2025 Reflections: Building Human-Centered Innovation, One Tinker at a Time
Building Human-Centered Innovation, One Thinkerer at a Time
This year challenged me deeply, and I loved it.
If you’ve been building with us at the Thinkering Collective, you already know: we don’t do passive. We don’t do “business as usual.” We ask bigger questions, “thinker” with harder problems, and constantly design toward something more human, more connected, more creative.
As I close out 2025, I wanted to take a moment to reflect, not just on what we built, but how we built it, and more importantly, why it matters.
Planting Ideas, Growing Systems
When I started Creative Gardens, it was rooted in one question: What does it look like to nurture early learning in ways that are playful, rigorous, and radically personalized? That question still drives my work today, whether it’s with preschoolers or program design, in classrooms or inside Thinkerbot.
This year, I had the chance to go deeper into that work—especially through my role as Possibility Architect (self-given), Mentor, and Lead Engineer UX/UI co-designer inside the Fellowship. The beauty of this ecosystem is that nothing is siloed. My tech mind, my educator heart, and my systems brain all got to sit at the same table.
We weren’t just working on projects, we were growing frameworks for sustainable, joyful learning that don’t ask educators to leave parts of themselves at the door.
Building Thinkerbot: From Wild Idea to Working Prototype
One of the biggest leaps this year was co-developing the Thinkerbot platform alongside Evin and the team. I can’t lie, it was a beast of a build. New frameworks, new architecture, new ways of thinking about AI in education. We scrapped our early assumptions more than once.
But the core design principles held steady:
Simplicity that serves reflection
Tech that enhances—not replaces—relational teaching
Real tools, for real humans, doing real work
What we’re building with Thinkerbot isn’t just AI, it’s an interactive partner in the learning journey. Fellows can document their process, pull resources, get nudges toward reflection, and even auto-organize their weekly progress. But more than that, it’s helping us scale care in the system. And that’s the future of education, as I see it.
Mentorship Isn’t a Ladder, It’s a Loop
The Thinkering Fellowship reminded me that mentorship is not a hierarchy, it’s a loop. This year, I got to work with fellows who brought raw honesty, big curiosity, and serious heart to the table.
As a mentor, I wasn’t there to “fix” or “direct.” I was there to walk alongside. Ask better questions. Hold space for clarity. Point to possibilities. And I received just as much as I gave.
Every week, I watched educators reimagine their classrooms—not from theory, but from lived experience, reflection, and co-creation. It was wild to see fellows go from “I have this idea...” to running student-led media labs, AI-driven storytelling units, Indigenous heritage projects, and more.
This kind of growth can’t be standardized, but it can be scaffolded. That’s what our mentorship model is designed for.
Strategy, Scale & Staying Human
Behind the scenes, I’ve also had my hands in a lot of infrastructure work—UX wireframing, partner strategy, and yes, spreadsheets.
This fall, we redefined the entire architecture of our partner ecosystem, from clarifying what it means to be a “member,” “partner,” or “funder,” to building better UI flows that make the whole experience feel smoother and smarter.
Thinkerbot V2 is scheduled for a February release date.
These details matter. Because the more we scale, the more we need to hold onto our values:
Curiosity over compliance
Reflection over rigidity
Relationships over roles
And now, we’ve got a roadmap. A living one.
What’s Next? (Spoiler: It’s Big.)
In 2026, it’s all in on one mission.
5 Years, 10,000 Educators, 20 Million Learners.
Ten thousand capstone projects centered around the humanization of education. Each project touching 2000 learners. This is mile one of a marathon.
We’re stepping into some big experiments. Thinkerbot is going live with new districts. The mentorship pods are growing—and may even include student-to-student coaching models soon. We’re exploring partnerships with civic orgs and universities to turn capstone projects into community-backed initiatives.
There’s also talk of a physical hub: a collaborative space for thinkering, prototyping, recording, and gathering. A kind of creative R&D studio for educators and students alike. We’ll see how that evolves—but you know me. I’m already sketching the furniture.
Could there be a ThinkerCon in the works for 2026? You will have to wait and see..
Thank You, Collective
This year was equal parts head-down and heart-wide-open. And none of it happens alone.
To the Fellows: your brilliance is in your bravery.
To the Mentors: you model leadership that’s rooted, not rigid.
To the Builders & Thinkers I worked with: thank you for making ideas real.
And to Evin, Jim, Noah, Laurie and the entire core team—thank you for trusting my mess and vision in equal measure.
Here’s to another year of thinkering with purpose.
Let’s grow something wild.
— Garrett
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