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Value of K-12 Education / Higher Education Collaboration in Advancing Public Education

By Axel Reitzig

Bio: Axel is currently the Executive Director of Innovation at the Innovation Center of the St. Vrain Valley School District. He is focused on developing innovative, dynamic and high-quality programming, both at the Innovation Center as well as across SVVSD.

There is one team-building activity that I have used for many years, both with students as well as with adults. It’s called Minefield and works like this: participants partner up and one gets a blindfold; the other is the guide who endeavors to bring their partner across the ‘minefield’ (a 20’x20’ space with boundaries on each side and ‘mines’, e.g. pieces of paper, distributed throughout). The goal? Bring the blindfolded partner across the minefield without, well, blowing him/her up!

There are different rules that can be imposed on the partners: for example, use only verbal commands or only taps on the shoulder. It’s a fun activity that fosters collaboration and innovative communication and definitely builds a sense of team. But here’s the real point of the exercise: in the activity, as in life, we often are working with others who either ‘see’ much more than us or, conversely, ‘see’ much less. This is figurative, of course, and certainly dependent on context. For example, a mentor has more insights into how certain things can or should be done than a learner. Figuratively speaking, the mentee is blindfolded and the mentor gives guidance through all the pitfalls that a new team member probably will encounter. Of course, in a different context, the mentee might well be the one who understands the minefield and can guide others through it.

This idea - that negotiating progress often requires collaboration between people with different levels of experience and understanding - applies to organizations as well as to people and teams. Consider the field of education. This field includes an extremely broad, diverse range of needs, goals, and experiences. Depending on one’s context, the minefield of challenges can look very different and require very different approaches to managing and getting through.

As a long-time PK-12 public educator, I have developed a lot of expertise in wending my way through a variety of different ‘mines’ as well as opportunities specific to my context. As it turns out, my wife is a long-time higher education educator. While there is certainly overlap between our two experiences, there are also clear differences. We have had many good discussions over the years comparing and contrasting our experiences!

So this gets me finally to the point of this blog post. Namely, what is the value of collaboration between PK-12 and higher education? Lots! Above all, we share the same fundamental vision, which is to develop capable, confident individuals ready to succeed in a highly diverse, complex world. 

Because of our different contexts, however, how we achieve this vision may look different. And if we are not communicating and collaborating, then our efforts might well end up working against one another. Through my conversations over many years, not only with my wife but with my higher education colleagues and collaborators, I have a much better understanding and appreciation of the challenges and opportunities awaiting our students once they have graduated. Conversely, I hope, these folks in higher education better grasp the PK-12 landscape. And just as in Minefield, allowing one another to take the lead when it makes sense is mutually beneficial and greatly improves our chances of success.

This kind of vertical alignment and collaboration is productive for many other reasons. But, for me, one of the most impactful things is that I know I can rely on my higher education teammates for their expertise and guidance when it comes to things mostly outside of the scope of PK-12. In return, I hope that I have helped guide them through experiences in the PK-12 space. 

This is the 4th year of our collaboration with iSAT and CU Boulder. The scope of this work has grown and changed and brought great value to our teachers, students and community. We couldn’t have done this without relying on the expertise, vision and guidance of so many members of the iSAT team! Thank you for this - we look forward to more successes and opportunities over the coming years!