Author: Jason Vest

I recently finished Seth Godin’s most recent book This Is Marketing. In it, he provides a wonderful blend of technical, inspirational, and practical insight into marketing and human behavior. His thinking is so far beyond mine, that no description of mine could possibly do him justice. So, I’ll just share what one chapter made me … Continue reading The Tyranny of Perfect, The Possibility of Better, and The Magic of Good Enough: Applying Seth Godin’s Thoughts On Marketing To School In 2019 →

We were afraid of a monster under the bed...until we turned on the light. We were afraid to fall off the bike...until we didn’t. We were afraid of giving the speech...until they all cheered.   When it comes to reimagining our schools, what are we afraid of? Perhaps, that’s not even the right question to … Continue reading What Are We Afraid Of? →

Project-based learning has been around for a while. Still, it's one of the best ways to get your students (and teachers) doing things in their classrooms that actually matter. I was lucky to be able to contribute to A.J. Juliani's newest book The PBL Playbook released in early July. In it, I shared the kind … Continue reading The Power of PBL →

One of my recent podcasts featured college student Gopika Senthilkumar from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. We talked some about taking risks which got me thinking about sharing some influential pieces I've read about risk. Here are a few of them from Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk, Kayt Sukel of Carnegie Mellon, and high school student Andy … Continue reading Risk Resources →

Being able to start an innovation class based in design thinking and entrepreneurship has been a blessing. It has not however, come without many forms of “bumps in the road.” From typical apathy to  battling borderline obsessions with Fortnite, there has always been bumps in the road. Still, we persevere. Like the greatest of all … Continue reading Imperfections in Innovation →

Why should anyone care about this blog, or my class, or me? I haven’t done anything yet. I’m not being searched on Google. I’ve only been in education for seven years. As far as the class so what. We’ve formed a few partnerships, done a couple presentations, touched on design thinking and entrepreneurial mindsets. We’ve … Continue reading Part 4 – Why Should Anyone Care? How 8th Graders in Virginia Are Changing the World (and Education). →

  When I set out to create this class, I wanted to turn students into entrepreneurs. I wanted to give them new experiences, so that they could develop new mindsets, and create new solutions. While we have been able to accomplish these goals, even greater is the unintended consequences of these experiences.   Their worldview … Continue reading Part 3 – Student Voices: In Their Own Words – How 8th Graders In Virginia Are Changing the World (and Education) →

This post was written last week for @mrgabriele (the Supervisor of Learning, Development & Professional Growth for the Garnet Valley School District, as well as Senior adjunct faculty with the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Literacy Network).   It is also PART 2 of a four part series of posts titled HOW 8TH GRADERS IN VIRGINIA … Continue reading Part 2: How Students in Virginia Are Changing the World (and Education) – How Community Support Drives Classroom Innovation →

I couldn't be happier to have Anthony Gabriele as a guest writer on my blog this week. Enjoy! Anthony Gabriele is currently the Supervisor of Learning, Development & Professional Growth for the Garnet Valley School District, as well as Senior adjunct faculty with the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Literacy Network. Throughout his career, Anthony has … Continue reading Authentic Use of a MakerSpace →