Recently, Tom and Jessica traveled to sunny California to visit Design Tech High — a four-year-old charter high school that recently moved from a warehouse in San Mateo, to a new facility on the Oracle Campus.
Design Tech High — also known as d.tech — serves 550 high school students grades 9-12 and combines personalized learning, design thinking, and maker activities with the goal of forging identities as caring citizens and young professionals. The entire staff at d.tech is incredibly dedicated to creating high-quality personalized learning for their students.
In this episode, Jessica and Tom take you on a “virtual field trip” of d.tech. They speak with Ken Montgomery, co-founder and Executive Director of d.tech, and Galen Andrew, Director of Design Realization Garage. Ken and Galen give us their insights on the school’s new campus and how the space has positively affected learning, the important role design thinking plays at D. Tech, their four-year design-thinking advisory course, and more.
Key Takeaways:
[:19] An introduction to d.tech.
[1:05] How the new facility has helped shape new behavior and productivity, and the backstory on how they came to work with Oracle.
[3:55] Where the campus is located and how many people it houses.
[4:47] Why d.tech’s focus on design thinking was so important to Oracle.
[6:42] Galen Andrew, Director of Design Realization Garage, on his class and prototyping.
[10:44] In Galen’s class, is it all individual work or are students working collaboratively?
[11:37] About the diverse student body and architecture of the space at d.tech.
[13:57] The extracurriculars at d.tech.
[14:47] Does Ken think he’ll see more school corporation partnerships in the future?
[15:50] About the design lab.
[17:30] The core functions of advisory at d.tech.
[20:43] What research says about advisory.
[22:30] About the new space at d.tech, and the inspiration they drew from High Tech High.
[23:13] The new program d.tech is about to roll out: a peer-tutoring system, designed by a student at d.tech.
Mentioned in This Episode:
Want to Learn More?
The flexible space at D. Tech was inspired by High Tech High, in San Diego. Listen in to “S2:E47 Making the City the Text at High Tech High” for more information on HTH, another leading school that has incorporated design thinking across the curriculum.
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