Cadmus’ Post

Rackin’ up the awards.. 🙌🏻 Kuder Galaxy is a personal favorite - a hard truth slammed into me when I joined Kuder: you cannot be what you cannot see. This certainly hit home for a kid from rural Iowa who didn’t understand the breadth of careers and occupations in the world. Honestly, I can lament that, but another truth is that some similar limitations will always persist: kids’ world view is largely fueled by the community they live in and the people in their lives. Galaxy helps elementary educators and counselors take aim straight at this conundrum: to expand kids’ knowledge and understanding about the world of work through gamified, age appropriate learning content. Set in space, this learning software exposes a comprehensive view of the world of work, over 100 different occupations, and allows kids to explore all of that without the inherent biases we can create in our own mind based on gender or ethnicity. As a parent of 6 and 8 year old girls, I see and hear them asking questions about work. Funny story: when my dad (retired for 13 years) was on his laptop, my daughter asked him if he was working. Clearly my work and my husband’s work is nearly 100% computer based! The takeaway - knowledge about the world of work doesn’t just slam into kids, we have to build an understanding and awareness that there are jobs outside of teacher, nurse, software engineer, etc. so they can be prepared to make informed plans and decisions about their future.

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At this year’s ACEL Annual Conference, Pasi Sahlberg gave us a powerful message about the urgent need to Re-Imagine Education (which was the theme for the conference). We know those of you in schools, (principals, school leaders and teachers) are working your hearts out making a real difference for the students in their care. But you feel like you have one hand tied behind your back. The system, the regulations, the requirements, the bureaucracy, stands in your way. You feel like you have no room to move. That’s what the system wants you to feel. That’s how it seeks to control you. But you do have room to move. Not much perhaps, but probably a lot more than you think. Remember the old saying “It’s better to ask for forgiveness rather than permission.” As part of my research into schools that changed, I have become convinced that we can’t change the system by trying to change the system. But we can change the system by changing the school we work in. There are wonderful (albeit small) examples of this from all over the world and indeed here, in Australia. Try it. Be Bold. Try it with one small thing to start with and test your own limits. The way to be bold is to start being bold. #schools #schoolleadership #schoolimprovement #bebold #courage If you would like some help finding that one small opportunity for boldness, I would absolutely love to have a chat. You can book a no-obligation call here: https://lnkd.in/gpPbD3_r or contact me using any of the details in my profile. Whatever you do, be bold!!!

🏅 EXPERIMENT 529 FINALIST FOR THE US ASSOCIATION FOR SMALL BUSINESS & ENTREPRENEURSHIP CO-CURRICULAR INNOVATION AWARD Last year, USASBE- United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship allowed us to walk away from their annual conference with their highest award for Model Community Accelerator/Incubator for our work on 24/7 Black Leadership Advancement Consortium's BLAC Business Entrepreneurial Accelerator (BBEA). Congratulations to everyone who is a part of this entrepreneurial ecosystem to enable Waterloo Iowa’s progress to stand out as exemplary on an international stage. But did you know, that as this unique Accelerator/Incubator generated scaling successes, we could not stop at the graduation? Diversification also made a lot of sense. And so Experiment 529 was born. Experiment 529 is a 4-year-old evolving initiative that turns traditional models for ‘how we learn’ and 'who is a learner' on its head with open education pedagogy #OEP to benefit students, entrepreneurs, and ecosystem builders simultaneously. We are working smarter with our limited resources, and more learners are reaching their next level of success faster. And so, it is with great pride that we share that USASBE has taken note of this next-level innovation too, and shortlisted us for a different award this year. We are also excited that our Iowa team will be headlining [7] different sessions at this specific conference: ✅ Tomorrow, Jan 10, Matthew Gilbert, Esq. will co-lead a Learning Journey with Leon C. Prieto, Ph.D. at the Birmingham Institute of Civil Rights Institute: “Exploring Our Past and Harnessing Our Future” ✅ Thu. Jan 11, ReShonda Young will be the keynote speaker for the Equity and Inclusion Fusion: Forging an Inclusive and Financially Sustainable Entrepreneurial Future Together Summit. ✅ Thu. Jan 11, ReShonda Young will be on a panel discussion for Advancing Racial Equity in Entrepreneurship by Centering the Experience of Black Entrepreneurs ✅ Fri. Jan 12, ReShonda Young, Matthew Gilbert, Esq., and I will be on stage together for the Awards Panel discussion on Experiment 529 ✅ Fri. Jan 12, We will be hosting a banquet to say thank you to some of our pioneers who have helped us become better inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystem builders. ✅ Sat. Jan 13, I am presenting our research on when and how a social realism framework can help us convert one type of capital to another when we are challenged by scarcity and distrust. ✅ Sat. Jan 13, I am presenting on how free and open GIS technology is allowing entrepreneurs to test, develop, and communicate their ideas cheaper, faster, and clearer, to improve their innovation 🥂 Cheers to every one of our innovators, entrepreneurs, and changemakers working to add new value to our economy regardless of public awards validating your good work....yet... If you have been a part of Experiment 529 over the past four years, thank you...and remember to update the awards section of your resume!

How are you preparing for exams? We're here for you and ready to share our nuggets of wisdom! #BizSchoolBlossoms #FutureCEOMinds #CampusInnovators #MBAJourneyJournal #GlobalBizLeaders

Last week, I faced a challenging moment as we didn’t advance past the final stage of the LEAP MIT Challenge. Being a finalist—top 20 out of 200—is a remarkable achievement, but not making that final cut revealed a wave of emotions and insecurities. It was a tough pill to swallow, so let's reflect on what we learned along the way so we can move on. Here’s the first minute of our pitch and 3 lessons from this process: 1. Communicating what you truly want to say, in a different language, with coherence and speed, is no easy task. 2. The judges highlighted that TONGO’s strength lies in being educator-driven, and that truly resonated with our mission, of making educators lives better. 3. This experience has sharpened our focus, helping us better articulate what we want to measure and why. We’ve emerged with a clearer vision for our pilot program, ready to continue to tackle an urgent need with the creativity it demands. I must admit, that one of the hardest parts has been facing everyone I so happily told we had made it as finalists. But that is a story for another time 😉

I presented this week at the annual Virtual World Best Practices in Education (VWBPE) Conference on Universities’ Response to VW Learning. The news out of academia is not all good, but some of it’s not bad. A video is coming … for now here are the subtitled slides: https://lnkd.in/gtFzVwTD

Cohort 15 will start January 2025

More of this in education please! So refreshing to hear such a positive and progressive story about what education could be from The Manchester Metropolitan University and their Innovation and Teaching Excellence Learning Lab (I-TELL) - the art of the possible! As Katharina De Vita put it: "Creativity, playfulness and experimentation - that is what I-Tell is all about; and to serve as a platform for really cutting edge pedagogical research." Also great to see the value that purposeful play can add to innovative approaches to education being acknowledged here. https://lnkd.in/eJnc7D2m

In todays fast-paced technological world, acquiring new digital skills is almost unavoidable, which is why I have joined this amazing program hoping to gain further insights about digital marketing.