Charles Leadbeater is a leading authority on innovation and creativity. He has advised companies, cities and governments around the world on innovation strategy and drew on that experience in writing his latest book We-think: the power of mass creativity, which charts the rise of mass, participative approaches to innovation from science and open source software, to computer games and political campaigning.

Charles has worked extensively as a senior adviser to the governments, advising the 10 Downing St policy unit, the Department for Trade and Industry and the European Commission on the rise of the knowledge driven economy and the Internet, as well as the government of Shanghai. He is an advisor to the Department for Education's Innovation Unit on future strategies for more networked and personalized approaches to learning and education. He is a co-founder of the public service design agency Participle.

Larry Rosenstock will be talking about how to create a new school, and - as is more likely the case here - how to try to transform an existing one. He will focus on integrating head and hand, production and consumption, adult learning and student learning, and school and community. He will explain the arc of his career and the influences of making films, teaching carpentry, teaching special education students, practicing education law (briefly) in forming federal education policy while at Harvard, returning to be head of the oldest public technical school in the U.S. as well as head of a 350 year old public high school.

Next came a large federal project - an effort to find, describe, and design models for new high schools for the U.S. The design principles that emerged from that study formed the basis of the 11 public charter schools that he runs in California, called High Tech High. Attendees may want to take a look at www.hightechhigh.org before Larry's talk so as to generate questions and lines of inquiry about what goes on there, and as to which of those practices folks in BC might be most interested in.

Collaboration for a Change

Dr. Bruce Beairsto will examine trends in our approach to teaching and learning, educational change and the BC context in order to determine how best to proceed with the further development of the BC Educational Plan and its ultimate expression in schools. His presentation will set the stage for discussion by participants about the implications of what they have learned at this conference - for which there is time set aside to begin.

Dr. Beairsto began his teaching career in 1974 after completing a Masters degree in Physics. He obtained a Master of Arts degree in curriculum and a PhD in Educational Leadership during the course of his 37 years in the Richmond the School District, from which he retired as Superintendent in 2010. He is now an adjunct Professor at Simon Fraser University, an educational consultant in private practice, a member of the board of the Canadian Education Association and Vice-Chair of the board of Science World.

Dr. Beairsto can be reached at brucebeairsto@gmail.com and more information can be found on his website.