Beyond the Box: Creating the Innovators of Tomorrow

By Mary Kay Sommers

As principals and leaders, we know how preschoolers and kindergarteners arrive in our schools as the most creative, most eager to innovate, and genuinely believe they can do anything! We also watch how these attributes are harder to observe as they move through today’s educational system.

Kimberlie Linz, principal of Pacific Elementary School in Manhattan Beach, California, presented a fascinating design to intentionally help her students become innovators, problem solvers, and collaborative learners. Kim’s presentation at the 2015 NAESP Conference fully described her journey from a vision for all of her students to develop these soft skills to an engaging elementary learning design during and beyond the school day. Students are now observed demonstrating confidence in their own creativity, their ability to solve challenging problems, and their eagerness to be actively engaged in the learning process. Kim shared the process she followed complete with the challenges and adjustments she made, the selection of materials and an advisory team, the development of staff and volunteers, and the expansion of the program in just three years.

Kim presented her ideas to her PTO for support and minimal funding. As these parents imagined their own children having these open-ended creative opportunities, their enthusiasm and support fueled Kim’s forward movement. Starting this development as a student choice activity for fourth-graders at lunch or after school allowed her to see what interest there might be. Thinking she’d select the ones who signed up on a “first come” basis, she quickly found that 40 strategically minded students arrived at 6:15 am and had created their own groups as they waited for her arrival. She quickly changed processes to adjust to the high student demand.

Kim needed a team of volunteers to support this initiative. She chose like-minded parents and non-parents to help develop and implement these ideas. This small, committed group were selected and maintained based upon their agreement with the basic tenets this initiative sought to accomplish. These are some of the basic design attributes:

• Develop creative/critical thinking skills, perseverance, resilience and confidence through the typical “failure feeling” that naturally evolves during problem solving. Learn not to give up!
• Provide the freedom to create using their imagination with a plethora of “junk” supplies.

By researching ideas being done in other schools, they decided against a commercially designed program for a plan that was opened-ended and allowed them to customize its design to address their students’ interests and needs. The use of Maker Space as the primary tool along with the Stanford Design Process and the ISGSS and engineering standards thrusted this vision into action. These new attributes further enhanced the design:

• Each project needed a core learning concept and clear objective. Not an “arts/crafts” class.
• Teach one new skill and low tech tool to use (i.e., circuits with coin batteries).
• Students had to create their own plan.
• Additional challenges were added weekly.
• Each month the focus changed. (Later, fourth- and fifth-graders completed well-designed independent projects.)

Operationally, these sessions were managed primarily by trained “docent” parents/non-parents. Training complete with role playing was critical for them to be literally “hands-off,” to use scaffolding for students’ showing emotional responses to failure, and to recognize the feeling of success that comes with persistence during problem solving.

From the enthusiastic response on the part of students and their parents, as well as the noticeable high engagement, initiative, and learning, Kim’s vision—initially through an Innovation Lab—expanded into the school in other ways such as:

• Development and use of a science lab within the instructional program.
• Disney Xprise Challenge instead of other competitive activities like a science fair.
• Infusion of open-ended, problem-solving opportunities into the general classroom instructional design.
• Student-run science nights.
• Student request for specialized workshops (i.e., coding)

Financing for this development included $1000 for collection and storage of initial materials. However, the school became known as the local “recycling center” with frequent donations. Accessing the expertise and support from local businesses and service clubs with a STEAM focus led to all the local schools being funded to provide a 3D printer, staffing support, and extension and repurposing of space. Grant writing continues to be a valuable source.

We thank Kim for sharing a Makerspace website where these project lesson designs are described, well as her professional website with even more details.

Observations and surveys show all students highly engaged, girls as eager as boys, “wiggly”/inattentive students focused and excelling, and gifted students seeking higher goals. I applaud Kim’s vision and her inclusive approach to provide engaging projects for students to develop the skills they will need in their 21^st century future. May we all continue to enjoy the uncomfortable yet “unbelievable feeling” that occurs when we find new solutions!

—Mary Kay Sommers, educational consultant in the Fort Collins, Colorado area.

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