The Observation Deck

Kristine Pagsuyoin wrote:At the Lakewood City Schools website:

Board of Education Mtg., Studio Theatre, Beck Center for the Arts, 17801 Detroit Avenue, Lakewood OH, 44107, 7:00 p.m.
Starts
2/6/2012 7:00 PM
Ends
2/6/2012


Anyone know why our school board is meeting at the Beck Center instead of the board auditorium or in our neighborhood schools? I believe the meeting was originally scheduled to be at Harding Middle School.

http://www.lakewoodcityschools.org/userfiles/2220/February%20Agenda%20-%20lst%20Board%20Meeting%281%29.pdf

Edward Favre wrote:Betsy:

Here's what is on the web site.......

The 10th grade students of Lakewood High School’s 2.0 program will be exhibiting their work from “The WikiSeat Project” at the Beck Center for the Arts on Monday, Feb. 6 from 6-8 p.m. The project required the students to design and build a chair by hand. On display will be the final results of a unique learning experience that called for students to engage in ideas surrounding design concepts, the experiential learning cycle, and the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Nicolas Weidinger, a designer and professor at Ohio State University and creator of the WikiSeat concept, described the project in this way:

"A WikiSeat is a three-legged stool that is built by hand. Each WikiSeat starts with a 'Catalyst' that acts as a central support structure. The creator of a WikiSeat has the freedom to gather materials and find their own methods to build the seat."

The “Catalyst” is a small metal support structure made of angle iron that is constructed in such a way as to form a three-legged chair. Each student was given a “Catalyst” at the start of the project and instructed to design a chair using the “Catalyst”. Class time was spent on considerations of form/function, the design process, and readings on the nature of learning and self-determination as outlined by Ralph Waldo Emerson in his essays, “The American Scholar” and “Self-Reliance”.

The results of the quarter-long project were chairs that reflect the unique sensibilities and interests of each of the approximately 70 students in Sean Wheeler’s 10th grade American Literature classes. The styles range from a sleek to frilly to spartan.

“This project, for us, is a way of exploring Emerson's ideas. The students are doing instead of getting, making instead of regurgitating, and engaged rather than being passive participants in their learning,” said Wheeler.

Please join the students on Monday, Feb. 6 at The Beck Center for the Arts, 17801 Detroit Ave., as students display their completed Wikiseats and share the challenges and highlights of a very unique learning experience.

Lakewood High’s 2.0 programs is a pilot project of 9th and 10th graders in the core subjects that focuses on project-based, real-world learning that uses technology to connect students with other learners around the world and to help collaborate and share their work with each other.