Session 5 Week 7 in Review

Elementary Studio

"We should not give up and we should not allow the problem to defeat us." -A. P. J. Abdul KalamSession 5 has come to an end! We concluded the session by premiering the TV episodes created by learners during our Scripted Story Arts, completing our Culture topic for Civilization, and presenting service project presentations during the exhibition! Additionally, like the last week of every session, we completed our retrospectives: superlative, work, journaling, 360 feedback, and an end-of-the-session celebration that includes a studio badge ceremony. This session, seven of our nine elementary learners, earned at least one badge! Shout out to Mackenzie for earning six and completing all of XtraMath! I’m very proud of all nine learners for their continued growth, and their unique hero's journey! They were presented with a Yes Day as an incentive to earn all their Signature Learning Experiences Badges. For those who don't know, a Yes Day is a day when you basically get to do what you want. The answer is always yes! Learners who earn all their SLE Badges will be able to play Kahoot games, watch television shows/movies, be absent, or participate in other fun activities the day we return for Session 6. I have to send a HUGE shout out to Sophia, Mackenzie, & Shelby! These ladies demonstrated an intense level of perseverance, determination, resilience, and hard work! They worked collectively and after school hours to complete SLE challenges. Awesome jobs ladies! Job well done to all the Elementary learners on your tremendous progress this session! See you all next session!

Middle School Studio

Session 5 has come to an end! Our longest session of the year felt like the shortest session somehow, and all of us in the Middle School Studio are feeling that end-of-the-year push creeping up! Learners have been busy turning in challenge docs from past sessions and earning badges this week. We had our end-of-session Retrospectives this week, where we reflected on the session, Exhibition, and began writing 360 Feedback for running partners. We also celebrated our Session 5 awards; Congrats to Maggie on being awarded the Learn to Do award! We also celebrated Mrs. Kat and Baby Stuehrk with a surprise baby shower!We wrapped up Quest this week with a dress rehearsal for learners to practice a full run through of Exhibition and their projects, as well as giving feedback to each other about any improvements that could be made before the big day. Tuesday we welcomed guests to the Studio for our Session 5 Exhibition! Learners presented either a video or podcast documentary about an artist they selected, or a virtual art gallery containing works of art that they curated. The learners aimed to choose artists and art that are underrepresented or have little exposure, in hopes of bringing them into the spotlight and highlighting why people should appreciate their art. Michael Robinson, a volunteer docent from The National Gallery of Art attended and gave feedback on learners’ presentations and our learner’s overall ability to have high level thinking and discussions about art. It was so nice to hear such great feedback about our learners!Our final Civ was a maker’s challenge that continued our learning about the Transatlantic Slave Trade and slavery in the Americas. We identified the differences between primary and secondary sources, and then learners set off to find at least 6 primary sources that relate to the Slave Trade between the 1500s-1800s. Learners shared their favorite primary source that they found; we saw letters written by slave ship captains, journal entries of former enslaved people, slave ship diagrams, and more. This sets us up for continued learning about the founding of America and the Revolutionary War next session!Story Arts concluded with one final session in which we focused on editing and revising our short stories. We did an editing exercise where learners reviewed someone else’s short story by treating it as if it is their own and they’re making edit suggestions. After the exercise, each learner reviewed the different editing and revising suggestions from their peers. This allowed learners to gain practice editing and revising on work that is not their own (it can be hard to edit your own writing!), as well as giving specific feedback. Then each learner had time to make the suggested edits, and do one last round of editing and revising on their own work to complete the final draft!

High School Studio

Madeleine here! This was the last week  for Session 5, and the High School studio accomplished many things.   Monday’s launch was an activity where the learners shared work from their portfolio that best exemplifies thinking like a historian, and for SLE we had a dress rehearsal for the learner’s Exhibitions!Wednesday we started off with the age old question “If aliens came to earth and offered to take you with them, would you go? Why or why not?” and received a mixed bag of answers. We ended the launch by completing our 360 feedback forms, and the learners gave and received constructive feedback and compliments.
Thursday's morning launch, we had a school wide meeting and celebrated Kat’s baby shower!
For Thursday’s Story Art’s studio we had Essay share-outs. The learners with finished essays presented their topics and guided us through their essays by sharing why they chose their topics, and what information they learned. Each learner shared their essay on the screen and us viewers were able to follow along with their train of thoughts. (Shoutout to Andres, David, Shriya, and Marcos for finishing!).