I am honored to be participating at the SXSWedu Conference and Festival this year in Austin, Texas. The South by Southwest (SXSW) organization hosts some of the most collaborative and engaging events in music, film, education, entrepreneurship, and global sustainability. We at Project Lead The Way are thrilled to join thousands of educators, post-secondary leaders, policy makers, and business leaders in the conversation around innovation in education, learning, and instruction.
On Tuesday, March 4, I will co-present on a panel with the president of the Education Writers Association, Caroline Hendrie. Our panel, “Teaching American Values: Innovation and Creativity,” will discuss what is working in today’s classrooms to create an interest in STEM, nurture students’ critical thinking and problem solving skills, and ultimately prepare students to compete in the global economy. The United States has long been the world leader in manufacturing and innovation. But we cannot maintain this preeminence without taking a critical look at our education today and what is working and not working for students. We will closely examine these issues during our panel, and I firmly believe that attendees will leave with concrete examples of what they can do in their local schools and communities to create positive change.
If you live and work in the Austin area or are already planning to attend SXSWedu, I hope you will come to our session. If you cannot be there in person, PLTW will be live tweeting the discussion, so please follow @PLTWorg on Twitter, and join the conversation virtually using the hashtag #PLTWatSXSW.
This is important work, and we cannot do it alone. We hope our SXSWedu session will be a catalyst for improving education.
