Old school = inviting professionals to school so they can talk about their jobs.

Real world learning = inviting professionals to school so they can give learners feedback on learner-led projects.

This week we were delighted to welcome eight experts to our school to give feedback to our learners on their Quest work. They hail from companies such as Caterpillar, Skookup, VizLit, Kefi, UpGrad, and more.

At these 100% learner led events, elementary heroes tackled a real world, real time, physics-based challenge given by Nathan McFarland, Vice President of Technology at Kefi Play. They designed a system to make it easier for Kefi staff to move heavy blocks.

Middle school heroes also tackled a real world design challenge given by Alfonso Riley, Sr. Learning Technology Consultant at Caterpillar Inc. They had to select the right truck fleet to match a production goal.

Lastly, high school learners took parents and visitors on a design thinking journey to prototype solutions for human trafficking, hunger, depression, academic pressures, and elder isolation. Five design thinking experts from three states and two continents joined the call and provide feedback.

Meet our Experts!

JAMES CAMPBELL

James Campbell started his teaching career in Baltimore City Public Schools. Over 15 years in education, James has served as a Founding Faculty of three schools; Academy for College and Career Exploration (Baltimore), St. Georges Technical High School (Delaware), and Arabia Mountain High School (Dekalb County, GA). James spent six years as a member of Mount Vernon Presbyterian School and the Mount Vernon Institute for Innovation (MVIFI). His time at MVPS allowed him to grow as a design thinker and test how design thinking can be used in the classroom. His work with MVIFI and IDEO’s Teacher’s Guild gave him opportunities to coach and train educators in the design thinking process. Currently James serves as the STEAM Interdisciplinary Specialist at the Atlanta Girls’ School. In this role he works to assist teachers with developing curriculum, engaging students in meaningful STEAM opportunities and building community relationships.

NATHAN McFARLAND

Nathan is the leader of technology and play at Kefi and leads a team of talented individuals in the creation and maintenance of all the play experiences at Kefi. His unique role combines his love of programming, music, art, and woodworking into immersive experiences for kids and families. Prior to Kefi, Nathan worked as a machine learning and cloud architect at the Chick-fil-A Support Center for five years and studied Applied and Computational Mathematics at Florida State University.

KAWAI LAI

Kawai is a designer and facilitator serving schools in strategic planning. She started VizLit to unleash the visual mind of every learner. Her new book, The New Team Habits, provides practices for leadership teams to build better habits for team learning, meetings, and projects. Formerly, she served as the Vice President of Innovation at NAIS and helped launch and grow Education Elements. Prior to a career in education, Kawai climbed the corporate ladder at Deloitte Consulting.

MEGHA BHASKAR

Megha is a design thinking practitioner who currently supports with the development and management many of the undergraduate and graduate programs at UpGrad, which is India’s largest online higher education company providing programs in Data Science, Technology, Management and Law, to students, working professionals and enterprises. Megha has extensive experience in applying design thinking methods for program design. Prior to this role, she helped set up the design thinking unit at KPMG India. Before that, she consulted with several education institutions (non profits and schools) on curriculum design, educational programming, and teaching. She is passionate about education and deeper learning methods.

ALFONSO RILEY

A Six Sigma Black Belt, Alfonso Riley is responsible for Caterpillar Global Dealer Learning (GDL) Division’s Business and Learning Analytics Development and Learning Record Store Administration for their Learning Ecosystem.

With 13+ years of industry experience, he has done training design and facilitation for Caterpillar Equipment Technical Training as well as skills assessors for Cat Technician Certification Program. For the last four years, he has been responsible for Learning Data Analytics and Business Processes Optimization for the Global Dealer Learning Division within Caterpillar.

TJ EDWARDS

T.J. Edwards was drawn into education by Design Thinking. As a career changer, teaching through the lens of solving real world problems in a human-centered way was incredibly attractive. The desire led to 9 years in working at The Mount Vernon School serving in a variety of leadership and teaching roles including building and leading the K-12 Maker|Design|Engineering program, launching EDU products and events through the Mount Vernon Institute for Innovation, and consulting via MV Ventures.

Currently, T.J. works as a Senior Product Strategist at Skookum, a digital transformation consultancy. As a product strategist, T.J. uses human-centered design, CX and UX methodologies to help companies deliver delightful digital products to their customers or stakeholders. Skookum empowers its customers through four core services: Innovation, Digital Strategy, Design and Software Development.

NATALIE CATLETT

Natalie Catlett is an illustrator, educator, and edupreneur. A firm believer in the transformative power of the arts in education, Natalie's passion is to find ways for students and teachers to experience their imaginative and creative capabilities every day. She graduated from Pratt Institute with a BFA in Communications Design, obtained her first master's degree in Art Education at Tufts University, and her second master's degree at The University of Pennsylvania in Education Entrepreneurship. Before shifting into education, Natalie worked in children's animation and publishing industries. Natalie has been teaching both art and design for nearly a decade and is currently the Lower School Director of Design Thinking at Pace Academy, in Atlanta. Originally from Brazil, she has extensive experience collaborating with schools, organizations, and companies designing and executing immersive art-led learning experiences.

JEFF BARBEE

Jeff is Solutions Administrator for Caterpillar Global Dealer Learning. Jeff manages third party cloud-based systems and architecture. He is a Multimedia Producer with over 20 years of experience in print, interactive, web and training design. His partial client list includes: Caterpillar, Cefcu, Citibank, Computer Associates, Clifton Gunderson, DC Heath, Farmland, Fleer Cards, Harper Collins, Home Diagnostics, Houghton Mifflin, IDOT, John Deere, Kathryn Beich / Nestle, Keystone, Komatsu, KYB, McGraw Hill, MacMillan, Maui Jim, Pioneer Seed, Prenti

Real world learning requires real world mentors