Academic
Teaching the Skills Technology Can’t Replace
Teamship comes to College Board to bring real-world learning experiences to more students.
In 2023, David Reeser, the CEO of a tech startup in North Carolina, came to a team of high school students with a problem that was keeping him up at night.
OpiAID uses data science to optimize care for patients struggling with opioid addiction. It’s a fast-growing space, and competitors are popping up everywhere. “I spend half my time trying to track what my competitors are doing. It’s distracting from my other work,” he told the students. “I need your help, and I want you to think outside the box.”
For four weeks, a small team of students dug in. They asked questions, did research, broke the problem down, and leveraged one another’s strengths to present David with a solution: a creative plan to turn his competitors into his customers. Impressed by their work, David offered the team a summer internship to continue the collaboration.
Experiences like these are game changing. They help young people develop the durable, human skills employers value most. Yet access to these kinds of opportunities remains the exception, not the rule.
It’s no wonder students are calling for greater relevance in their education. They want learning that connects to the world around them in authentic ways and equips them with the skills they need for the jobs they aspire to.
David Reeser, the CEO of a tech startup in North Carolina
Work-based learning gives students the chance to practice skills like communication, collaboration, and problem-solving in real contexts with real people— building confidence and capabilities hard-won through the messiness of authentic work. And as AI reshapes the labor market, the need for developing these distinctly human skills only feels more urgent.
That’s why I’m excited to bring Teamship™, the work-based learning program I helped build, to College Board.
For more than a century, College Board has helped millions of students open the door to college opportunity and the futures they imagined for themselves. That work remains at the heart of the organization’s mission. But at a time when students are asking for more, College Board is expanding its portfolio to bring powerful work-based learning opportunities to students at scale.
In Teamship, students are grouped into small teams, prepared with tools to optimize collaboration and problem-solving, and matched with a real business facing a real challenge. After 25-40 hours of team-based problem-solving, Teamship culminates in a live event where students propose solutions directly to their business partner and respond to questions in real time, giving them the opportunity to think on their feet and further articulate the depth of their work.
During the experience, students learn to ask deep questions, listen, collaborate, navigate ambiguity, and present effectively. Teamship was designed to help students build the very skills technology can’t replace while offering opportunities to practice these skills in authentic ways.
And what makes Teamship especially powerful is that it’s delivered where students are—at school. We know these kinds of opportunities are too often limited to students with family connections and social capital. Teamship removes these barriers by bringing the experience to students during the school day. Teamship’s Coaching Institute supports educators by training and certifying them to be expert Teamship coaches. We invest deeply in teacher training because we believe the most powerful Teamship experiences are guided by educators who know how to provide just the right balance of support and challenge.
Over the next year, we will lead a thoughtful integration and expansion of Teamship at College Board so more schools and communities can offer these experiences to their students. Sign up and get early access to updates.
To date, more than 10,000 students have experienced Teamship, solving problems for more than 700 business partners like David Reeser’s OpiAID. But there’s more work to be done to turn this model into an experience accessible to every student in the country, one that helps hundreds of thousands of students prepare for and own their futures. I can’t think of an organization better equipped to bring this vision to life. I speak on behalf of the entire Teamship team when I say we’ve found our home at College Board, and we couldn’t be more excited for the work ahead.
