This year I have the amazing opportunity to help design, develop, and implement a project based learning program at my school that also integrates language arts and science. We are doing this in our sixth and eighth grades. We plan to expand to seventh grade next year. We are designing our program around the success our cluster high school has had with CDAT (Center for Design And Technology). You can find out more about CDAT at their web site.
Our program is called TWIST: Teamwork with Innovative Skills and Technology. We’ve outlined a lot of our plans on our TWIST site. Yesterday, we held a “TWIST and Shout” party for our new students. We had over 200 students and parents attend. We went over basic information, had a QR code scavenger hunt, discussed our handbook, did team building, and discovered our learning spaces. It was an amazing time! I wish we could start off the year with all of our students like this. It has definitely given me that small glimpse of how I wish school should be instead of how it is. I am so glad that I have this chance to make a change!
One of the other big things has been reinventing our work space. Since a picture is worth 1,000 words, here is a panoramic photo of my TWIST classroom space. We were going for Starbucks over classroom. I can’t wait to share this journey with you!
