60 WINTER 2020 | WWW.SHAKER .LIFE
DJ Washington, in the Woodbury Makerspace, with the button maker. Photo courtesy of Jen Kuhel
Sparking Entrepreneurial Skills
Shaker Heights Schools students in all grades have multiple entry points for developing
their entrepreneurial and problem-solving skills, thanks to IB and i3.
This year at Woodbury, for example, students can visit the library’s new
Makerspace during recess or after school, where they have the option to build with
LEGOs, program and control a Sphero robot, or code a path for a small Ozobot
robot. Woodbury students also participate in a special design class once every
five days that focuses on the elements of digital design and product design. In
this class, students use the design cycle to analyze challenges, develop and create
feasible design solutions, and evaluate prototypes, products and systems.
But not all learning tools that cultivate entrepreneurial skills are necessarily as
high-tech as a robotics kit. For Woodbury sixth-grade student DJ Washington, an
encounter with the school’s new pinback button-maker (also purchased with grant
money from the Innovation Fund), was the gadget that got his creativity flowing.
DJ recalls the day that his art teacher, Deanna Clemente-Milne, asked him
to stop by her art room after school. “I thought she was going to have me do
something with clay,” he admits.
Do a Google search
on whether entrepreneurs are born or
made and you’ll get a list of magazine
articles and scholarly research that
consider the merits of one or both.
But for Shaker Heights Schools, the
matter isn’t up for debate: The District
has placed a premium on ensuring
that students have opportunities
to develop their entrepreneurial
skills, regardless of whether they
plan to be the next Bill Gates. That
means developing critical thinking
skills, encouraging students to think
creatively, building problem-solving
skills, and working collaboratively.
“There’s so much research that
shows that the jobs we have today are
not going to exist when the students
we have today are entering the
workforce,” says Lauren Priestley, the
District’s Curriculum and Instruction
Technology specialist. “We’re at a time
now where education is moving less
toward memorizing and learning what
already exists; there’s more emphasis
on students creating the processes
and solutions for problems that
interest them.”
The District believes the
powerful combination of its PreK-
12 International Baccalaureate
Programme along with its new
i3 Initiative – which provides
students with more design learning
experiences, accessibility to today’s
leading technology and tools, as well
as a Science, Technology, Engineering,
Arts and Math (STEAM) curriculum
– will prove to be beneficial to all
students in the years ahead.
“The goal is to have i3 touch
every student and to find multiple
ways to engage them in these
opportunities,” says Holly Coughlin,
executive director of the Shaker
Schools Foundation, the District’s
primary funding partner for i3. The
District and the Foundation together have granted nearly $437,000 to support
projects at all levels within the District. The funding has been responsible for the
construction of a new makerspace at Woodbury Elementary School, STEAMrelated
professional learning opportunities for staff at the elementary schools
and Shaker Heights Middle School and, at Shaker Heights High School, new
state-of-the-art equipment in arts classrooms, as well as a new advanced robotics
and manufacturing course.
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