PERSONALIZED, IMMERSIVE AND ENGAGING EXPERIENCES THRIVE IN OUR INNOVATION LABS
Here’s Why
BY STEPHANIE STEPHENS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF LEARNING INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY
"The essence of these spaces is that you have choice and that’s how I learn best, and I think my classmates would say the same."
Having written calculations all over the glass walls and tables, a small team of Grade 5 students deeply contemplate the error in their Genius Project design, clearly evident from the remains of an unusable 3D print scattered in front of them. Undeterred, they happily tussle with some tough questions around angles and measurement, while two eager students –ALEXANDRA COLBY, HEAD PREFECT take my clue about circumference to heart and excitedly hunt prototype too? A patient Grade 12 art student helps an eager for more information. There is an audible groan when I say it is time to clean up and return to their classrooms. “How could group of Lower School students from the club downstairs, 90 minutes have just passed so quickly?” they ask. “If we work as she sets her intricate etching work aside to laser-cut the jigsaw puzzle they have specially designed themselves. “Not on it together tonight, can we come back in the morning to to worry, Mrs. Stephens – I’ve got this,” she says with a smile. print it?” As the rest of our Middle School Young Innovators team Moments later, the busy after-school crowd arrives. Two arrives, one student proudly shares the coding that he has excited Grade 9 students cautiously approach, hoping that I will entrust them with loading the printer/cutter on their own finally got to work with his microcontroller project, and he is excited to try soldering again. On the adjacent collaboration so they can prepare the huge trade-show banner they have station, a few more eager arrivals excitedly lay out their spent hours designing. Could Julian 3D-print his product game-board prototype for a group of willing friends they
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