BIF receives $400K grant from Hewlett Foundation, welcomes BCBSRI as corporate member

THE BUSINESS INNOVATION FACTORY Student Experience Lab has received a two-year, $400,000 grant from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to research and develop innovation education models. From left to right, Louie Montoya, Student Experience Lab associate, BIF Founder Saul Kaplan and Taylor Halbersen, experience designer. / PBN FILE PHOTO/ MICHAEL SALERNO
THE BUSINESS INNOVATION FACTORY Student Experience Lab has received a two-year, $400,000 grant from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to research and develop innovation education models. From left to right, Louie Montoya, Student Experience Lab associate, BIF Founder Saul Kaplan and Taylor Halbersen, experience designer. / PBN FILE PHOTO/ MICHAEL SALERNO

PROVIDENCE – The BIF Student Experience Lab has received a two-year, $400,000 grant from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to research and develop innovation education models.
The Student Experience Lab will research enabling conditions and barriers that affect public school educators’ ability to implement innovative learning practices. The research will be presented in a public, Web-based multimedia report presenting insights and opportunities to enable more public school educations to offer deeper learning experiences to their students, according to a press release from BIF.

A “Deeper Learning Design Academy” will be launched for a group of public school educators to develop and test strategies that can lead to deeper learning outcomes. Videos will be released that will document the Deeper Learning Design Academy members’ journeys as they change their classrooms and schools, so that other public school educators can learn from and adopt their strategies, the release said.

Last year, BIF began working with The Hewlett Foundation on this effort.

“If we want all students in all schools to be prepared to face the tough challenges throughout their lives, we are faced with questions about how to get instructional practices that lead to deeper learning to scale across the entire educational system,” Marc Chun, program officer at the Hewlett Foundation, said in a statement. “I’m thrilled with the creative and disciplined approach BIF has taken to provide educators with some ‘do it yourself’ answers to these questions, and am eagerly looking forward to what we will learn from the important work Sam Seidel and his team will take on over the next couple of years.”

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The project’s progress will be shared on BIF’s blog and on Twitter (@BIFsxl).

“We urgently need to advance deeper learning education models in the U.S. to help students prepare for 21st century work. With continued support from the Hewlett Foundation BIF is excited to work with education leaders across the county to explore and test new experiential learning models,” BIF Founder Saul Kaplan wrote in an email.

In other news, Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island has signed on as a corporate member of BIF.
BIF said it helps leaders explore and test new business models in health care, education and government, and that it welcomes BCBSRI to its “community of transformational change makers.”

“We are excited to partner with BIF to extend and enhance our innovation efforts,” Melissa Cummings, senior vice president and chief customer officer at Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island, said. “Given the rapidly changing nature of the health care landscape, we are committed to bringing new capabilities and services to the marketplace to better meet the needs of our customers.”

Said Kaplan, “Blue Cross Blue Shield is a valued addition to our BIF community. We know how important it is for market leaders in their industries to continually provide opportunities for ongoing experimentation with their business models. We look forward to working with the leadership team at Blue Cross & Blue Shield RI to connect them with our network, and to inspire new thinking.”

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