The Next Level Lab is based at the Harvard Graduate School of Education within the larger research group known as Project Zero. Each year we involve a select number of graduate students in the work of the lab. We also periodically invite visiting scholars to work with us when areas of good fit are identified.
The Next Level Lab is pursuing work as we articulate the findings from research in cognitive science, neuroscience, and learning sciences that inform approaches to education and workforce development. Our work sits at the intersection of mining extant research of promise; conducting research questions with the potential for high-leverage impact; translating research on learning and the mind for public use; and innovating in the space of technology and learning to develop new visions for what is possible in developing human potential.
We are a small research lab. We view our mission as one of providing purpose and guidance to the field. Buckminster Fuller talked about the power of small influences in his description of a trimtab in this quote:
Something hit me very hard once, thinking about what one little [person] could do. Think of the Queen Elizabeth again: The whole ship goes by and then comes the rudder. And there’s a tiny thing on the edge of the rudder called a trim tab. It’s a miniature rudder. Just moving that little trim tab builds a low pressure that pulls the rudder around. It takes almost no effort at all. So I said that the individual can be a trim tab. Society thinks it’s going right by you, that it’s left you altogether. But if you’re doing dynamic things mentally, the fact is that you can just put your foot out like that and the whole ship of state is going to turn around….
It is our hope that our small lab can function as a trimtab to create better outcomes for humankind.
The Next Level Lab has received support from Accenture Corporate Giving (ACC). Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in the materials on this site are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funder.