cohort, reach out through the link below.

Humanizing education is not a solo act. It is collective.

You’re needed here.

Denise Mitchell didn’t begin her capstone project with a curriculum question.

She began with a student.

“I have one student whose mom asked about learning via land,” Denise explained, recalling a conversation early in the school year. “She asked if I could send her daughter outside with no shoes on to just kind of earth… get in the dirt and everything.”

In a public school setting, the answer had to be no.

But Denise didn’t stop there.

“What we can’t really do is send kids out barefoot,” she said. “However, I have this interior courtyard area that I have been, quote-unquote, made responsible for.”

That courtyard became the starting point for her Thinkering Fellowship capstone with Loudoun County Public Schools. Not as a special activity or reward, but as a necessary learning environment for her students in special education.

Regulation Comes Before Instruction

Denise works with students who need movement, quiet, and sensory regulation in order to access learning. Traditional classrooms often make that harder.

“I’ve been sending my students out there for recess this quarter,” she shared, referring to the courtyard. “We just recently got an inclusive playground, but we share it with the entire school, and we just can’t be out when everybody’s out there.”

The issue wasn’t supervision. It was overwhelm.

Large, crowded spaces created sensory overload. The courtyard offered something different. Containment. Calm. Control.

This wasn’t about time off from learning. It was about creating the conditions that make learning possible.

Inclusion Requires More Than Access

Denise’s capstone highlights a truth many educators know but struggle to operationalize. Inclusion is not just about placing students in shared spaces. It’s about whether those spaces actually work for them.

Her courtyard became a flexible environment where students could move, breathe, and regulate without competing demands.

This shift reframed how learning time could look.

Students weren’t being removed from instruction. They were being supported into it.

Small Changes, Real Impact

What makes Denise’s work powerful is how grounded it is. There was no large budget. No construction project. No overhaul.

There was simply an educator noticing what wasn’t working and using what she already had differently.

“So I’ve been sending my students out there,” she said matter-of-factly, describing a practice that has already changed daily routines for her learners.

The impact came from intention, not scale. Other Thinkerers are churning the same questions around.

This Is the Work That Rarely Gets Seen

Special education classrooms often innovate quietly. Solutions are customized, adaptive, and deeply responsive to student needs. But they’re also isolated.

Denise’s capstone matters because it brings this work into the light.

It shows how environment, regulation, and learning are inseparable. It shows how outdoor and nature-based spaces can be essential supports, not extras. And it shows what becomes possible when educators are trusted to design learning around real human needs.

Why This Work Shouldn’t Stay Isolated

Denise didn’t set out to build a model. She set out to help her students learn.

But this is how models are born.

When educators are supported, when experimentation is allowed, and when insights are shared, individual solutions become collective knowledge.

That’s how humanizing education spreads. Humanizing education is a collective effort.

The work gets stronger when we share it, build it together, and support one another beyond the walls of our own classrooms.

Sara Edwards has been teaching first grade for twenty years. She knows her curriculum well. She knows her students even better.

What she also knows is this: if you want children to care deeply about something, you have to let them live it.

“I believe that if you want kids to be interested in something and care about it for a super long time,” Sara said, “you’ve got to get them out there. They’ve got to live it. They’ve got to observe it, understand it.”

That belief became the foundation of her Thinkering Fellowship capstone with Loudoun County Public Schools, a project called First Graders Empowered by Feathered Friends.

What followed wasn’t a unit pulled from a binder or a program purchased from outside the school. It was a student-led journey that wove science, literacy, math, social studies, and leadership together through outdoor learning.

And it worked because the students owned it.

Student Choice Changes Everything

Sara didn’t begin with a solution. She began with a question.

“I literally said to them, we want to talk about what happened with our project and how can we tell people what we learned.”

What the students created next surprised even her.

She offered microphones and recorded them. There was no script. No rehearsal. No coaching.

“That was totally organic and quite honestly, very awesome.”

The project itself followed the same pattern. After exploring the UN Sustainable Development Goals and brainstorming ways to help the earth, the students voted. They chose birds.

From there, the work deepened.

They observed birds outside.
They researched in PebbleGo.
They pulled books from the library.
They kept bird journals and recorded findings.

“All the while,” Sara explained, “they had their little bird journal notebooks and they recorded all of their findings.”

This wasn’t pretend research. It was real inquiry driven by curiosity.

Outdoor Learning as Serious Academic Work

As the project evolved, Sara deliberately connected it to required curriculum.

During social science units, students mapped the outdoor classroom and planned where bird feeders, bird baths, and shelters should go. They counted tables and benches. They measured space. They analyzed shapes and proportions.

“One little love nugget counted all the windows that were around us in the area and drew each window with the window panes,” she shared. “Somebody’s got their compass rose smack dab in the middle of their map.”

The work was joyful. It was also rigorous.

“Our project includes science, writing, reading, math, and social science curriculums,” Sara said. “I mean, it’s got everything.”

Students weren’t doing less academic work. They were doing more of it, with purpose.

Engagement Comes From Movement and Meaning

Sara was clear that outdoor learning didn’t distract her students. It grounded them.

“If you can get student choice coupled with an outdoor learning environment,” she said, “engagement is off the charts.”

Her first graders needed movement. They needed variety. They needed application.

“Some days I take these kids out for outdoor learning time and I think, is it too cold? Are they going to complain about their little fingers? No complaints. Total engagement.”

The payoff showed up in comprehension.

“And their comprehension of what we’re trying to learn, because it’s applied in a new way, is also awesome.”

One of her favorite moments came when students questioned whether what they were doing counted as schoolwork at all.

“They go to me, are you sure this is math? Because this is really fun.”

This Is a Shift in How Teaching Happens

Sara is honest about what makes this possible. Experience helps. Confidence helps. But mindset matters most.

“I had to make the paradigm shift,” she said. “I wanted my kids outside learning more because I know it’s good for their brains.”

She stopped asking whether a lesson had to look a certain way.

“Is this something that a six year old can do?” she asks herself. “Then they do it.”

Her students run morning meetings. They speak in front of peers. They make decisions.

“This project was easier in my classroom because of the way I run the classroom and empower the kids.”

The work didn’t add to her plate. It reorganized it.

“I don’t have to teach that that way,” she said. “I can do this or that.”

What Happens Next Matters

When asked what comes next, Sara didn’t answer on her own. She went back to the students.

“I have to ask the tiny humans.”

Their ideas were immediate. They wanted to invite other classes and staff outside. They wanted to teach others about native birds. They wanted to expand into pollinator gardens and organic plantings.

“They want to share their bird knowledge,” she said. “They want to teach staff members and classes.”

This is where the work moves beyond one classroom.

As Evin Schwartz noted during the conversation, the real opportunity is sustainability. What happens to these students next year. How this kind of learning continues across grades. How a single project becomes a model.

Why This Work Matters Beyond First Grade

Sara’s capstone is not impressive because her students are young. It’s impressive because they are trusted.

This project shows what happens when educators stop working in isolation and start designing learning with students and partners.

Humanizing education doesn’t happen alone.
It happens in community.

When educators are supported, when students are given real agency, and when systems make room for experimentation, learning changes.

And it spreads.

An Invitation Beyond One Classroom

Sara didn’t build this project because she had extra time or resources. She built it because she trusted her students and refused to work alone.

If you’re an educator with an idea that won’t leave you alone, you don’t have to stay in the silo.

Humanizing education is a collective effort.

And the work is stronger when we build it together. Join us in impact!

Not recess. Not free time. Learning.

That absence became the starting point for Ashley’s Thinkering Fellowship impact project, developed in partnership with Loudoun County Public Schools. What followed wasn’t a top-down initiative or a prefabricated plan. It was a process rooted in listening to students and trusting them to help design something better.

“I only have one class in each grade level,” Ashley explained. “So it’s about a hundred students, which actually makes it much easier for me to get all of my students involved in decisions and things that we want as a school.”

She took advantage of that closeness immediately.

“When I started this project, I was able to go into each classroom and talk to the students and see what they really want, what they’re excited about, what would make them happy to come to school and learn.”

That question changed everything.

Agency Comes First. Research Follows.

What Ashley wasn’t sure about at first was whether students would actually want an outdoor learning space. She’d worked in other schools where similar spaces existed but weren’t always used.

This time was different.

“I wasn’t sure if they actually were missing having an outdoor learning space,” she said. “But I was very excited to see that the kids really wanted to have the space and actually were into it so much that they did their own research.”

That research wasn’t symbolic. Students looked up studies, summarized findings, and explained the academic, social, and emotional benefits of outdoor learning in their own words.

“One of my students that has ADHD was like, ‘I found that there’s benefits to students that have ADHD from learning outside.’ So we were like, nice, let’s throw that in there too.”

The project quickly shifted from an idea to a student-led case for change.

This Is About Academics, Not Escaping Them

Ashley was clear about one thing. This wasn’t about doing less work or lowering expectations.

“Our students are very high,” she said. “A lot of them come in already knowing a lot of the things that they’re being taught. So they need something more than just the regular textbook.”

The outdoor space is designed to deepen learning, not replace it.

“We need them to have the opportunity to get deeper into the concepts that are being taught. The best way to do that is hands-on learning and experiments where they can really touch and feel and work with the things they’re learning about instead of just reading about them or seeing them on a screen.”

That distinction matters. This isn’t enrichment. It’s pedagogy.

Learning Outside Connects What School Often Separates

As students explored what outdoor learning could look like, they began connecting disciplines naturally.

“They were like, if we’re studying butterflies, why can’t we have butterflies?” Ashley said. “We need butterfly bushes. We need milkweed.”

From there, the thinking expanded.

“You can be learning about a plant. You can be counting seeds. You can be measuring leaves. There’s a lot of ways to combine math with science.”

Some students wanted science. Others wanted reading.

“So they thought, if we could just go outside and read. That’s why they’re looking for a cozy corner.”

The space became a platform for cross-curricular learning rather than a single subject area.

Human Needs Are Academic Needs

The students were especially drawn to research around attention, anxiety, and well-being.

“A lot of our students have trouble paying attention,” Ashley shared. “We have a lot of students with ADHD and just a lot of squirrely students. Sitting inside in a classroom all day long is not going to help those kids.”

Students were quick to point out that being outside even two hours a week could improve mood, reduce stress, and increase engagement.

“They were excited to see that it wasn’t only science they could do,” she said. “Even math scores increasing just from doing their work outside.”

Human needs weren’t treated as separate from academics. They were understood as foundational to them.

Constraints Don’t Kill Innovation. They Shape It.

Ashley’s school sits in a floodplain, which means no permanent structures can be built. Instead of stopping the project, that constraint sharpened it.

Students proposed movable seating, shade solutions, storage, raised garden beds, collaborative tables, and rain barrels to water plants.

“They wanted a space where the whole class could get around a table together and work together,” Ashley said.

This wasn’t a wish list. It was a practical plan shaped by real conditions.

This Is How Change Gains Momentum

As Ashley presented the project, the response from the Thinkering team was immediate.

“What you did here is create a way for buy-in for outdoor learning within a school,” Evin Schwartz noted. “You worked with the students. You gave them agency.”

That agency turned into ownership, research, and a shared mission.

“These are the kinds of things we can make louder,” he said. “When you have kids explaining not only what they want but the research behind it, that’s powerful.”

The next phase will bring subject matter experts, research support, and funding conversations to help move the project from vision to reality.

But the foundation is already there.

Why This Matters Beyond One School

Ashley’s project is not just about an outdoor space. It’s about what happens when educators stop working in isolation and start building with students and partners.

Humanizing education is not an individual act. It’s a collective one.

When educators are supported, when students are trusted, and when systems make room for experimentation, learning changes.

And it scales.

An Invitation Out of the Silo

This project didn’t happen because Ashley had all the answers. It happened because she asked the right questions and didn’t try to build alone.

If you’re an educator with an idea that won’t leave you alone, you don’t have to carry it by yourself.

Building the future of learning is a collective effort.

And the work is better when we do it together. You are already the pulse of this movement - to get active, click below!

It happens between lessons. After dismissal. During moments when an educator notices something that doesn’t quite fit, and instead of moving past it, pauses.

Over the past year, we’ve had the chance to observe a growing amount of that work. Not because it was labeled as innovation, but because it was happening anyway. In classrooms. In district partnerships. In educator capstone projects that began as questions and slowly became something sturdier.

What follows isn’t a framework or a set of recommendations. It’s a synthesis of what we’re noticing. Patterns that feel familiar to many educators, but are rarely named out loud.

Most meaningful work begins as a question, not a plan

Almost every project we’ve observed began informally.

An educator noticed that students engaged differently.
Someone wondered why a lesson felt more alive when students helped shape it.
A teacher questioned why learning felt disconnected from place, culture, or purpose.

These weren’t “innovation initiatives.” They were moments of professional intuition.

“I didn’t start with a program. I started with a question about what my students needed that they weren’t getting.”
Sara Edwards, Grade 1 Educator
LCPS Capstone Presentation

In many systems, these moments are absorbed back into routine. The schedule keeps moving. The question gets postponed.

The work that continues tends to do so for one simple reason: someone stays with the question long enough for it to grow.

The challenge isn’t imagination. It’s carrying the idea alone.

Educators are not short on ideas. What they’re often short on is a way to move those ideas forward without absorbing the cost themselves.

Across capstone conversations, the same realities surfaced again and again.

People paid for materials out of pocket.
They worked nights and weekends.
They built something meaningful, only to watch it disappear when the year ended.

That pattern didn’t reflect a lack of commitment. It reflected isolation.

“I realized I was carrying all of this on my own, and that wasn’t sustainable.”
Ashley Barkley, LCPS Fellow
Capstone Reflection Conversation

When educators had space to talk about scope, shared ownership, and longevity, something shifted. The work didn’t get smaller. It got steadier. It became innovative.

Outdoor learning works best when it’s treated as normal

In our work with Loudoun County educators, outdoor learning kept surfacing, not as a program, but as a way of thinking.

When treated as an occasional activity, its impact was limited. When treated as part of how learning happens, it changed the tone of the classroom.

In classrooms like Sara Edwards’, students planned, observed, documented, and revised their work outdoors. Writing became communication. Science became care. Math became design.

“When learning moved outside, students took it more seriously, not less.”
Sara Edwards, Grade 1 Educator
Classroom Reflection Interview

Nothing about the standards changed. What changed was who carried responsibility for the learning.

Sustainability questions arrive when the work starts to matter

As capstone projects moved closer to presentation, the questions changed.

Educators stopped asking, “How do I do this?”
They started asking, “What happens after?”

Who maintains this?
How does it live beyond my classroom?
What would it take for this to continue?

“This stopped being my project when I realized other teachers could carry it forward and turn this into legacy for us all.”
Bunny Martin, Thinkering Fellow
Capstone Planning Session

Those questions aren’t signs of doubt. They’re signs that the work has crossed a threshold. It’s no longer an experiment. It’s part of a system.

Support isn’t something you assign. It’s something you feel.

When educators talked about support, they didn’t describe resources or schedules.

They described how it felt to work on the idea.

Did someone listen before advising?
Was reflection treated as real work?
Was there time to think without rushing to implementation?

“Support isn’t someone telling you what to do. It’s someone staying with you while you figure it out.”
Noa Daniel, Mentor

That kind of support doesn’t scale easily. But it does compound.

A moment worth paying attention to

Next week, Loudoun County educators will continue to present their capstone impact projects. These presentations represent months of iteration, uncertainty, grit, and refinement.

They also represent something quieter.

Educators trusting their professional judgment.
Students being treated as contributors.
Ideas being built to last, not just to impress.

As these projects are shared, they don’t function as templates. They function as signals. Evidence that when educators are given time, trust, and company, they build work that matters.

This is how change spreads. Not through replication, but through recognition.

Check out some of the amazing work being done by Thinkerers coming out of our innovation impact lab! This is how we move the needle and impact learners worldwide.

What’s next?

Taken together, these patterns suggest something many educators already know.

The field does not lack creativity.
It lacks conditions that allow creativity to mature.

Time to think.
Space to revise.
People who stay with the work.

We’ll continue listening and sharing what we’re noticing as more of this work comes into view.

We invite you to build with us. If you have a spark, let us help turn that into an impact idea that innovates and scales.

Your invitation is in the article below!

This year marked a meaningful inflection point for Thinkering Collective.

In 2025, we moved decisively from vision into execution. We built real infrastructure to support educator-led innovation in ways that are sustainable, credible, and deeply human-centered.

What follows is not a list of accomplishments. It is a reflection on what happens when educators are trusted, supported, and connected to a collective designed to help their ideas move from possibility to reality.

The Central Lesson of 2025: Educators Build When the Conditions Are Right

Across fellowships, partnerships, media, and conversations in the field, one truth became increasingly clear:

Educators do not lack ideas.
They lack access.

Access to time. Access to mentorship. Access to aligned communities.
Access to systems that support building instead of compliance.

Thinkering Collective exists to create those conditions.

Every decision we made in 2025 was guided by a simple principle: empower educators to build their dream projects to lead with clarity and confidence.

The Thinkering Fellowship: From Idea to Impact

At the heart of this work is the Thinkering Fellowship. The fellowship is our flagship program, and open to educators across roles, disciplines, and geographies.

Thinkering Fellowship became a fully realized platform for educator-led innovation.

This is not professional development in the traditional sense. It is a structured, supported environment where educators identify a problem they care deeply about and design a meaningful response with sustained mentorship, peer collaboration, and access to a broader ecosystem. This is not one and done - this is the beginning.

This year, educators used the fellowship to:

• Launch community-rooted learning initiatives

• Design interdisciplinary, student-driven experiences

• Build programs that connect learning to real-world impact

More importantly, we saw educators shift from hesitation to ownership.

When educators are trusted to build and and supported while doing so, learning becomes more relevant, resilient, and durable. That is the foundation upon which Thinkering is built.

Expanding Fellowship Pathways in Response to Demand

As the Thinkering Fellowship took shape, something important happened.

The field responded.

Educators, districts, organizations, and partners began asking for more tailored access to the Thinkering approach with pathways designed around the specific realities of their communities, roles, and ecosystems.

In response to that demand, and in addition to our core Thinkering Fellowship open to all educators, we launched several industry and community specific fellowship pathways in 2025, including:

• Teacher librarians

• New York–based educators

• Outdoor education in partnership with Loudoun County Public Schools

These pathways were not created in isolation. They were requested, co-designed, and launched in partnership with the communities they serve.

This marked an important evolution in our work.

The Thinkering Fellowship remains the foundation—accessible to any educator ready to build. These additional pathways allow us to extend that foundation into specific contexts where educators are asking for programming tailored to their environment, challenges, and opportunities.

We are currently in ongoing conversations with additional communities and partners to develop new fellowship pathways in 2026. This is how Thinkering grows - listening and responding to real needs in the field.

Thinkering Media: Elevating Voices and Building Shared Understanding

In 2025, we formally launched Thinkering Media and laid the groundwork for a broader media network that will expand significantly in 2026.

Our intent is not content for content’s sake. Thinkering Media exists to support sensemaking and to create space for thoughtful conversation about learning, wellbeing, systems change, and innovation.

Through long-form dialogue and storytelling, we elevated educators and partners who are actively building, experimenting, and reflecting in real contexts. These conversations help connect ideas across silos and surface insights that rarely emerge in rushed or transactional settings.

Depth, clarity, and reflection are not secondary to learning. They are infrastructure.

Listening at Scale: What Educators Shared With Us

Throughout the year, Thinkering Collective showed up at conferences and convenings across the education landscape.

Rather than leading with programs or pitches, we led with a single question:

What is your dream project in education?

We asked it hundreds of times.

Educators described ideas they rarely have space to articulate. They speak on the programs they want to build, problems they see clearly, and opportunities they believe are within reach if given the right support.

These conversations were not symbolic. They directly informed how we design fellowships, prioritize partnerships, and engage with funders. Listening became one of our most important strategic practices.

Advancing Conversations With Funders

In parallel, 2025 marked a shift in how we engage with funders.

Rather than focusing exclusively on short-term outcomes, we centered conversations on building educator capacity, supporting people over programs, and investing in long-term systems change.

This work is deliberate and ongoing. It reflects a shared understanding that educator-led innovation requires aligned capital, patience, and trust. A big focus of Thinkering in 2026 will be bridging those funding opportunities to you - our community - who’s education ideas we cannot wait to bring to life!

Partnerships and Mentorship as Force Multipliers

Over the course of the year, Thinkering Collective built a partnership network that spans sectors and disciplines, unified by shared values and a commitment to action.

These partnerships are designed to do real work in supporting mentorship, collaboration, research, and implementation.

Alongside this, we intentionally expanded a mentorship network focused on empowering educators as builders. Mentors serve as guides and thought partners, helping educators navigate complexity, refine ideas, and sustain momentum without controlling direction.

Trust is not a byproduct of scale. It is what makes scale possible.

Building the Technical Backbone: ThinkerBot and the ThinkerPortal

2025 was also a year of foundational infrastructure development.

We launched ThinkerBot and the ThinkerPortal to support connection, collaboration, and shared intelligence across the Thinkering ecosystem.

Together, these tools allow fellows and partners to:

• Connect across programs and geographies

• Amplify educator-led work

• Contribute insights and resources

• Participate in a growing collective knowledge base we like to call the Thinkering Brain

Opening Nominations and Applications for the Thinkering Fellowship

As we look ahead to 2026, we are opening nominations and applications for upcoming Thinkering Fellowship cohorts.

We are seeking educators and learning leaders who:

• Have a clear problem they care deeply about

• Are motivated to build rather than wait

• Want to work in community with others committed to human-centered learning

If someone comes to mind—or if you see yourself in this description—we invite you to apply or submit a nomination.

Apply or nominate here at the article below:

Looking Ahead

The work completed in 2025 established a strong foundation for the next phase of Thinkering Collective.

In 2026, we will continue to expand fellowship pathways, deepen partnerships, extend media reach, and refine tools that help curiosity become impact.

Thinkering is not a closed initiative. It is a collective that is shaped by educators, strengthened by partners, and guided by shared purpose.

In Closing

Thank you to everyone who contributed to this work in 2025.

Your trust, ideas, and commitment made this year possible.

As we enter 2026, we do so with clarity and momentum clearly focused on building learning systems that honor the humans within them.

Do YOU have a dream project to humanize learning? Let’s Thinker together!

—
Thinkering Collective

Today, our team arrived to Syracuse for #NYSCATE25. We’ll be rolling out the full Thinkering Collective ecosystem in real time — our Fellows, Mentors, capstone projects, media booth, and the power of human-centered technology. We may even tease out a new moonshot goal being announced in 2026!

At our Thinkering booth you’ll find us filming mini-interviews with educators, technologists, and learners about what it means to be “future-ready” — not merely tech-enabled, but human-empowered. We’ll be asking: How does tech support humanizing learning? How does the educator evolve when creativity, community, and collaboration drive the agenda? What would you build as an educator if there was no red tape?

Featured Thinkering Voices

Kim Rich (Silver Creek Schools, NY)

Kim is one of our New York region Fellows and will be presenting her capstone project at NYSCATE. Her project — detailed here — is all about rethinking how students engage with technology and creativity in the classroom. At NYSCATE, Kim’s “Growing Solutions” project stands as a powerful example of how technology, culture, and student agency intersect to create meaningful, future-ready learning experiences. By blending digital journaling, bilingual signage, sustainable design research, and place-based storytelling rooted in Seneca culture, her work shows exactly how educators can use tech to humanize learning rather than replace it — a message at the heart of this year’s conference. During the Thinkering presentation, she’ll walk through her progress, her vision, and how Thinkering supports Fellows to move from idea → prototype → impact.

Laurie Guyon (Thinkering Mentor & NYSCATE Event Lead)

Laurie is not only one of our most dedicated Mentors, she’s also helping lead the NYSCATE event track. If you’re attending and want to connect with Thinkering, she’s your go-to person. Come say hello at the booth — Laurie will help connect you to Fellows, Mentors, and the network of educators transforming their schools from the inside out.

Interviews are already underway:

What We’ll Be Doing at NYSCATE

• Mini-interviews: We’ll record on-site conversations around key themes: tech + humanity, student agency, educator creative leadership, librarian as system-designer, and more.

• Capstone showcases: Kim and other Fellows will present, share, iterate, and invite feedback.

• Booth conversations: Drop by the Thinkering booth, share your vision, grab a Thinkering card, and record your “What would you build if there were no red tape?” answer.

• Thought leadership sessions: Our Founder Evin Schwartz will present two sessions on behalf of Thinkering — exploring how the whole ecosystem (Fellows + Mentors + tools) makes humanizing learning possible at scale.

Why This Matters

At Thinkering we know that tools alone don’t transform learning. It’s the people: the educator, the mentor, the student-creator, the librarian, the community partner. When we place humans at the center, technology becomes a support — not a substitute. At NYSCATE, we’ll amplify that vision. We’ll spotlight projects like Kim’s, showcase how Mentors like Laurie drive sustainable change, and invite every educator to become a maker of possibility, not just a consumer of solutions.

Can We Meet You There?

Whether you’re a classroom teacher, librarian, instructional coach, technologist, or district leader — if you’re attending NYSCATE:

Stop by the Thinkering booth.

Bring your passion. Bring your ideas. We’ll bring the popcorn, the camera, and the community.

Let’s talk about how you can build your dream project — backed by the Thinkering ecosystem — and join our next Fellowship wave.

See you in Syracuse. Let’s humanize learning — together.

Do you know someone who is a rockstar educator who deserves to have their dream ideas brought to life? Send them this article - or nominate them, today!

A New Fellowship for Teacher Librarians

We’re thrilled to announce the launch of a special Thinkering Fellowship path—created exclusively for Teacher Librarians.

This fellowship was born from our time at the American Association of School Librarians National Conference (#AASL25) in St. Louis, where we immersed ourselves in the evolving landscape of library-led innovation.

Teacher librarians are quietly shaping the future of learning.
And they deserve systems that recognize—and amplify—that power.

This new fellowship does exactly that.

Each Teacher Librarian Fellow will form their dream team inside their school—five educators they choose to collaborate with. Together, these six thinkers will co-design humanizing learning projects that connect classroom innovation directly to library programming.

The librarian becomes the bridge.
The team becomes the movement.
And the library becomes what it was always meant to be:
the beating heart of the school.

This fellowship represents our commitment to restoring that center—and empowering teacher librarians as the strategic leaders of educator and learner support.

Apply or Nominate a rockstar Teacher Librarian in your network! Send them the link!

Garrett Wilhelm

The Silent Engine of Success

There’s a quiet crisis brewing in the background of our country’s education system—and no, it’s not just about test scores, AI, or the next wave of tech in the classroom…

Read more

5 months ago · 2 likes · Garrett Wilhelm and Thinkering Media

Partner Spotlight: Dr. Christopher Culver & Orange Sparrow x Thinkering

Our Partner Spotlight this week shines on Dr. Christopher Culver, founder of Orange Sparrow—an organization devoted to cultivating empathy, leadership, and intentional kindness in education and community life.

In honor of World Kindness Day, Dr. Culver and the Orange Sparrow team are leading a global call to action: to turn kindness from a moment into a movement. Their programs invite students, teachers, and schools to pause, reflect, and commit to everyday acts that elevate the human side of learning.

Their message aligns deeply with the Thinkering ethos—humanize learning, lead with heart, and connect through care.

“When we make kindness a daily practice, we don’t just change school culture—we change what’s possible for every learner.”
— Dr. Christopher Culver, Orange Sparrow

Visit Orange Sparrow’s World Kindness Day initiative to explore how your classroom, team, or school can take part.

Here are some of the impact projects your support has brought to life.

Let’s go behind the scenes at the world’s first nonprofit education impact incubator and see what’s happening inside the ThinkerSphere! ( gets the creative credit on that one! )

LCPS Fellowship: A Thinkering First

We’re thrilled to share that our partnership with Loudoun County Public Schools is now in full swing. Together, we’re co-creating an outdoor engagement curriculum that reimagines where and how learning can happen.

Even more exciting? The first LCPS Fellowship cohort launched last week—and they’re already deep in ideation and innovation.

This cohort marks a Thinkering milestone: for the first time, following the trailblazing of a new Thinkerer Fellow, we’ve opened the fellowship to collaborative capstones, inviting students, teachers, and other educators to co-create projects as a collective.

Thinkering at AASL25: A New Fellowship Path Emerging

Last week, the Thinkering Media team hit the ground in St. Louis for the American Association of School Librarians National Conference (#AASL25). Our mission: to explore how teacher librarians are evolving—and how we can support them as the strategic leaders of future learning.

From integrating maker culture and media production into library spaces, to building bridges between curriculum and creativity, teacher librarians are doing the work—and too often, they’re doing it without recognition or support.

We left deeply moved. So much so, we’ve decided to open an entirely new Thinkering Fellowship path to support this vital, visionary community.

More details coming soon—and a full industry deep dive is underway.

InnovateHer with

In this latest podcast episode, Yaritza sits down with Tonya Coats as they discuss women who are not just making waves in education—they’re reimagining it entirely. Bold voices, brave ideas. And high energy, unmatched vibes!

Thinkering x Kids Growing City: Grow Learning from the Ground Up — With Leila Mireskandari

We’re proud to partner with Kids Growing City, whose Oasis and School Gardens with Ease programs bring real-world, plant-powered learning into schools across North America. If you’re looking to add hands-on learning, community connection, and environmental education into your classroom—this is your moment.

Now Enrolling: Oasis Fall & Winter (Grades 3–8)

No special equipment needed — just curious students and a classroom ready to grow.
Includes: Done-for-you lesson plans, posters, student workbooks, PD hours, and coaching.

Coming Soon: Spring & Seasonal Oasis Programs

💡 Launching in early 2025:

• Oasis Spring Program (5–12 weeks, indoor & outdoor options)

• Oasis Earth Day Special (2-lesson unit)

• Oasis Kinder 1 & 2 (May, JK–Grade 2)

Programs include full educator supports, coaching, and optional supply kits.
Deadlines range from February to April — view options and pricing:
👉 Explore Programs Here

Book a 1-on-1 garden consultation with Leila and Schedule a Zoom here.

Let’s grow something extraordinary, together.
— Thinkering Collective x Kids Growing City

Want to Join the Fellowship?

The next wave of capstones is already forming. If you—or someone in your network—is ready to bring a bold idea to life with the full support of Thinkering’s team, tools, and community, start here:

🔗 Read our Fellowship Overview and Apply Now

A love letter to the educators who are ready to reimagine what school feels like.

“You’ve been building toward this moment.”
— Evin Schwartz, Founder and Chief Curiosity Officer at Thinkering

If you’re here, you already believe that learning can be different.
More human. More connected. More alive.

You’ve seen the spark in a student’s eyes when something clicks—not because of a curriculum, but because of a moment of curiosity, care, or creative freedom.

But too often, the system doesn’t give us space to act on our best ideas.
We get buried under bureaucracy. Undervalued. Isolated.

We built Thinkering Collective for you.

This is your invitation to join a community where your boldest, most human-centered ideas are seen, supported, and scaled.

Who We Are

We’re not a program.
We’re not a PD series.
We’re not another well-meaning initiative that ends in a Google Doc.

Thinkering Collective is the world’s first nonprofit idea-to-impact incubator for educators.

We exist to help educators bring their dream learning projects to life—with everything it takes to make them real:
→ Mentorship
→ Storytelling
→ Funding support
→ Creative strategy
→ Research and prototyping
→ AI-powered tools
→ A global network of allies

We help you Thinker it into being.

The Thinkering Fellowship

The core of our work is the Thinkering Fellowship—a 10-week sprint where educators go from idea to launched capstone project, supported every step of the way.

Fellows have built:

• Trauma-informed outdoor classrooms

• Student-run media studios

• Oral history labs

• STEM Safari camps

• AI tutoring pilot programs

• And dozens more real-world, community-rooted innovations

“You’re not just building something. You’re becoming someone who builds things.”
— Garrett Wilhelm, Possibility Architect at Thinkering

Mentorship That Sees You

We pair Fellows with mentors who see you not as a role, but as a human—with fire in your belly and something worth building.

As our Mentorship Imaginator Noa Daniel puts it:

“Mentorship isn’t about giving advice. It’s about holding space for what’s possible—and helping you remember who you are.”

We build that into everything—from weekly coaching to partner feedback sessions to how we celebrate your work publicly. This isn’t a course. It’s a collaboration.

Media That Moves the World

Through Thinkering Media, we share your journey across YouTube, Substack, podcast platforms, and social channels.
We don’t just document your story—we amplify it.

Because when the world hears what educators are building, it opens doors:

• Funding

• Partnerships

• Visibility

• Replication

You shouldn’t have to pitch yourself to prove you matter. We help you lead with impact—and let the story tell itself.

“This isn’t about ego or exposure. It’s about connecting the dots between who you are and how you teach - with your why.”
— Jim McGuire, Ecosystem Orchestrator | Thinkering Minds Podcast Host

What Would You Build?

This is your turning point.
That napkin sketch. That sticky note on your desk. That impossible idea that won’t go away.

If someone finally said:

“Yes. We believe in you. Let’s make it happen.”

What would you build?

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Her project, Playing with Purpose, is a framework for early childhood education that redefines play as a structured, intentional, and joyful way to teach essential skills. From social-emotional growth to STEM readiness, Jessica believes that when children play with intention, they don’t just learn faster—they thrive.

Why Play Matters

The inspiration came from watching her own students—and even her own children—learn through joyful play. “When my daughter learned how to make applesauce at school, she wanted to come home and teach me,” Jessica recalls. “That’s when I realized—play with intention is powerful. It sticks.”

Research backs this up. Animals learn survival skills through play. Bears wrestle to practice defending themselves. Kittens stalk each other to sharpen hunting skills. For Jessica, the same principle applies to children: “Every playful moment is a chance to grow”.

The challenge? Too often, play in schools is either unstructured chaos or overly rigid. “The gap is, play loses its power if it’s just playing without purpose,” Jessica says. “Teachers need a framework to guide it. Parents need to see the learning happening. And children need to experience joy in the process”.

The Framework: Playing with Purpose

The solution is a curriculum model where every activity is intentional, designed with specific learning goals that align with state standards and accreditation requirements, while still preserving joy and spontaneity.

• Play Grocery Store → Students count money, practice turn-taking, and solve math problems like “How many apples do I need for a pie?”

• Building Blocks → Kids explore symmetry, engineering, and resilience as they test and rebuild towers.

• Sensory Tables → Children discover cause and effect, practice sharing, and explore science by asking, “What happens when you pour water on the sand?”.

The key is teacher prompts. These simple, open-ended questions transform free play into deep learning, helping children connect their experiences to math, science, literacy, and practical life skills.

Benefits for Students, Teachers, and Parents

• For Students: Holistic development—social-emotional growth, resilience, math, STEM, and practical life skills.

• For Teachers: Easy-to-use tools that bring confidence and structure, while still keeping classrooms joyful.

• For Parents: Clear connections between what children do at school and what they bring home—whether it’s wiping a table, cooking, or solving problems.

“Play becomes powerful when adults add intention,” Jessica explains. “Children will always learn through play—but with guidance, they learn how to problem solve, create, and lead.”

More Than Play

What makes Playing with Purpose different is that it’s not just about school—it’s about community. Parents are encouraged to bring play home, turning everyday activities into learning opportunities. Teachers can adapt the framework to meet local accreditation standards, while still preserving joy. And most importantly, children come away knowing that mistakes, resilience, and curiosity are part of the process.

“It’s not about sitting at a desk and doing worksheets,” Jessica says. “It’s about giving kids the tools to learn joyfully, with purpose, from the very beginning.”

Support Jessica’s amazing work - click here!

Join the Movement

Jessica’s project shows us that innovation in education doesn’t always come from new technology—it can come from rediscovering something as simple and human as play.

This is what Thinkering is all about—real people, bold projects, human stories. If you’re ready to bring your own dream project to life, join the Thinkering Fellowship today and be empowered to build what matters.

👉 Apply or nominate a Fellow here

Her Thinkering Fellowship capstone, Future Worlds, is a reimagining of gifted education that moves beyond individual enrichment projects and into collaborative, community-rooted impact. Instead of building one-off inventions or presentations, students work together to identify local challenges, design solutions, and learn the skills they’ll need to bring ideas to life.

From Individual Projects to Community Impact

In the past, Verna’s students created projects that showcased their creativity but often stopped there. “One of my students built a Bluetooth speaker from a kit,” she recalls. “It was amazing, but after the project was done, there was no lasting impact”.

That’s why she launched Future Worlds—to shift the focus from siloed enrichment to collective problem solving. Whether it’s advocating for recycling in the school building, addressing safety concerns on the playground, or exploring how to design a community soccer pitch, projects now connect directly to issues students see and care about.

The result: meaningful work that matters to both students and their communities.

Humanizing Gifted Education

Gifted learners often get overlooked because “they’ll be fine.” Verna knows from personal experience that’s not always true. Growing up, she struggled with perfectionism and quirks that she later recognized as traits of giftedness. Today, both of her children are in gifted programs, and she sees firsthand the social-emotional challenges students face alongside their academic strengths.

“Gifted education isn’t about giving kids more work—it’s about giving them meaningful work,” she says. That includes tackling perfectionism, building executive function, and practicing public speaking—three social-emotional skills she’s embedding into the program this year.

Through modeling, Verna shows students that making mistakes, struggling with organization, and feeling nervous about presenting are all part of learning. “It’s okay to make mistakes and move on,” she tells them.

Learning Through Partnerships

A cornerstone of Future Worlds is collaboration with community partners. Parents, engineers, nonprofit leaders, and even city planners are invited to guide students, answer questions, and share real-world expertise.

Last year, one of Verna’s students spoke with a bridge engineer—and it reignited his passion for his own work. “It’s a win-win,” she says. “Students see that their passions can become careers, and professionals are reminded of the spark that got them started.”

Facing Real Challenges

Not every problem can be solved in a school year. Some projects will hit roadblocks—like the soccer pitch that may not make sense if the school is moving buildings. But even that becomes a lesson. “What happens when your idea doesn’t work out? Do you give up, or do you problem solve to keep going?”.

For Verna, that resilience is just as valuable as any technical skill.

Redefining Success

In the first year of Future Worlds, success isn’t about polished final products—it’s about learning, adapting, and problem solving. “Success looks like figuring out what worked, what didn’t, and how we’ll make it more efficient next year,” she explains.

It’s a vision of education where students are not just gifted, but empowered to be change-makers.

Join the Movement

Verna Rolland’s Future Worlds shows us that the future of gifted education is not about acceleration alone—it’s about authenticity, purpose, and humanizing learning experiences.

This is what Thinkering is all about—real people, bold projects, human stories.

If you’re ready to bring your own dream project to life, join the Thinkering Fellowship today and be empowered to build what matters.

👉 Apply or nominate a Fellow here

Dr. Oluwakemi Olurinola, an educational technologist and STEM advocate, is determined to change that. Her solution? The STEM Safari Express, a mobile modular STEM lab designed to deliver hands-on, community-based science learning directly to the students who need it most.

“Safari means exploration, adventure,” she explains. “Express means speed and accessibility. The goal is to bring STEM adventures quickly and accessibly to underserved communities”.

Sparking Fires of Curiosity

For Dr. Olurinola, the vision isn’t just about labs and equipment. It’s about igniting something within each child.

“If I’m able to spark a fire, I don’t know where it will get fanned, but at least there’s something burning within those kids,” she says. “This is something I can do. This is something I can be”.

That mindset has guided her for years. From running summer STEM camps to organizing monthly outreach programs, she has seen how even brief moments of exposure can reshape a child’s sense of what’s possible.

STEM as Life Skills

While many view STEM as a set of academic subjects—physics, chemistry, math—Dr. Olurinola sees it differently.

“STEM is beyond a subject,” she explains. “It’s a way of thinking, a way of processing, a way of approaching problems. These are transferable life skills”.

From computational thinking to problem decomposition, she believes that even if students never pursue STEM careers, these skills will serve them in whatever path they choose.

Education That Moves

Most students are expected to come to school to learn. The STEM Safari Express flips that equation.

“Education that moves means taking learning to them where they are,” Dr. Olurinola says. “We disabuse the mindset that learning only occurs within the classroom. We can learn even under a tree”.

The mobile lab isn’t just about science experiments. It’s about contextualizing learning—connecting lessons to community challenges, making STEM feel relevant, local, and alive.

The Moment of Realization

The idea for the STEM Safari Express has been in Dr. Olurinola’s heart for years. The turning point came when she attended two international conferences back-to-back.

She watched 10- to 13-year-olds confidently present their STEM projects to global audiences. “The kids in my community are equally as intelligent,” she thought. “The difference is exposure”.

That realization fueled her determination to create opportunities for Nigerian children to see themselves as innovators, builders, and problem-solvers.

Building Support and Scaling Impact

The project is already attracting support. UK-based organizations have donated resources. Nigerian colleagues have shared expertise. Local educators and NGOs are expressing interest in partnering.

What’s next? Equipping the mobile lab, securing sustained funding, and scaling the model so it can serve more schools and communities year-round.

But at the core, Dr. Olurinola’s dream is simple: every child deserves the chance to learn by doing.

A Lesson for Us All

Asked what she’s learned about herself as an educator, she says:

“I’ve learned to take students to the window and ask, ‘What do you see?’ Because they may see things I never noticed. Their insight enriches the learning”.

And her advice to other educators with a “quiet dream”? “Start small. Break it into parts. Don’t wait until you have it all figured out. Attend to your dream, no matter how small”.

Join the Movement

Dr. Oluwakemi Olurinola’s STEM Safari Express reminds us that innovation isn’t just about technology—it’s about people, access, and the spark of curiosity that changes everything.

This is what Thinkering is all about—real people, bold projects, human stories.

If you’re ready to bring your own dream project to life, join the Thinkering Fellowship today and be empowered to build what matters.

👉 Apply or nominate a Fellow here