When 200 educators gathered at Point Park University’s Pittsburgh Playhouse for the Remake Learning Assembly this year, the theater’s lobby was alive with conversation about teaching, learning and building partnerships between K-12 schools and out-of-school-time organizations.

But along with plenty of networking and sharing of ideas, the Assembly was also a place for personal connection — a powerful opportunity to greet old friends and meet new ones in person, putting faces to familiar names and deepening the relationships that make Pittsburgh’s learning ecosystem such a thriving place.

Each year, the Remake Learning Assembly “brings everyone together at this critical time, as the fall is beginning, and it energizes us for the school year,” said Avonworth primary principal Scott Miller.

“It’s people from all sectors, so I’m not just reconnecting with my colleagues who are principals,” Miller said. “And it’s a multi-faceted celebration of things that happened over the last year and also forward-thinking statements for the future. You’re hearing all this at the start of the new school year. It’s such a great time to be pumped up and in a great mindset. That’s why I never miss it.”

Brett Slezak, director of innovation at Quaker Valley School District, agreed. “It’s like coming home,” Slezak said. “You see all the people that have inspired you for your career, and you see all the people that are new, that are going to inspire you with the things that they do.”

For South Fayette’s Dr. Chuck Herring, this year’s Assembly was a chance to share details about the upcoming Uncommon Conference his district will host on Nov. 8, and also a chance to see old friends, including Remake Learning Days co-producer Dorie Taylor.

“I’ve been coming here for at least five years,” Herring said. “It’s like homecoming. It’s just a wonderful place to catch up, to be refreshed, to be renewed, and just really get a chance to see what’s happening in this space.”

Attendees from across Pittsburgh’s learning ecosystem had a chance to visit tables set up by a range of in-school and out-of-school educators. Among them:

• The Family Centers of Allegheny County shared details about their Buzzword literacy program and talked with teachers and administrators in hopes of connecting more families in all school districts to the many Family Center locations and the critical services they offer throughout the Pittsburgh area.
• Educators from Norwin School District in Westmoreland County walked attendees through the events they offer during Remake Learning Days, pointing out that Norwin welcomes kids from all districts and helps them earn their Career-Ready PA Backpack Badges during the festival.
• WQED’s Education Department was on hand to let teachers and administrators know about WQED’s many educational resources. It’s really valuable, WQED’s Denice Pazuchanics explained, to connect with so many different schools at the start of the year in a casual, fun way, rather than trying to reach them by phone or email during a busy school day.

The evening was co-hosted by Remake Learning and Point Park University.

Dr. Shari Payne, Point Park’s Dean of the School of Education, shared with the audience about the university’s focus on STEM education for pre-service teachers, including a collaboration with community partners and school districts to integrate maker education principles into the teacher certification programs.

“Pre-service teachers learn to design interdisciplinary lessons, facilitate projects, manage makerspace environments and assess student learning in innovative ways on campus,” Payne said. “Our two Matt’s Makerspace labs foster hands-on learning, allow students to create engaging STEM lessons and facilitate them in local schools.”

During the night’s main presentation, attendees celebrated successes like the Remake Learning Days festival and got a chance to watch a soon-to-be released documentary about the history of educational television (spoiler alert: It all began in Pittsburgh!), produced by filmmakers Carl Kurlander and Aditi Sridhar, in conjunction with the Grable Foundation.

“This gathering is very, very special to us. Every year we come together to reflect on the amazing innovations and transformations that are happening across our learning ecosystem,” said Remake Learning’s director of relationships, Stephanie Lewis. “Tonight, we’ll celebrate the boldness, the creativity and the heart that make Remake Learning so impactful, and we’ll look ahead to even bigger and brighter things on the horizon.”

Among those bigger and brighter things: Remake Learning’s executive director Tyler Samstag shared several plans for the coming year.

This annual festival of hands-on learning offers parents and caregivers the opportunity to learn alongside their children and points them toward learning resources in their own neighborhoods, while also serving as a celebration of learning throughout entire communities and helping ignite a conversation among diverse stakeholders about what the future of learning can look like. By the spring of 2024, this Pittsburgh-born festival had grown to include nearly 900 events worldwide held not just throughout Pennsylvania and the U.S., but as far away as South America, Antarctica and Africa. Samstag announced a new strategic partnership with the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, who will act as fiscal sponsor for Remake Learning Days beginning in 2025, and an expanded partnership with the Pennsylvania Department of Education to offer meaningful career connections to students statewide through the Career-Ready PA Backpack Challenge.

In these rapid, three-month convenings, partners will map assets and create a regional action plan around emerging topics like artificial intelligence (bringing together researchers and educators to explore this complex subject), learning outdoors (leveraging a renewed interest in agriculture and urban farming), and credentialing and career pathways (building bridges between schools, higher education and industry to create new opportunities for learners).

In strong partnership with Intermediate Unit One, the Rural Schools Collaborative will come under the Remake Learning umbrella. Remake Learning’s Alyssa Moore will lead the effort to engage educators and partners throughout the region.

The next cohort of Moonshot Grantees will be selected by the end of 2024 and in total, the Moonshot Grants program will surpass $3 million in funds distributed to organizations across the Pittsburgh region to test truly bold ideas. And in 2025, newly announced Moonshot Working Group grants will catalyze coordinated yet bold shifts in personalized learning, STEAM and civics education through a public process. The network will help define funding priorities and $1 million in grants will be distributed — the largest single grant opportunity in Remake Learning’s history, thanks to the Grable Foundation.

“For nearly two decades, we’ve been building this ecosystem — an ecosystem that connects the places where young people learn with the places that they live, work and play,” Samstag said. “And now, as the world seeks to figure out what learning ecosystems can look like, truly all eyes are on Pittsburgh. People are looking here, to the work that each of you has helped us build, and it’s not by accident. It’s because together, we’ve cultivated something quite special.”

Tonight, Samstag told the audience, “I stand with you filled with hope, filled with joy and filled with belief in what we can accomplish together. In this upcoming year, let’s dream big. Let’s act boldly. And let’s remember to celebrate every step along the way.”

Authored by:

Melissa Rayworth

Melissa Rayworth has spent two decades writing about the building blocks of modern life — how we design our homes, raise our children and care for elderly family members, how we interact with pop culture in our marketing-saturated society, and how our culture tackles (and avoids) issues of social justice and the environment.