by Jerry Mintz
On December 19th I visited Manhattan Free School with AERO staff member Kamala Bhusal and her two year old daughter. I was interested to see how they are doing and to find out about their new enterprise, creating an Agile Learning Center as part of the school. Here are a few pictures and a description of what they are doing. Among other things they have built a 3D printer that the students have learned to use:
The Agile Learning Center @ MFS uses leading edge tools to support young people in their self-directed learning and living. Agile Learning Centers are designed with an intentional social architecture to evoke a specific hidden curriculum. In an Agile Learning Center, students are learning to:
- Identify their own needs and priorities
- Create projects which accomplish those priorities
- Organize their time and activities around those projects
- Focus and follow through on those projects toward a creative end
- Share their creative output (in a digital portfolio)
- Reflect on personal progress and impediments (in a personal blog)
- Co-create a collaborative, supportive social environment
- Be Responsible for their action and inaction
- Engage in new technologies to develop digital literacy
