Fall Explorations

The start of each project phase is called Exploration at Brightworks. During this time, students are expanding their understanding of a topic, looking at it from a variety of ways,

The Exploration phase begins our dive into the arc topic. Exploration is a time to delve into the fundamental questions about a topic. We ask, What is it? What does it mean? Why is it important? Where does it come from? What do people use it for? How do people represent it? 

Exploration is an opportunity for students to expand skill sets and introduce new concepts through deep dives and provocations with related experts as well as field research, structured games, and practice. Exploration phases have a narrative thread that students follow and a group project that gives them motivation and context for the core skills that they are developing. Collaborators model and explicitly teach important aspects of project work, like collaboration, growth mindset and project management. 

We are interested in, and supportive of, the meaningful tangent or digression, choosing to see them as evidence of making sense of new material through connecting seemingly unrelated ideas and concepts. Collaborators are prepared to scrap their plans when they are hitting a wall with the students or a more juicy project idea comes along. 

The World is our Classroom

Only part of a Brightworks education takes place on school grounds. During the Exploration phase especially, we are on the go to wherever there are interesting and useful bits of knowledge to add to our growing collection. Collaborators and students aim to take a field trip once a month, and enjoy taking overnight adventures that deepen relationships and the context of the question or exploration that the students embark on.

The world is just as much a part of the Brightworks education as the school building and often has more to teach than can be learned by staying in one place. Our community is dropping into Exploration phase of the project cycle — a reminder of the rhythm of learning and belonging that we build together. An important part of Exploration Phase of the arc is connecting ideas with the community.

• Our Early Elementary students recently spent the day at Tunnel Tops and the Field Station, exploring the richness of the Presidio and hands-on discovery with a Ranger.

• Upper Elementary students took a powerful trip to Angel Island Immigration Station, connecting history and identity as they reflected on stories of migration and belonging.

• Fine Arts Studio students made a trip to The de Young Museum, Pinhole Photography Studio is planning a trip to Camera Obscura.

• High Schoolers have developed a cadence of venturing out on the Presidio for their weekly Sit with it.

Each outing reinforces the notion that learning expands when it’s grounded in the real world — in experiences that invite empathy, curiosity, and understanding.

Inquiry

Instead of lecturing from the front of a room, we pose questions, or provocations, and offer students the skills, tools and materials to construct their own answers. In designing inquiry-based provocations, we look at some very specific aspects.

Context

• Is this a question that students have generated or are interested in? Is this question standing between students and a better understanding of their project or goals?

Materials

• Available materials go a long way toward shaping the conclusions that students draw.  Whether these materials are articles, building supplies or scientific instruments, we choose them carefully to help students explore and tinker around with ideas.

Room for Failure and Discovery

• There is never enough time in the day; adults often want to swoop in to save students from time-consuming mistakes or hurry along their discoveries.  We believe it is important to preserve time for students to make their own mistakes!

• Some provocations are too open-ended for kids to get any traction, and some are stiflingly structured.  We play around with the right balance of structure and freedom so that the kids feel engaged and challenged.

Reflection

• Just like it’s important to make time for failure, it is equally important to make time to reflect upon those failures.  As John Dewey so elegantly puts it, “We don’t learn from experience, we learn from reflecting on experience.”

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Project-Based Learning

The best explorations have a project at their heart. By “project,” we mean a problem that students are trying to solve or a question that they are trying to answer. The best projects don’t have clear solutions or google-able answers - they require extended inquiry and push students to acquire new skill sets. There are a lot of great definitions of Project Based Learning; our favorite comes from HQPBL.

Projects during Exploration are different than the projects that students will propose and work on during Expression phase because they are usually group endeavors that act as the interdisciplinary through-line for students academics. These projects allow us to model and unpack the qualities of good project work that the students will draw on and practice later in their personal projects: collaboration and teamwork, growth mindset and iteration or project management and documentation.

Past projects include: inflatable Mars habitats, nest boxes for rescue squirrels, a socially responsible candy company, and weather balloon missions to the stratosphere.

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