reDesign, an educational design consultancy, is launching its inaugural Designers-in-Residence program, convening boundary-breaking curriculum designers to create competency-based, high-quality, culturally-relevant materials for middle and high school learners. These designers will join the growing global movement to engage the passions, interests, and lived experiences of learners, while simultaneously addressing the learning challenges that arise within an inherently inequitable, industrial system.
For the past 25 years the curriculum industry has been organized to support the high-stakes standards-based assessment system that has dominated education in the 21st century. This has not worked: between 2000-2017 postsecondary education graduation rates remained static at 48-50% (ACT, Statista), while the percentage of jobs available to those without postsecondary degrees has continued to decrease (StatChat). It’s time to revolutionize the curriculum industry and time to transform the learning opportunities of all learners.
“The pandemic gave the adult world a peek into our classrooms, awakening a broad awareness of the deep inequities that have always been at the heart of our K–12 education system,” said Antonia Rudenstine, reDesign’s co-founder and Creative Director. “Access to engaging learning materials that develop critical consciousness and key competencies, alongside a profound connection to community, is particularly scarce for a significant majority of 12-20 year olds and the educators who are committed to their design of thriving, satisfying lives.”
Now accepting applications for Designers-in-Residence
The program’s application period closes April 30, 2021, with selections notified on a rolling basis.
The 50 Designers selected to contribute will receive a $6,000 stipend, as well as an opportunity for revenue-sharing on projects that become part of an upcoming equity-focused, curriculum marketplace. Designers can also earn up to two graduate credits from Southern New Hampshire University, paid for by reDesign.
reDesign seeks educators with deep pedagogical expertise, exceptional design and learning facilitation chops, and a passion for reimagining teaching and learning. Ideal candidates will have deep experience:
● Working with tweens and teens (ages 12-20),
● Designing and teaching using culturally responsive and/or culturally sustaining pedagogies, and a social justice lens,
● Applying the learning sciences to pedagogy and curriculum designs, and
● Connecting curriculum to young people’s communities, passions and interests.
To learn more and to apply, visit Designers-in-Residence.
Additional Program Details
The Designers-in-Residence program begins in June 2021 with synchronous and asynchronous learning and design work throughout the summer. Design work continues through the academic year, supported by monthly collaborative design sessions.
Participants will come together in a virtual setting and create next-generation projects for 7-12 grade students that:
● Build key competencies - skills related to literacy, problem-solving, and leading inquiry,
● Develop critical consciousness - engaging learners in critically examining the world, and in taking action to challenge inequities and oppression, and
● Sustain, celebrate and engage with the cultures and communities that our learners belong to.
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 US, reimagining what teaching and learning can be. For more, visit https://www.redesignu.org/.
