Overview

SparkNC started initially in 2023 as an initiative of The Innovation Project (TIP), a nonprofit organization that aims to reimagine public education using equitable strategies.  SparkNC supports school districts across North Carolina to pilot new approaches to teaching and learning that accelerate student progress on pathways to careers in the high-tech industry sector in fields like artificial intelligence and machine learning, software development, computer systems engineering, and cybersecurity.

Funded by the North Carolina General Assembly in partnership with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, SparkNC has transitioned to become its own 501(c)(3) nonprofit. The legislature included $3 million annually in the state budget for SparkNC in 2023-24 and in 2024-25 for a pilot program.

The pilot launched in summer  2023 in 17 school districts: Asheboro City Schools, Cabarrus County Schools, Chatham County Schools, Cumberland County Schools, Edgecombe County Schools, Elizabeth City-Pasquotank Public Schools, Granville County Schools, Guilford County Schools, Lexington City Schools, Mount Airy City Schools, New Hanover County Schools, Rockingham County Schools, Rowan-Salisbury Schools, Scotland County Schools, Vance County Schools, Wake County Public School System, and Warren County Schools.

There is an expectation that the pilot will eventually scale to all interested school districts, charter schools, and potentially community colleges in North Carolina.

Features of the initiative include:

• Learner-centered — Emphasizes the importance of personalized learning and strives to create learning experiences tailored to the needs and interests of individual students.
• Data-driven — Collects and analyzes data on student outcomes, program participation, and other factors to inform programmatic decisions and identify areas for improvement.
• Design-oriented — Works to improve learner experiences through data-driven analysis and feedback from learners and partners (iterative design processes).
• Competency-based — Learning management system provides  authority to award credit for a student stacking together enough units to achieve a semester or year’s worth of learning. This allows for flexible scheduling and personalized pathways for students. Learners progress at their own pace and are assessed on their ability to demonstrate mastery of specific skills and knowledge.
• SparkLab Leader— Educators (fulltime, 12-month positions) design and support learning experiences tailored to the needs of each  learner. Working in collaboration with other SparkLab Leaders, district and school staff, the SparkNC team, and partners from the business community, the SparkLab Leader helps bring cutting-edge learning experiences in high-tech fields to life.
• SparkLabs—Collaborative spaces for teaching and learning. School districts have built SparkLabs in high schools, centers for innovation, and other locations in their communities. Each SparkLab has separate spaces focused on collaboration, high-tech computing, and individual work and ideation. Each has a hybrid teaching and learning zone that connects it with other districts’ SparkLabs. The result is an interdistrict connected classroom where teachers and industry partners can teach and interact with students across the network.
• Learning experiences—Spark Scholars choose among three types of learning experiences: “Live, Interdistrict Units” designed and led by SparkLab Leaders and industry experts and offered either in-person or virtually across the interdistrict network of SparkLabs. Experiential Units are live, in-person events and programs such as conferences, team-based internships, job shadowing, and other hands-on learning opportunities. On-Demand Units on the SparkNC platform let  learners choose from a menu of learning experiences in high-tech fields and complete them at any time and at any pace that works for them. SparkNC’s unit catalog offers more than 50 learning experiences (and growing!) related to high-tech fields. Eight units, plus a required introductory module and a capstone experience, earns a local elective course credit toward high school graduation. Spark Scholars choose which of the units they want to take and then stack them together like building blocks. Some of the learning experiences can be done individually. Many are cohort-based or can be done in teams.
• Business Advisory Council—Representatives from SAS, Apple, IBM, Cisco, Epic Games, Live Oak Bank, and CoLab, and a robust network of programmatic partners from the tech industry, K-12, and higher education partner to design and deliver learning experiences and host special events to help students ignite their futures in tech.

Resources

https://tipnc.org/

https://www.sparknc.org/

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