This is an update on my professional activities for my past and present colleagues, and anyone else who might be interested.
Today, which happens to be my birthday, I completed what I believe is my final consulting project for Age of Learning: a knowledge map for the mastery of algebraic thinking in Grades 3-5.
This was the last of 12 knowledge maps that I’ve spent most of the last 9 months developing, for all strands of Grades 3-5 math curriculum. In the process of that work I reviewed 65 individual papers and 12 books, collected and tabulated 1,892 individual literature excerpts, and generated 1,964 mapped learning objectives.
These maps are designed to guide the continued development of Age of Learning’s My Math Academy offering—a highly adaptive and completely personalized digital curriculum whose preK-2 version has garnered considerable praise and many awards, based on its research-proven effectiveness.
This project began in 2015. At that time I was Senior Vice President of Curriculum at Age of Learning, and we persuaded Founder and CEO Doug Dohring that we were in a position to create a truly revolutionary digital math curriculum resource, one that would meet students wherever they were and accelerate their achievement towards mastery of essential math knowledge, skills and abilities.
A lot of water has gone under the bridge since 2015. We built that product, and it performed beyond even our expectations. I retired from Age of Learning and began consulting for them through my company Real Curriculum. And, last year, Doug Dohring passed.
Doug was a force of nature. I’ve had the opportunity to work with many leaders who had the desire to help people that they have never met or would never expect to meet. That willingness to help other human beings just because they are human beings is something I saw manifested in leaders I admired most, but Doug was in a class by himself.
With the completion of these knowledge maps and after 15 years of collaboration, I think I’ve done everything I can do at this point to help Age of Learning fulfill Doug’s vision, and I’m moving on. I’m especially excited about the work I’m doing with Edtech leader Brainly, a company that is taking a highly human intelligence approach to the application of AI technology in creating student-centered educational experiences.
I’m also very optimistic about the prospects of a startup I’m working with that is developing a global platform for peer and professional tutoring, called Unicorn.
And I am thrilled to again be working with old colleagues and friends at The Delphian School and Green Technology, as well as new friends at 5 Fundamentals of Health.
Still, I will always be grateful for the opportunity to work with Doug and a remarkable group of innovators, educators, designers, engineers and artists at Age of Learning, and to demonstrate just how effective educational technology can be when it’s developed with the single-minded goal of helping children learn.
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