Item List

This highly interactive workshop allowed the teachers to model the experiential learning process by researching proven learner-centered strategies, reflecting and sharing through collaborative protocols, visiting members of the local community to bring experts into the activities, and then customizing and applying these approaches to their own prototypes.

In addition to co-designing experiential learning projects with individual teachers, OWL and WHEA are focusing their partnership on four areas: refining the school’s prototype Portrait of a Graduate as part of a student design sprint, scaling a competency based framework that math teachers have been piloting, developing a Decision Making protocol that aligns with the school’s status as a Teacher Powered School, and developing the essential elements of a Common Instructional Framework as an outgrowth of the WHEA Way.

The work resulted in a highly successful summer program for hundreds of students that has subsequently garnered major attention, having been featured by the local news and APS communications department multiple times. Inspired by the program’s success, many teachers from the summer cohort are now beginning to bring these strategies into their classrooms to create new and exciting learning opportunities for their students!

After co-designing two powerful makerspaces at the district middle schools, all secondary teachers and schools are building community-connected projects with their students. OWL facilitators co-design with educators and leadership to showcase these high-quality projects in district-wide PBL community exhibitions that lay a foundation for greater achievement and post-graduation economic success.

Both projects created public-facing materials showcased in an impressive website to raise awareness, educate and inspire the community to continue the work co-designed across community roles, including a 5-year community action plan elevating students’ and underrepresented communities’ voices in new initiatives along with several projects helping students solve critical problems, drive local leadership capacity, and catalyze high-impact collaboration.

The first project was a data dashboard and evidence-based outreach materials for the school that looked at all aspects of student, teacher, and parent satisfaction. The second project resulted in OWL co-designing a mission & vision with teachers, students, and stakeholders that lays out a bold path for innovation. In this new school year, another project emerged to strategize implementation and support of a common instructional framework.