For K–12 schools and districts
Give Your Faculty a Practical Way Into Inquiry-Based Learning
I spent 17 years in K–12 classrooms discovering what works, what doesn’t, and when it’s time to put away the gadgets. Today, I bring that same inquiry-based approach to every client engagement. I begin with questions about your students, teachers, resources, and classroom realities. I ask about academic objectives, what teachers already have, and what support will help them turn instructional goals into inquiry-based learning teachers will actually use.
My EDGEucation: What 40 unresponsive headsets taught me
“Any luck?” asked Ms. Dennis, a fellow teacher, as she leaned into my classroom doorway.
I looked up from the 40 VR headsets covering my desk and the table beside it. Some remained in their boxes. Others had been unpacked, charged, tested, reset, and tested again.
“They don’t work,” I said.
She looked at the headsets and shook her head.
“They won’t work,” I said.
When I arrived at the school four years earlier, some classrooms lacked working projectors. Technology was largely an afterthought. Paper memos appeared in our faculty mailboxes.
The new principal wanted change. I joined the leadership team and helped rebuild the school culture, piece by piece. We brought families back into the conversation. We asked teachers what they needed. We helped colleagues who were wary of technology become Google certified.
Eventually, I invited a group of teachers to help me pursue a $150,000 grant. Six agreed. Several had never written a grant before. Their willingness to join the effort felt like a breakthrough.
We won the grant.
At the time, I believed the right tools could carry much of the change. Give teachers useful technology, I thought, and they would find meaningful ways to use it.
We spent $40,000 of the grant on 40 VR headsets designed for schools. We told our students, and they started an unofficial countdown.
Then, I delayed their first day of use.
And delayed it again.
The headsets didn’t work properly. The manufacturer blamed our network. Three outside vendors checked the possible causes. Each one concluded that our network and equipment were fine.
After three rounds of troubleshooting, the manufacturer stopped responding.
We had grant requirements to meet. Our teachers had invested their time and trust. Our students had watched our excitement turn into frustration.
I had promised them an experience beyond another worksheet. I wanted them to use what they learned in class to explore a much larger world.
Instead, our biggest technology investment sat on tables.
In the meantime, I kept returning to the same question:
“Who is out there looking out for the educators?”
The answer felt painfully clear. So I asked myself another question:
“What can I do to solve this problem?”
I started a blog about the products teachers could rely on, the products that failed, and the ways technology could support inquiry-based learning.
Then I heard versions of our experience from other educators. One teacher told me she arrived at school to find unfamiliar boxes stacked in her classroom.
“I didn’t know what it even was,” she told me, “so I just put them in the closet.”
Her story clarified the larger problem. A tool can arrive with excellent specifications and genuine potential. Its value still depends on whether educators know what to do with it, have time to learn it, and can connect it to their students’ needs.
That blog eventually grew into EDGEucating.
The question at the center of my work has remained consistent.
“You’re asking me about a product, but what are you going to do with it?”
Today, I begin every engagement by listening to the people closest to the classroom.
I ask:
- What is the academic objective?
- What should students understand, investigate, create, or solve?
- What tools and resources do your teachers already have?
- What support will help teachers use what they have with confidence?
Those answers shape the professional development, curriculum, or educational technology plan that follows.
They also shape how I introduce inquiry-based learning. Teachers need a practical place to begin. They need to experience the learning, see how one project can address several standards, and understand how the approach fits into an already crowded school day.
A useful plan respects administrators and teachers alike. Administrators have budgets, reporting requirements, and academic priorities. Teachers carry those priorities into classrooms filled with students whose needs rarely fit inside a tidy plan.
With EDGEucating, we customize every path because every school brings a different reality to the table.
I first saw the gap between promising technology and meaningful classroom use in a low-income school, where every dollar, every hour, and every ounce of teacher trust mattered.
That experience helped me clarify the EDGEucating mission: work with schools to turn academic goals into inquiry-based learning that teachers can lead and students can own.
How my experience shapes my work
17 years teaching across K–12
- I understand the standards teachers must cover and the different needs students bring to the classroom.
- I connect academic goals and reporting requirements to daily classroom practice.
Master’s degree in Educational Leadership and bachelor’s degree in Business
- I use educational and operational thinking to build a practical path from instructional goals to classroom practice.
Endorsement in Gifted Education
- I shape inquiry-based learning around different levels of readiness, challenge, and support.
Consulting for TTS
Sharing the work with educators
Is there a more fundamentally human endeavor besides education? My ability to learn from (and teach) others is a nearly exclusive human skill. So I want to share the lessons I’ve learned far and wide. I share the practical approaches I’ve developed through conference presentations, curriculum development, and consulting. The organizations below include places where I have presented, contributed resources, or supported the work of educators.
