I was alarmed by the lack of connectivity between researchers and practitioners sharing the same field: education. New knowledge serving as an enabler was going into a 'blackhole', with researchers having less than 10% of their publications read, let alone leveraged. Creating an easy, safe and reliable network that bridges this gap means data is shared instantly, impacting learning lives.
The Maple Group operates as a digital community of practice, offering education leaders (with at least 3 years of experience) a chance to connect, share and collaborate with 150+ members and growing from around the globe. This immediate opportunity to interact leveraging technology (WhatsApp and Google Drive) has resulted in members increasing from 20 in March 2020 to 150 by December 2022. Offer has included a fortnightly newsletter collating member achievements, upcoming in-person and online events, latest research on topics of interest mapped to members, a comprehensive job tracker w/ 350 jobs. Evidence of it's value include 1. increase in membership & country coverage; 2. Masters and PhD programs in education admissions advice to over 20 members; 3. co-participation and presentation at over 5 education conferences in the past 2 years; 4. co-authorship of blogs and research papers; 5. over 50 guest-speaker led sessions (incl. Noam Angrist and Dave Evans) and more.
Main achievements have included the increase in membership and country coverage; connection between education leaders from countries that would have otherwise never had a chance to learn from one another; ease of collaboration on research and projects in the field; direct mentorship and advice on admissions and career changes and awareness of job availability otherwise unimagined.
I have a very specific goal over the next 2-3 years: Scale a mentorship program that came out of The Maple Group (27 students, 17 countries) that saw satisfaction scores of over 95% to students in the US and UK: this will be the first dedicated mentorship program guiding high school and university students to pursue further education and careers in the education sector.
You can visit www.mapleadvisorygroup.com and click on 'The Maple Group'. There's a simple admission form that comes straight through to us. We will gladly review and welcome you to the community. If there are any questions, please reach out to contact@mapleadvisorygroup.com or me at aanya.niaz@mapleadvisorygroup.com
