“I’m tired, but it’s a good kind of tired.”
– David letterman
24 hours after arriving in Australia from India, the learning adventures all started again. I’m spending the next two weeks in residency at a rapidly growing school in the outskirts of Melbourne, Australia. Westbourne Grammar School is growing rapidly, winning awards, and gaining quite a reputation for innovation. Westbourne’s dynamic and wise principal, Adrian Camm, and I have worked together in other schools, but not with this level of intensity. I love being embedded in a school, rather than delivering a PowerPoint presentation and calling a cab.
Some of the most significant work in my career included working consistently in the Scarsdale Public Schools in the late 80s, in Australian schools inventing 1:1 computing in the early 90s, in our prison project 25 years ago, and most recently as the special assistant to the head of school in Los Angeles.
Nothing brings me greater satisfaction than having an entire school as a canvas to paint on. Schools are complex organisms. One cannot change a single variable and expect progress. Alchemy is required. Listening, collaboration, modeling, advising, and doing are critical. No Post-It! Notes will be harmed in any of my activities. This work is about authentic action, not rhetoric.
Since one cannot possibly choose from they haven’t experienced, I will be creating new educational experiences for children, teachers, and families. I am confident that when teachers or parents see possibilities through the eyes, hands, and screens of their children, they become agents of change.
I’m terribly excited to embark on amazing feats of strength and daring do at Westbourne Grammar. Just look at the schedule they have lined up for me. Who does that? Teach 240 middle school kids you never met before for six straight hours? No problem. Family workshop, curriculum development, AI, 3rd grade, high school, parents, teachers, IT, administration? No sweat.
If there is one thing I know for certain, it is that the most effective professional learning for teachers is in their classrooms with their students. This is why I mentor teachers by having them observe me leading their students in unusual learning adventures. It allows teachers to examine their own teaching through the lens of experiencing something quite different.
Interested in bringing Dr. Stager to your school for a residency, workshop, or keynote address?
Take a peek at my “formal” ten-day schedule. One day, I will spend teaching 240 8th graders for an entire day and then do so again with just a few less 7th graders? Today, I’ll spend half a day teaching the entire 3rd grade programming, geometry, and design. One day will feature a hands-on workshop with students from grades 3-6 working collaboratively. Who else would eagerly agree to perform such amazing feats of strength?
Schedule

My work is based on a few principles developed over decades of collaboration in schools around the world.
- The most effective PD occurs as close to the teacher’s classroom as possible. That is why I choose to mentor teachers in their space.
- Things need not be as they seem. You cannot choose to teach in a way you have not experienced or at least witnessed.
- The project should be a teacher’s smallest unit of concern.
- Computing super-charges project-based learning. It adds breadth and depth to a project.
- When parents experience what’s possible through the eyes, hands, and screens of their kids, they seek a different educational diet at school.
- The project approach is a teacher’s project. (more on this in a subsequent post)

Residency Highlights
- Two hands-on family workshops, one focused on turtle geometry, computer programming, and art, and another on robotics, programming, electronics, and engineering with the BBC micro:bit (which children will take home to extend their learning).
- A day-long “project-based” project-based learning curriculum development masterclass for teachers, many of whom worked with me last August in a preliminary hands-on workshop.
- Teaching 240 eighth grade kids for an entire school day. The focus of this workshop is word and list processing, computer science, messing about with language/linguistics, probabilistic thinking, poetry, and more – all leading to the epiphany that we are constructing the powerful ideas behind generative AI.
- A workshop and discussion with the middle years Student AI Academy. I will share some generative AI and programming projects I’ve been exploring, using ChatGPT to assist code writing, and the magic of my favorite software tool, Descript.
- A day-long multi-age engineering, design, and problem solving workshop with 3rd thru 6th grade students collaborating. The Hummingbird Robotics Kit will be used. The workshop’s prompt will likely be, “Make a fortune teller.”
- A Year 7 day-long engineering, programming, and design workshop with 200+ students and the Hummingbird Robotics Kit. The prompt for this workshop will likely be “Make a clock.”
- 3+ hour long computational fluency and art workshop for Year 7 students introducing Turtle Art, Turtle Stitch, 2D geometric design, 3D geometric design, embroidery, vinyl cutting, and 3D printing.
Upcoming posts will discuss some of these specific activities in greater detail.
Learn more about my family workshops, school residencies, speaking, and teacher professional development here.
Gary’s work in classrooms around the world informs the Constructing Modern Knowledge summer institute and vice versa. Please join us for the final Constructing Modern Knowledge this July 9-12, 2024 in Manchester, New Hampshire!

Veteran educator Gary Stager, Ph.D. is the author of Twenty Things to Do with a Computer – Forward 50, co-author of Invent To Learn — Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom, publisher at Constructing Modern Knowledge Press, and the founder of the Constructing Modern Knowledge summer institute. He led professional development in the world’s first 1:1 laptop schools thirty years ago and designed one of the oldest online graduate school programs. Gary is also the curator of The Seymour Papert archives at DailyPapert.com. Learn more about Gary here.