Educational Innovator: Graland Country Day School
As an educational technology company, Test Innovators believes in the power of innovation in education to shape the future of our society. Our Educational Innovator series highlights a program, school, or individual that is contributing to the advancement of education in a unique way, whether through groundbreaking curriculum, technological innovation, or other revolutionary projects.
This week we spoke with Andy Dodge, Program Co-Director of the Gates Invention and Innovation program at Graland Country Day School.
The Gates Invention and Innovation program at Graland Country Day School in Denver, Colorado, gives motivated students in grades 5-8 the opportunity to solve real-world problems through the invention of original products, possibly earning themselves U.S. patents in the process. Each year, 100-130 student participants identify a problem, conduct market research, design and develop a prototype, and test their product and subsequent iterations until they have a final product.
“Every year I’m always blown away by the things they come up with,” said Andy Dodge, fifth grade teacher and co-director of the program.
Students’ work culminates in the two-day Gates Expo, attended by the entire school and members of the community. Inventions are judged by a panel of industry leaders, who choose 10-15 inventions whose inventors will be invited to return the next day to give a more formal presentation.
Winners are then chosen from the smaller group, and if an idea has patent and mass marketing potential, the judges can also recommend additional support and funding for the idea to pursue product development and a U.S. patent. Over 12 patents have been awarded to 19 students.
However, the learning benefits that the program provides do not always align with the winners or the products that end up receiving patents.
“A lot of the real successes have little to do with whether the student won,” Dodge said. “The success is often those kids that learn to rely upon themselves, to take a risk, and learn the value of failure.”
The Gates Invention and Innovation program was originally developed by Graland alumnus Charles C. Gates, who graduated from GCDS in 1934 and went on to study at MIT and Stanford, subsequently enjoying a successful career managing the Gates Corporation, a manufacturer of power transmission belts and fluid power products based out of Denver.
Gates believed all children are natural inventors, and his experience at Graland inspired him to fund the program and competition through a large endowment in 1998. His daughter, Diane Wallach, continues the family’s generous financial commitment to the Gates program.
Over the past 20 years, the program has continued developing. Today, director Dodge finds himself most impressed by student projects that integrate empathy, a necessary skill in invention and design thinking, as it helps students identify real-world problems that might not be part of their personal experience. In recent years, the program has placed increasing emphasis on developing empathy.
“Ultimately, empathy is something that needs to be taught,” Dodge said. “We’ve taught students how to interview with empathy and ask the right kinds of questions… It’s a skill that is important for kids to learn and understand no matter what they go into.”
Beyond the emphasis on teaching empathy, the Gates program impacts other aspects of education at Graland, including the overall structure of learning.
“Over the years, a lot of the instruction [at Graland Country Day] has begun to more closely model the process of going through the Gates program,” Dodge said. “It’s completely inquiry-based, student-driven learning.”
Since the birth of the Gates program, the school has also hired a director of innovation (the Charles C. Gates Director of Innovative Learning) and developed an entire department of innovation, which finds ways to collaborate with teachers and develop innovative ways of teaching.
In 2007, the Gates program was also adopted by Cardigan Mountain School, a boarding and day school for boys in grades 6 to 9 in Canaan, New Hampshire.
In both programs, students benefit greatly from the learning that happens through tinkering, taking risks, and not losing motivation when original ideas do not always come together as planned.
“They learn to fail early, and fail often. That is the quickest way to success,” Dodge said. “Some kids begin and are a little allergic to failure, but through the program they learn that they need to take risks, dive in, get messy and dirty, try things… They begin to really learn to rely on themselves.”
You can learn more about the Gates Invention and Innovation program at Graland Country Day School here.
You can learn more about Cardigan Mountain School’s program here.
