designbydesign
designbydesign is a not-for-profit education consulting and teacher professional development organization established in 2002 by a group of teachers, school designers, and technology specialists. We are primarily concerned with human behavior, the design of learning spaces, and how they relate to learning. Hence, our work is driven by the most current innovations in psychology, learning and technology. We take a systems thinking approach to our work, while acknowledging the needs of individuals. Our work focuses mostly in the following areas:
Designing Schools
We work with school districts and local organizations to create small schools or learning communities. These small learning communities are designed to serve as intimate learning spaces that address students' academic, social and emotional needs. We work with small teams to design and implement a school’s concept, curriculum, governing infrastructure and professional development program.
Designing Teaching and Learning
Professional development focused on student learning. We create teacher networks where teachers come together to collaborate with other teachers, reflect on practice, study and implement effective practices and further develop content competency.
Designing Curriculum
Our expert staff use the nationally recognized Understanding by Design and Differentiated Instruction models to train teachers to design curriculum. We infuse this work with an understanding of classroom culture and group dynamics.
Designing Games and Learning
We provide training workshops on systems thinking and learning by providing workshops for teachers on games, learning and design. This is an area gaining much national attention. Our staff are helping to lead the research and development of this new field.
Robert J Torres, founder and principal consultant bio email
Robert (Ed.M) has been a teacher, school principal and film producer. He’s helped design many schools in New York and Connecticut. He helped produce Nuyorican Dream, the award-winning HBO documentary and is now completing a Ph.D. in games and learning at NYU. He believes the new field of games and learning is poised to have a huge impact on reshaping how we think about schools and learning. Robert went to Oberlin College, Stanford University and Bank Street College of Education.
Susie Greenebaum, senior consultant bio email
Susie (LMSW, MS Ed ) brings together her work as a teacher, school designer, social worker, and family therapist in her work as a consultant with designbydesign. She infuses her knowledge of curriculum and school design with her training as a specialist in human behavior. She has consulted previously with Harvard University’s Project Zero, and currently is in psychoanalytic training in New York City. Susie went to University of Chicago, Bank Street, and the Smith College School for Social Work.
Madeline Perez, consultant bio
Madeline (MSW, M.Phil) has worked in the field of family-school as an organizer, advocate, school coach, and researcher. She has assisted families and communities with changing the conditions of schools from the outside as well as helped schools to create the conditions for meaningful family engagement from the inside. She has worked with groups including but not limited to the Center for Immigrant Families, New Leaders for New Schools, and the Peace Corps Fellows at Teachers’ College. Currently, she is a completing a Ph.D at the City University of New York.
Jim Diamond, consultant bio
Jim has been a teacher at the elementary, undergraduate, and graduate level, as well as a consultant in the area of K-12 technology integration. He's been involved in numerous research projects that focus on enhancing teaching and learning with technology. He received a B.A. and an Ed.M. from Boston University and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in educational communication and technology at New York University, focusing on educational video games.
Jody Madell, consultant bio
Jody has extensive experience in school design and teacher professional development. She has helped create many small schools in NYC, has served as a literacy coach and has led dozens of workshops on curriculum planning using Understanding by Design. Jody was a founding teacher of the NYC Museum school, where she worked for 8 years. She is the recipient of the New York Post 2000 Teacher of the Year Award. Jody is a graduate of Oberlin College and is completely a Masters in History at Hunter College.
David Bally consultant bio
David has worked as a literacy coach, museum educator, social studies teacher and chess coach at the NYC Museum School. He also teaches Literacy Across the Curriculum to NYC Teaching Fellow at Pace University. In the past five years, David has worked with over a dozen school teams, helping to plan curriculum with Understanding by Design.
Max Estenger, manager
David Horii, creative director
The following services are offered in short and long-term coaching and consulting formats.
School Design
Our consultants work with groups of teachers or organizations interested in starting small innovative schools. Working with the group’s vision, our consultants serve as coaches in the design and development of the new school’s curriculum, professional development program and governance structure.
Data-Driven Leadership Coaching
We work with principals and school leadership teams to design and implement school data-driven infrastructures that are aligned to the school’s student achievement goals. We help schools organize systems that enable them to effectively collect and analyze student achievement data to improve both teaching practices and student achievement.
Teacher Professional Development
We create teacher networks where teachers come together to collaborate with other teachers, reflect on practice, study and implement effective practices and further develop content competency. This type of professional development is specifically focused on student learning and is informed by the most current knowledge on individual and group learning.
Understanding by Design and Differentiated
We facilitate workshops work with groups of teachers interested in learning to use the widely respected and combined Understanding by Design and Differentiated Instruction approaches.
Looking at Student Work
We facilitate workshops on considering data and student work for instructional improvement.
Games, Learning and New Literacies
New literacies is a new approach to literacy development that takes into account:
(1) cultural contexts (e.g., students’ prior knowledge, their current literacy uses); and
(2) the technological and multimodal platforms in which children currently participate (online spaces, video games, and other visual and print media)—platforms which increasingly mediate the ways in which children access and process information.
Games and learning is an increasingly growing field that incorporates both these premises. Our consultants work with 6-12 grade students and teachers to design games that require the kinds of system-thinking and technological literacy skills necessary to participate effectively in contemporary society.
Parent Engagement
Our consultants work directly with parents on projects that address school-related issues.
Networks and New Teacher Development
In collaboration with New Visions for Public Schools, our consultants facilitate Differentiated Instruction networks of teachers. We are also designing and implementing new teacher development programs.
Game Design Research
In collaboration with the Games, Learning, and Society group and gamelab, our consultants are conducting research on the potential of a software tool that could teach children to design electronic video games. We are also engaged in researching the extent to which a particular video game can facilitate “historical thinking” among high school students.
The Game School
In collaboration with The Gamelab Institute of Play and New Visions for Public Schools, our consultants are in the midst of designing a grades 6 through 12 school that teaches game design and system thinking.
Small Schools Support
In collaboration with the NYC Department of Education, our consultants offer leadership consulting and curriculum design training to new small schools. We also work with parents to address school-related issues.
New York City Department of Education
• school design
• curriculum design
• Understanding by Design consulting
• leadership coaching
New Visions for Public Schools, New York, NY
• school design
• curriculum design
• Understanding by Design + Differentiated Instruction consulting
• leadership coaching
• teacher networks
• technology consulting
Center for Family Life, Brooklyn, NY
• curriculum design
Bridgeport Public Schools, Bridgeport, CT
• school design
• looking at student work
• leadership coaching
email: info@designbydesign.org
mail: 354 West 37th Street
3rd Floor
New York, NY 10018