Learning from Students

Every year we are astounded by what the kids learn during 20% Time. They learn and incorporate dozens, if not hundreds, of new ideas, technologies and apps into their projects. This learning is not confined to just their projects or our team. Word gets out and others want to tap into the knowledge bank of the team. One such instance occurred today.

A couple of weeks ago, our amazing FACS teacher, Christy Burton, came up with an idea. She envisioned a way for kids to design and 3D print cookie cutters for a baking unit. She found a design site called Cookie Casters and, after a bit of brainstorming, decided it would work well with her classes. We have a student, Celia, who mastered our 3D printer earlier in the year. It seemed like a natural that Celia would lead the FACS classes in learning how to use Cookie Casters to design cookie cutters. She tinkered with the site and evaluated the work flow to our 3D printer and created a presentation that she would use to teach the FACS classes. 

This morning, we excused Celia from her first three classes so that she could go to the FACS room and teach the kids how to design cookie cutters on the Cookie Casters site and save them for export to our 3D printer. Christy messaged to me about how well Celia was doing with the classes. Indeed, she is a natural. This is just one example of utilizing the talents of our kids to teach other students essential skills. We applaud Christy for coming up with the idea and both Christy and Celia for the execution of this project.

Celia's 20% Time project is at a crucial point. Take a look at her progress here.