reDesign, an educational design consultancy, is launching an all-call for K-12 content discipline experts from diverse backgrounds and geographies to join together this summer to re-envision the “canon” of K-12 content.
Content experts will be selected across 25 discipline areas, and will convene for a virtual Design Studio the week of June 27th to reimagine a 21st century K-12 Content Map that defines essential topics and concepts, develops critical consciousness, and fosters deep connections to community. Selected participants will receive an honorarium of up to $2,000 for their contributions. To learn more, and to apply or nominate colleagues, visit: K-12 Content Mapping.
This educational content initiative marks a shift away from long lists of factual knowledge, and toward disciplinary concepts and cross-disciplinary competencies that are in-sync with how the brain learns, and the rapidly shifting opportunities of the adult world, while centering inclusion and antiracism in subject area content choices.
“The current K–12 content map is both fragmented and over-generalized. It’s designed for a pre-Google world of limited information and closely-held, Eurocentric funds of knowledge that center the white experience” said reDesign founder and Creative Director, Antonia Rudenstine. “This moment in time—shaped by the pandemic’s global impact on schooling and the Movement for Black Lives—provides a unique opportunity for educators, industry experts, and academics to come together to create a content map that prepares young people to critically examine current global challenges, by listening to the multiplicity of voices and experiences that shape the world they are growing up in.”
Now accepting nominations and applications
The program’s application period closes April 30, 2021, with selections notified on a rolling basis. A stipend of $15,000 will be distributed across each team of 10 discipline experts; shares of the stipend will be awarded based on time invested during the week-long session. reDesign is seeking discipline content experts who are passionate about making school relevant and connected to the rich variety of communities and work contexts that today’s young people participate in.
Additional Program Details
reDesign will select and convene a total of 250 multicultural, disciplinary content experts, with teams of 10 experts engaging in a design process for each of 25 disciplines, under the umbrellas of physical and material science, life science, mathematics, humanities, social sciences, and engineering and design. See the full list of 25 disciplines.
The week-long Content Mapping Design Studio will take place June 27 - July 1, 2021, in a virtual, blended format of team-organized design sessions and synchronous live meetings.
“We want to elevate often ignored, silenced, and invisible voices, and to tap into the growing network of passionate educators and professionals working to reinvent education,” said Rudenstine. “Join us to help build a better world for our students.”
reDesign’s Audacious 5-Year Plan to Build Learner-Centered Communities
The convening experts for the K-12 Content Mapping initiative is reDesign’s first step in its bold 5-Year Plan to co-create and support inclusive and equitable learner-centered communities for young people and adults that embrace every learner. Learn more about reDesign’s Big, Hairy, Audacious 5-Year Plan.
About reDesign
reDesign is an education design lab committed to meaningful, positive, joyful learning for all young people, with a goal of building inclusive learner-center communities so that education becomes a pathway to liberation. Founded in 2006, reDesign partners with schools, districts, and states throughout the U.S., reimagining what teaching and learning can be. For more, visit https://www.redesignu.org/.
