About Authentic Learning
WHAT IS AUTHENTIC LEARNING?
Authentic Learning is a ground-breaking program that uses blended learning to enhance life and 21st-century skills among youth. Our programs focus on digital skills and new-age methodologies for career and life development for youth, along with providing an Authentic Educator Certification for teachers committed to utilizing a digital learning approach.
Authentic Learning Lab offers a digital education designed for the era of personalized learning. Our aim is to utilize small group online learning to deliver inspiring individualized holistic mentorship and activate our students as agents of change through place-based learning and project-based learning in the real world.
A-Lab projects include a wide range of innovative pedagogies and can be linked directly to any school’s competencies and standards. Our virtual mentors & coaches, who have all led global projects, understand the power of intrinsic motivation and support learners through ongoing project reflection and analysis. Coaches also serve as social-emotional learning guides and assist with health, nutrition, and physical well-being.
A-Lab hopes to inspire a world where education and community development are symbiotic.
The coaches at A-Lab are fantastic and my three children benefit from the personalized approach to learning. Nick and the team are great to work with from everything to behavioral issues to finding a great real-world math application. A-Lab is the ideal homeschool supplement!
What does Authentic Learning Look Like?
My experience working with my mentor was powerful experience. My A-Lab coached me to update my resume while I was applying for jobs. He helped me change my mindset to not just apply to get any job I could, but to do the research and identify where I really wanted to work before applying. I now hold two amazing jobs that help me take care of my wife and baby. Thank you to everyone.
The authentic Learning Model
I not only grew academically with my mentor, but I grew as a person. The work we did with ikigai and purpose was really cool for me. I’ll probably continue to use the Authenticity Manifesto for the next few years until I solidify my own!
Our Dynamic Team
Nicholas Martino
Curriculum Designer
Nicholas J. Martino is an impact-driven educational consultant and curriculum architect. After teaching anthropology and leading global learning expeditions for a decade, Nick now works to implement higher-level educational change as founder of the Authentic Learning Lab and NJM Global Consulting. The Authentic Learning Lab aims to leverage technology to facilitate high-quality real-world learning that aims to solve problems.NJM Global aims to design thriving learning communities by developing intrinsically inspired, holistic learners. Nick has worked to design the Changemaker Curriculum at THINK Global School and BIT School in Mexico City, while consulting with various innovative schools and organizations. In 2011, he was recognized as Washington Post Teacher of the Year and Virginia’s Stafford County Teacher of the Year. In 2009, he was awarded the title of Claes Nobel Educator of Distinction.
Maria Valle
Curriculum Designer
After 3 years of doing groundwater management as an engineer in Portugal and Argentina, Maria shifted gears to fulfill a desire to bring a more human part to her profession and earned a Master in Education at the University of Seville. She started teaching, first in Russia, then China, Hong Kong and Japan before completing a Masters in Ecological Agriculture and Livestock from the International University of Andalusia, in an effort to ensure her students became stronger consumers and global citizens. Later, she specialized in the design and implementation of innovative educational programs with a focus on sustainability, participating in different initiatives in Indonesia, Denmark, and the United States. and Spain. Currently, she works as part of the Traveling University team, where she works as a Team Coach in the Leadership, Entrepreneurship and Innovation program, dividing her time between our laboratories in Helsinki, Bilbao and Seattle.
Guillermo Machado
Curriculum Designer
Guillermo’s academic background is in physics (MA, University of Oxford) and education (MA, University of Nottingham). While working as a high school classroom teacher for 10 years, he became progressively drawn to the creative and inter-disciplinary work involved in curricular design. At Think Global School, he enjoyed the privileges of working with
Nick, traveling the world while teaching earnest and talented students while helping develop a unique, place-based project-based learning program (PB PBL). Later, at Shanghai American School, he completed the MSIS (Math Specialist in International Schools) training, which deepened his interest in how curricula can be designed to ensure alignment with student cognitive development as they grow. One of his areas of current research is the blending of a meta theory known as Integral Theory with PBL pedagogy in order to provide a more sophisticated social-emotional vs cognitive balance to a curriculum. Guillermo believes that only an earnest learner can pass on the learner spirit onto others.