 | MESPA Home > Resources for Principal Leadership > Leapfrog Institutes | | | Leapfrog Institutes | | Leapfrog Institutes Wants to Collaborate!
Is your school or district interested in helping students become more competitive? More creative? More innovative? If so, consider partnering with Leapfrog Institutes (LFI) at the University of Minnesota’s Department of Educational Policy and Administration. Leapfrog Institutes offers collaborative services to educators, school leaders and their communities throughout Minnesota and elsewhere, including China, Finland, and Mexico. LFI collaborators champion competitive technologies in hardware, software, and mindware. Leapfrog Institutes is looking for Minnesota elementary schools who would like ideas and guidance to make the leap!
To download a Leapfrog Institute brochure, scroll to the LFI brochure PDF at the bottom of this page.
What is Leapfrogging all about?
Leapfrogging means to jump over obstacles to achieve goals. It means to get ahead of the competition or the present state of the art through innovative, time-and-cost-saving means. Leapfrog denotes leadership created by looking and acting over the horizon. Leapfrog creates the future in the present based on what is found over the horizon. This process marks an extension of the socio-constructivism and progressivism of Vygotsky’s and Dewey’s work, while ever looking toward the future.
One example of Leapfrogging is Finland’s jump to wireless phones, saving that country the cost of deploying an expensive copper wire system. Another example is present in some of the Kent, Washington, public schools, which now permit students to use wireless Web devices to help them access information to better pass tests. Leapfrogging has become a major strategy of developing countries wishing to avoid catch-up efforts that otherwise portend a high likelihood of continued followership.
Leapfrog institutions relentlessly disrupt themselves to compete successfully in the global knowledge and innovation economy. They work ahead of the competition in teaching, research, innovation, and service. They avoid playing catch-up.
What’s practical about of all this? That’s easy! Together, we can better help Minnesota’s kids move to the front of the line in their capacities to learn and to apply their learning innovatively!
What are some members currently doing with LFI? Under the collaborative leadership of Principal Mary Baier with district administration, Washington Elementary School in Owatonna has devised a computer-based classroom that stresses group and individualized research-based learning. Kids involved in a recent live video exchange with LFI acted and sounded like college students. Never mind that they were 5th graders, and were not teacher-selected for membership in their laboratory! Or consider Edison High School in Minneapolis. They’re redesigning their school for a focus on innovation, including the formation of “innovation cells” – one created by each teacher!
So what can you and LFI do together? LFI can visit your school and share what Leapfrogging is all about, possibilities for addressing your school needs, and how imagination, creativity, and innovation can expand at ridiculously low expense. And these creative expansions don’t need to occur in the regular school day. They can be extracurricular, involving self-chosen teachers, students, parents, and other members of our education communities!
For more information, contact
John Moravec (moravec@umn.edu, 612-625-3517); or
Arthur Harkins (harki001@umn.edu); or
visit the Leapfrog Institutes Web at www.leapfroginstitutes.org.
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LFI_brochure.pdf
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| FREE virtual (and live) conference on e-skills and e-competencies October 31 | Leapfrog Institutes is co-chairing a FREE virtual (and live) conference on e-skills and e-competencies October 31. The Knowledge Society demands that we leapfrog ahead in our education systems, build a new digital literacy, and improve soft skills (creativity, innovation, collaboration, communication, and critical thinking, among others) that could help all 21st century citizens become productive, effective knowledge workers. Educators, policymakers, business leaders, parents, and youth must identify and develop new sets of e-skills and e-competencies to help youth succeed, and build a capacity for success toward the 22nd century. The purpose of this event is to identify, project and discuss the e-skills and e-competencies required for success in the 21st and early 22nd centuries. This event will explore, gather and analyze relevant experiences in training and development of e-skills throughout North America. More information is available online at www.e-competencies.org.
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| Global Youth Policy and Leadership graduate seminar open to all educational professionals | The University of Minnesota Department of Educational Policy and Administration is opening participation in its Global Youth Policy and Leadership graduate seminar to all educational professionals! With the dynamic participation of such organizations as Leapfrog Institutes, Destination ImagiNation of Minnesota, and the Minnesota 4-H this must-attend seminar will focus on designing a collaborative approach for developing innovation, interests, skills, and projects among youth. The results will be used to design an Innovative Youth conference-within-a-conference for the May 2009 Destination ImagiNation Global Finals. This is a don’t miss Experience! For more information contact Art Harkins: harki001@umn.edu
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| Is your school district ready for the future? | The Leapfrog Institutes at the University of Minnesota intends to foster a sustainable culture of innovation in our schools. You are invited to participate in discussions on building positive futures for PreK-21 education in the communities served by the Leapfrog Institutes. MESPA is a Collaborating Institution in this incredibly important infusion of creativity and innovation in education. More information is available at www.leapfroginstitutes.org
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| So what can you and LFI do together? | Leapfrog Institutes can visit
your school and share what Leapfrogging is all about, possibilities for how to address your district or school needs, and how
imagination, creativity, and innovation can expand at
ridiculously low expense. And these expansions don’t need to occur in the
regular school day. They can be extracurricular, involving self-chosen
teachers, students, parents, and other members of our education
communities!
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