The Importance of the Optin Model

After college, Kareem Farah became a high school math teacher, teaching in the traditional way that most of us experienced as students, with the instructor standing in front of the classroom and lecturing on the information that students were supposed to learn. Much to his frustration and dismay, however, he soon discovered that there were some things that were shockingly wrong about traditional teaching and learning, namely that the instructional model was largely broken and kids in his classroom were not being well-served by it. As such, Kareem, along with fellow teacher, Rob Barnett, co-founded The Modern Classrooms Project – addressing their personal Job To Be Done of “Help me to replace this broken instructional model so that I can better serve my students.” In this episode, and through the lenses of the Jobs To Be Done framework, Kareem joins The Christensen Institute’s Tom Arnett to discuss the unique instructional delivery professional development model that they’re building at Modern Classrooms Project, including features such as the model being opt-in only and both curriculum and grade level-agnostic, and also how it results in more student-centered classrooms, along with better outcomes for both teachers and students. The Modern Classrooms Project is a great example where the founders’ own struggling moments were indeed the seeds for innovation in the K-12 classrooms where teachers have adopted the Modern Classrooms instructional model. Listen to learn more!