As part of the first Innovation Institute, our middle school cohort consisting of Susannah, Sherezada, Dave and Matt took on the challenge designing the weekly block of time that will be designated for individual student exploration. Our initial prototyping dealt with testing out the process through which students will determine their topic of exploration. We brought in 3 middle school students to test our initial ideas. Here is a video recap:
You can view our slide show presentation here.
So interesting to see what happens when we design meaningful space and time for student driven inquiry into the formal structure of the school day. I love that a project about student voice included student voice in the prototype. When students are willing to come in during the summer to work and learn with us, it points to how much we owe them to make the regular school year that much more meaningful for them.
I also love this project for the reasons Mark outlined, and more… I didn’t think of it sooner, but since at least 3/4s of the small groups discussed time and space for student-driven inquiry, and since all of us wanted more cross-divisional time for students and teachers, how amazing would it be if all three divisions had a common block for this built into their schedule?!