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How 8th Graders Used Design Thinking to Imagine an Award-Winning App
Every year, people forward me an email announcing the Verizon Innovative Learning App Challenge. As chair of the Computer Science Department at GPS, people know that encouraging girls to code is a driving force in my teaching. This year, I decided to build the App Challenge contest into my 8th grade classes’ coursework. We followed […]
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Gaining Perspective
Mayfield’s eighth grade participated in an interactive experience in January designed to provide insight and perspective on the reality of life as a refugee. Advisors and several teachers collaborated on the all-day program as a cross-curriculum component of the eighth grade service-learning project. They began with the question: How do we engage students so they […]
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From Ideas to Prototypes: Hands-on Projects Cultivate Design Mindsets
As sixth graders, science students at Castilleja School begin developing skills as designers and engineers while creating interactive devices. They learn about sensors and actuators, programming, troubleshooting, and how to face frustrations that arise from failed iterations while celebrating improvements and successes, however incremental. Fast forward to the senior year elective, “Biology and Economics of […]
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Middle School Summit Offers Solutions to Local, Global Problems
When it comes to major environmental challenges, who solves our problems? Who stewards our resources? How does climate change impact me, and vice versa? What’s the role of government in fixing environmental, economic, and social problems? These questions guided Journeys School sixth, seventh, and eighth graders as they embarked on “The California Drought Summit,” a […]
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Innovative Schedule Supports Intensive Learning
In a variety of settings, ranging from their upper school campus to downtown Cleveland, Washington, D.C., and Paris, Hawken School students and teachers in grades 9-12 spent the three weeks between Thanksgiving and winter breaks immersed in “Intensives,” which offer hands-on, extensive study of a single subject. With the school’s unique schedule, students can practice […]
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Sculpture Exhibit in Pre-K Ignites Interest in the Arts
What is the role of art in the Pre-K classroom? In Red Barn, the Pre-K classroom at The Seven Hills School, the role of art is an expansive one. Art serves not only as a medium for the communication of ideas, but also as an arena to grow confidence, build community, and foster independence. This […]
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Outdoor Program Encourages Learning and Leadership
Located at the foot of the Wasatch Mountains, The Waterford School’s signature Outdoor Program offers unique opportunities for students to prepare for and develop a lifetime connection with the wilderness, where learning becomes an adventure. Activities might include afternoon outings to the nearby mountains, or multi-day travels throughout northern and southern Utah. Each year, eager […]
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Students Memorialize Their State’s Past, Commit to Creating a Better Future
Last summer, a group of Altamont School seniors and two faculty members travelled from Birmingham to Montgomery to join in the Community Remembrance Project. Sponsored by the Equal Justice Initiative, the Remembrance Project represents indigent defendants and prisoners denied fair and just treatment in the legal system. Participants from across the state collected soil from […]
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Students Get Creative with Google Cardboard
Princeton Academy students are building and experiencing Google Cardboard in their Making class and beyond. Their first virtual reality experience was viewing 360 video of select campus spaces filmed by our Middle School students. The opportunities for students to create and explore with Google Cardboard are endless. Teachers are so excited to augment learning with […]
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Students Explore Complex Ideas for a Best-Imagined Future
The “Yearlong Theme” at Albuquerque Academy, launched in 2000, incorporates a broad and far-reaching global issue into classroom activities, and is the basis for a series of annual school-wide events and projects. The American Civil Rights Movement, Human Migration, and Localism are some past examples. This year’s theme, “Albuquerque in the World,” is surprising students […]
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Students Reflect on the Elections
On the heels of a notable election, teachable moments surfaced as students at Woodland School—a school where approximately half of all families have at least one member of the family born outside the United States—pored over the results. Rather than dodging questions or feelings regarding the election, Woodland students were encouraged to ask questions, engage […]
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Put on Your Math Goggles! Seeing Circles in a Kandinsky
Third graders at All Saints’ Episcopal School recently donned their math goggles and engaged in a measurement exploration using the visual arts as a lens. Students learned about the Russian painter, Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), considered a pioneer of abstract modern art. Students used his “Several Circles” (1926) as a springboard to exploring characteristics of a […]