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We focus on being a fluid organization, one that is designed to adapt quickly and purposefully. That approach has allowed me to ask better questions and approach learning through innovating.

One driving question: How do we create the right mindset for learning? Dweck (2010) would call this a growth mindset. How can we, as a STEM building, design learning experiences that encourage and develop innovation?

STEM leaders face a range of needs of their school environment and it’s essential to have veteran leaders who have experienced the same problems.

These are issues like:

• educating people on what STEM education actually is and is not (it is NOT the sum of the acronym),
• hiring teachers with the right mix of innovation and content expertise,
• finding continually new and exciting ways to work with the larger community of stakeholders so students have authentic learning opportunities and interactions with potential role models.

These are challenges above and beyond those our colleagues face in more traditional settings. All the faculty approach planning each day’s experiences around the idea that no two schools are alike but there are common issues we all face. We strive to help bring a framework for thinking and problem solving through the leader’s chair. The Innovative Leaders Institute provides an ecosystem for growth in leaders who face the task of real education reform.

1. How they learn and how others around them learn. Which raises the awareness that their learners all learn differently!
2. They learn how to fail and that failure is many times the key to learning.
3. They learn that failing is the seed to innovation.

1. They are not alone – others are attempting the same transformations as they but in different geographic locations
2. Strategies for building shared leadership and ownership of school-based initiatives for improvement
3. Factors to consider and address in leading any change effort
4. Specific resources to assist in recruiting and retaining high quality teachers and staff
5. Ideas for engaging students, parents, and the larger community of STEM stakeholders

During our last face-to-face, they seemed more willing to put themselves “out there” as a team because they knew how others on their team learned and it allowed them to accept that collaboration is more of a process than a product.

By the end of the institute, he had identified partners and tasks so he had a clear vision of who could help him and how. He could articulate his vision and sharpened it alongside his faculty. He left with a new disposition that this was not “his” undertaking, but “theirs” – and so it seemed like an achievable dream rather than a recipe for burnout.