Session 1 Week 4 in Review

Elementary Studio

It's hard to believe that we are almost at the end of session one! We had another great week in the Elementary Studio. These learners really enjoy collaborating with one another and have done an excellent job providing daily feedback for each other. This week Elementary learners had the opportunity to run for Town Hall Council Members. These roles include: Studio President, Studio Vice President, Studio Secretary and the learners added Studio Vice Secretary. Learner's interested in each role had to consistently campaign, deliver campaign speeches to the studio, and their peers had the opportunity to vote for the best candidate! They will assume these roles during our weekly Town Hall meetings where the learners are able to voice their concerns regarding the studio structure, implementing new systems, and it's an opportunity to hold their studio mates accountable. The council members are in charge of facilitating the meeting. These roles will change frequently throughout the school year.In Story Arts, learners began crafting the story for their podcast. They were able to use a resource of their choice to create a 2-minute podcast. Once they created a rough draft, they were able to receive feedback from their peers, and make changes before they submit their final draft. In Civilization, they learned about the Crusades! During this journey, learners were placed in three different groups: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In these groups they wrote down research questions of their choice pertaining to each place. After drafting four questions and finding the answers, they created a poster highlighting what they discovered with their group! In Quest, learners created vision boards for dreams and goals relating to school, hobbies or passion projects, extracurricular activities, and future careers! They also put on their mentor hats to create a video, presentation, blog, podcast, or letter to a future FSO learner. As a mentor, they had to explain what a badge plan was, what it takes to become a self-directed learner, how to adjust to a Guide answering questions with a question, and any other information that might be helpful to a new learner. They really stepped into the mentor role to provide new learners with amazing advice! I'm thrilled to share with learners that enroll later in the school year! Week 5, here we come!

Middle School Studio

Our big highlight this week in the Middle School Studio was launching running partner meetings! Last week we began weekly check-ins with the Guide and the three running partners, where we set goals for the week and scheduled out daily tasks. Adding daily running partner meetings this week has been a huge adjustment! The learners are fully responsible for managing these daily meetings with each other, setting up their own Zoom calls, and taking their own attendance and notes. They began reviewing their daily goals and holding each other accountable for their “Big 5” goals for the week! The first part of the week mostly involved figuring things out, communicating, and revising the times and formats for their meetings to take place. By the end of the week, most running partner groups found themselves in a pretty good rhythm and are set up to begin next week’s meetings with better consistency and purpose!Quest this week was all about wrapping up our Wayfinding challenges and creating a plan and design for Exhibition projects, as well as tons of work time for creating their projects! Learners were able to choose the format for their presentations, and used a project rubric to help them develop their projects to the level of excellence we strive for in Exhibitions. Friday, learners had extra Share Outs time, where they were able to do a first quick run through of their project and presentation with a partner and receive specific feedback using the project rubric. They then had some time to make any tweaks or revisions on their project in order to have it fully ready for Monday’s dress rehearsal. The learners are nervous and excited to present their projects at the MS Exhibition next Tuesday!In Civ, we had a lengthy discussion about the history of world maps, different maps that have been used most prominently in the past 500 years, cultural bias in mapmaking, and the geographical inaccuracies of some of those maps. Learners conducted research on different world maps, and then chose a map to research more. They consolidated their research on their chosen map by writing a short essay explaining what story of the world they think the mapmaker was trying to tell through their map, and proposing what changes they would make to the map to tell a more accurate story of the world.We continued on with Podcasting in Story Arts this week by creating an outline or script for the main portion of the podcast episodes. After completing the outlines, learners were tasked with recording up to ten minutes of audio clips that told their story, including the conflict and resolution. Next week, these clips will be edited together with the intro clip from last week to form the complete episode. During Share Outs, learners were able to share the clip(s) they recorded that they were most proud of, and received feedback from a studio mate on what they did well and what can be improved on for the final episode!

High School Studio

It’s hard to believe that we are wrapping up week 4 in the High School Studio! We finished our focused discussions on Badge Plan requirements this week, looking at Electives, Learner-Designed Courses, and Mastery Credits during our morning launches and Quest time. Learners perused examples of Learner-Designed Courses and Mastery Credit Presentations from past learners, and brainstormed ideas for how and when they hope to accomplish these requirements this school year or beyond. Learners had time to share their ideas with one another, “pitch” certain electives that they have enjoyed, and brainstorm several topics for both Electives and Learner-Designed Courses. During the rest of our Quest time this week, we began preparing for our Session 1 Quest Exhibition, and learners had plenty of work time to put together their presentations.We continued exploring Human Trafficking during our Civilization course, this week focusing in on signs to look out for that someone is being trafficked, and schemes that traffickers use to lure victims. Learners broke into small groups to complete a maker challenge of their choosing, with most learners opting to create awareness campaigns and presentations about businesses that do or explicitly do not use trafficked labor. In Story Arts, learners continued working on their Podcast episodes, fleshing out their notes for recording, and beginning to get their podcast recorded and edited. Learners will have time next week to complete recording and editing, and then we will share our podcasts with one another, in preparation for the live Story Arts event at the beginning of Session 2.Later in the week, our studio learners voted on their High School Studio-specific Town Hall officers, and four learners were officially sworn in to their roles as President, Vice President, Ambassador, and Judge. We finished the week with our first learner-led morning launch, which is part of the Socratic Leader badge requirement. It was a successful and busy week in the High School Studio, and we are so looking forward to sharing our work with parents and dream teams during the exhibition next week.