Session 6 Week 1 in Review

Elementary Studio

Welcome to Session 6! It’s hard to believe that we are only one session away from the end of the 2022-2023 school year! We began Session 6 by participating in a YES DAY for learners who earned all of their signature learning experiences badges from sessions 1–5. Congratulations again to Sophia, Shelby, and Mackenzie on their hard work and accomplishment of earning their YES DAY! Before they could participate, the entire studio reflected on their work ethic while leading up to the YES DAY. Learners who did not earn their YES DAY will have another opportunity this session if they earn all of their core skills badges from sessions 1–6.New session, new curriculum! During Quest, learners began the design thinking process. On Wednesday, they started brainstorming what they want to create or improve using the design thinking process. Next, they selected three users to interview. On Friday, we were visited by James Campbell. He is an educational consultant, coach/facilitator with a focus in project-based learning and liberatory design thinking. During his visit, he shared tips and tricks for conducting empathy interviews and answered any questions or curiosities that learners shared.Our Story Arts curriculum is led by Clay Cooks, a member of the Zac Brown band. Learners participated in a variety of lyric-writing activities to help develop their songwriting skills. First, they engaged in a studio writing activity that challenged their creativity! For this activity, I named five random objects and the learners had two minutes to write down as many observations as possible about each object or any connections they could recall using their five senses. Following this activity, they reflected on their work and highlighted any phrases or thoughts that they could possibly use to create a song. We thoroughly enjoyed this challenge very much! I’m anxious to see what songs they create by the end of this session!During civilization, we began exploring geography! This week learners were challenged to create their own globe using whatever materials they could find. Each globe had to include the seven continents, oceans of the world, the equator, the prime meridian, an arrow showing where they live, and an arrow showing any places they have visited. 

Middle School Studio

Session 6 has begun! We kicked off the session with a virtual tour of the Embracing Our Differences art exhibit in Sarasota, Florida and a school-wide welcome back scavenger hunt! Andrew led a great morning launch on following your passion, and Caitlin led our Fascinating Friday this week. We also welcomed a new learner, Addison, to the Middle School Studio!The Design Thinking Quest began this week, and already the creative juices are flowing! Monday was an overview of the Design Thinking process, and we used a digital circle map to create our own working definitions of Design Thinking. Learners were then assigned to teams to work through a quick version of the whole Design Thinking process, where they used a real-life problem posed by Chrissy, and worked together to define the problem, ideate, and prototype a solution. Each team came up with some really great prototypes! Then it was time for learners to go back to the start and begin the 1st phase of their session-long Design Thinking project: Empathize. Wednesday, learners came up with a problem they want to tackle, brainstormed a list of potential users to interview, and began writing out interview questions for the empathy interviews. Friday, we had a visit by James Campbell, an Expert in Project Based Learning and Innovation, who chatted with learners in all three Studios about best practices for Design Thinking and empathy interviews. Learners concluded the week with their challenge to go off and interview at least 3 users about their experiences with the problem the learner is working to solve!Learners in both the Middle School and High School Studios began their Don’t Tread on Me Civilization badge, which is a self-paced webquest followed by an epic Maker’s Challenge! They began by exploring the European founded settlements and colonies in North America during the early to mid 1600’s. Next they read about each of the 13 British Colonies and the reasons why each colony was originally founded (i.e.,Puritan and Catholic religious beliefs,natural resources, or even places to send English debtors). Some learners moved on to the next part of the webquest all about the conflict between the new colonies and Britain, and the various causes that eventually led to war. In the coming weeks, learners will continue working through the webquest, and then beginning work on their Maker’s Challenge which they will present at the end of session celebration: A 1773 style tea party!Our Songcraft Story Arts with Clay Cook began for MS and HS learners this week, which is all about songwriting! We kicked things off with an intro to music production by Clay Cook, and discussed which roles in music production that each learner would feel most adept at. Our challenges helped learners get warmed about with lyric writing with some writing and rhyming exercises!

High School Studio

We kicked off session 6 with an all-school carousel for learners to talk about their breaks and check in with each other. After that, High school learners began their week with some housekeeping, check-ins, and I (Madeleine) showed them my artwork (I’m a professional Painter with my MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago), and they asked me questions about my practice, education, and overall got to know me better.In the afternoon, we jumped right into the Quest, watching a video on IDEO (a 1990’s design firm in Silicon Valley) reimagining a shopping cart for Whole Foods. IDEO used all phases of Design Thinking to restructure the traditional shopping cart. The learners then took to their Challenge and explained IDEO’s process of DT each phase of the way.Wednesday, we had a Public Art Launch where we shared public art pieces in our communities, and watched an Art21 on Ursula von Rydingsvard's Public Art piece at the Barclay Center,  which led to a socratic discussion. In SLE,  Learner’s made mock-empathy maps for business owners, where they considered the specific traits and concerns of each business owner.Friday: This Morning, our Morning Launch was led by Max, who shared with us the new Badge Plan. In the Afternoon, we had a guest Entrepreneur named James, an Entrepreneur in Education. He walked us through how he uses the Design Thinking Process and how he conducts Empathy interviews.