No Matter Where You Are, Harvard is Never Far: HAEd in Mexico City

By: Bettina Dembek, Co-Chair HAEd Washington, DC Chapter and Eleanor (Nell) O'Donnell Weber, HAEd Vice President

Harvard alumni near and far gathered in Mexico City for a social and networking event on the second night of the weeklong annual conference of the Comparative and International Education Society’s (CIES) annual conference. Co-sponsored by the David Rockefeller Center for Latin America Studies (DRCLAS), the Harvard Club of Mexico, and Harvard Alumni for Education (HAEd) Shared Interest Group, the event, held at Mercado Independencia, brought together over seventy alums for food, fellowship, and good conversation.

HAEd is one of the youngest shared interest groups at Harvard but it has already made a lasting impression and was recognized by the Harvard Alumni Association for its work in 2017. Its goal is to broaden the discussions about education by bringing together alums from all the schools, the College and current faculty, students, and thus getting more diverse view points than if the focus were only on alums from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Active outreach and event hosting across the U.S. is only one approach the SIG takes to bring its diverse members together. For three consecutive years, the SIG has stepped up to provide the Harvard community the opportunity to get together at the CIES conference. In Vancouver in 2016, Atlanta in 2017, and now Mexico City, HAEd organized the only formal opportunity for Harvard alumni to connect. Mixing alums with current students and faculty results in quite a draw and it was not surprising to see dozens of eventgoers stay a lot longer than the originally announced 90 minutes. When conversations, the ambiance, and the company are good, time just flies!

The organizers credit the success of this event to their ability to leverage an existing event (the CIES conference) as well as the multiple partnerships (with the Harvard Club of Mexico and DRCLAS) to bring together Harvard alumni living in Mexico City and those visiting from near and far. Anne Hand (HGSE ’11) an American said, “Since I´ve worked as a consultant in Mexico City, I've grown to know and love the city as a wonderful place with so much to offer. It was great to see Harvard students and alums getting out to explore, and diving in to the great weather, the culture, and especially the food.”

In addition, Mercado Independencia, the venue, provided an ideal space for alumni to mingle and sample local fare. The rooftop “market” boasted casual seating on picnic tables surrounded by food truck-esque booths with food and drink ranging from mescal margaritas and flautas to sushi and smoothies (all with a Mexican flair).

If you’d like to organize an event for Harvard alumni in conjunction with a conference, festival, or other gathering, please contact the HAEd leadership (leadership@harvardaed.org). In addition, if you’d like to stay abreast of what HAEd is up to, please sign up for the SIG and let us know in which region of the world you are at home. With now 7 chapters across the U.S. and abroad, we are confident we have something to offer to you!

Emily Chesbrough: From the Classroom to Edtech

Name: Emily Chesbrough

Current position: Product Designer at IXL Learning

Degree/year: HGSE Master’s in Technology, Innovation and Education, 2015

Tell us a little bit about your journey and experience working in education.

My experience in education started in the classroom: I taught second grade, all subjects, for two years in San Jose Unified School District. I used a lot of edtech products as a teacher - IXL Learning, Dreambox, Imagine Learning, Lexia, Lego WeDo, the list goes on. I saw firsthand that using edtech inspired my students to be more curious, creative, and resourceful. As a teacher, edtech products helped me meet students’ needs and deliver more engaging and meaningful lessons. I decided that I wanted to dedicate my career to creating and delivering the best edtech experiences, which brought me to HGSE. In grad school, I focused on learning to design and build edtech experiences with educational outcomes in mind.

After HGSE, I joined Clever to help large districts to implement edtech at scale, first as a District Partnerships Associate, then as a District Success Manager. Clever solves some of the most pressing technical problems districts face, from helping districts comply with data security and privacy regulations to getting students logged into apps without having to memorize dozens of passwords. I learned so much at Clever about the struggles districts face implementing edtech, from selecting products to managing technical challenges. I wanted to get closer to the edtech development process, which brought me to IXL Learning. As a product designer, I create new features and enhancements to the IXL product to meet student, teacher, and administrator needs.

What are some of the important lessons you’ve learned along the way?

I vividly remember a very important lesson I learned from Professor David Dockterman, in his first lecture for Innovation by Design. He walked the class through the history of technology adoption in the classroom. From radios to TVs to computers, the same cycle would repeat itself: schools would buy new technologies, but not train teachers on how to use them, how to integrate them into lessons, or how to show students how to use the technology to its full potential. As a result, the majority of these technologies would sit in the back of the classroom, unused. The lesson: you can develop the edtech panacea that solves all educational issues, but if schools and teachers can’t integrate it into the classroom, no one will use it. Implementation matters.

What's it like working in edtech? What advice or guidance do you have for other educators interested in transitioning out of the classroom and into similar roles like yours?

Edtech is a fascinating industry because it brings together people who have a passion for education and who have deep experience as educators, designers, and engineers. There are so many great student and teacher success stories I get to hear every day at work, and I feel like I am part of an industry that is improving educational opportunities and experiences.

If you’re an educator looking to move to edtech, I would think first about your career goals and make sure a career in edtech will fulfill them. If you are looking to design edtech products or help other educators discover better ways to use technology in the classroom, a role in an edtech company could be a great place for you. If you are looking to be a community leader and shape the lives of individual students and families, being a teacher is probably a better fit.

If you feel like you want to make the move to edtech, I recommend doing research on the kinds of skills and experiences needed to contribute at an edtech company, and then figure out how you will meet those needs. For a lot of educators, going into sales, account management, customer service and marketing can be great because those roles all leverage the communications skills and persuasive abilities that teachers use everyday in their classrooms. If you want to design edtech products, but you have no design experience, start designing edtech experiences now in your classroom! Create your own websites and edtech materials, use edtech products with your students and think creatively about how you would improve those products. You can also explore design schools and graduate programs that specifically cultivate this experience, like I did. If you want to go into engineering but don’t have engineering experience, explore bootcamps and graduate programs that can help you build those skills, and start coding projects on the side. I cannot stress enough how important it is to start practicing these skills before making the jump into edtech. Not only will you gain the experiences you need to thrive in a new role, but you will also see if you enjoy the day-to-day work involved in that role.

What are some of the issues you’d like to see addressed in education? What role do you think technology can play?

This is a hard question. Some of the most pressing educational issues (school funding, teacher development, school safety) are best addressed by government policy, in my opinion.

One of the most pressing issues in education is the achievement gap, and I think technology can help address the achievement gap through personalized learning. Edtech products give teachers the power to quickly pinpoint the exact standards a student is struggling to learn and directly address those needs, all in a fraction of the time it would have taken a decade ago. That said, we need teachers and schools that are fully equipped to address these needs - technology is only one piece of the puzzle.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

I plan to be in edtech, working with and hopefully leading teams to design impactful technology for classrooms and schools.

What are some things we wouldn’t learn about you from your resume?

I love art - I’ve been doing ceramic art for years in my free time, and I find it’s a great way to express myself creatively and expansively.

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This interview was conducted by Merisenda Alatorre, HAEd's Communications and Marketing Director, who had the pleasure of meeting and working with Emily at HGSE.

Want to be featured as our next Alumni Spotlight or know someone who should be featured? Click here to nominate yourself or another alum!

Introducing Taylor Chapman, Chapter Co-Chair, NYC & Director of Programming

Taylor Chapman is a passionate advocate for equality of opportunity, most recently as Senior Vice President of the NationSwell Council. A Texas native, Taylor was an undergraduate at Yale when his experiences volunteering at a New Haven public school opened his eyes to the inequities in our education system. He spent the next four years as a public school teacher: first at a high-poverty high school in Charlotte, NC with the Teach for America program, then at a public high school in Japan’s largely rural Kumamoto Prefecture via the JET Program.  Looking to scale his impact, Taylor earned a Master in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, with a thesis focused on the reduction of human trafficking + modern slavery. 

Upon graduation, Taylor joined McKinsey’s New York office to learn the classic private sector skill set; there, he served clients in private equity, insurance, utilities, oil + gas, banking, retail, and telecom.  He then fought his way onto education-focused projects + secured a Public Sector Practice fellowship; in 2013, he did more education work than any McKinsey Associate in the western hemisphere.  

In 2015, Taylor was recruited to build a new growth team at Remind, an education tech startup delivering a text-messaging platform for teachers to communicate with parents + students.  Today, Remind is used in over 80% of US public schools, where it helps to boost parent engagement + student attendance.  In 2017, Taylor joined the NationSwell team in order to grow + evolve the NationSwell Council, its nationwide community of accomplished, service-minded leaders + innovators, and to maximize the Council’s potential for positive impact on America’s most pressing challenges.   

Taylor’s experience has left him convinced that human factors – innovative individuals, a relentless focus on solutions + what works, and a willingness to collaborate across sectors – while notionally small, in fact hold within them the keys to solving our biggest challenges.  

Bringing Design Thinking to Philippine Schools: Stories from Habi Education with Gerson Abesamis

How can we leverage design thinking to enhance education quality in resource-starved, developing communities such as those in the Philippines? In this episode, Habi Education Lab Founder Gerson Abesamis talks about how the start-up uses small design thinking workshops and collaborative lesson prototyping in a professional development program for teachers, resulting in innovative learning experiences in classrooms across the Philippines.

Interviewer: Michi Ferreol, Director of Marketing and Communications of HAEd

If you enjoyed this podcast, please follow #HAEd_podcast#HAEdAfrica and @HarvardAEd on Twitter for information on upcoming events and programming. You may also download this podcast on iTunes here. New episodes will be released every week. 

See the full schedule for our fall series podcasts here: http://www.harvardaed.org/new-blog/2016/10/20/perspectives-from-harvard-alumni-for-education-podcast

Beyond Start-up: The Story of AidChild Founder and CEO Dr. Nathaniel Dunigan

Beyond Start-up: The Story of AidChild Founder and CEO Dr. Nathaniel Dunigan, Ed.M. '10, CPL Reynolds Fellow in Social Entrepreneurship, HKS '09-'10

How can we move beyond focusing on the early-stages of entrepreneurship to discussions about building sustainable ventures? In this episode, Dr. Nathaniel Dunigan, who is also HAEd's Co-President of the Sub-Saharan Africa Chapter, talks about the importance of the space beyond start-up and his work in founding and leading AidChild, which was the first organization in Uganda to provide free anti-retroviral therapy for children living with HIV.

Interviewer: Rufina Park, Director of International Engagement of HAEd

If you enjoyed this podcast, please follow #HAEd_podcast#HAEdAfrica and @HarvardAEd on Twitter for information on upcoming events and programming. You may also download this podcast on iTunes here. New episodes will be released every week. 

See the full schedule for our fall series podcasts here: http://www.harvardaed.org/new-blog/2016/10/20/perspectives-from-harvard-alumni-for-education-podcast