17 August 2008
Two school districts committed themselves to participating in a Studio School pilot project for 2008-09. Oktibbeha and Noxubee County Schools were dedicated to raising the achievement of under-performing and at-risk students, and increasing student retention through high school. The pilot project for both districts will be designed for seventh and eighth grade students who choose to participate and commit themselves to the half-day studio-based learning program.
The pilot Studio School project will create three classrooms between the two districts: one classroom at B.F. Liddell Middle School in Macon, MS, one classroom at East Oktibbeha County High School in rural Oktibbeha County, and one classroom at West Oktibbeha County High School in Maben, MS. One teacher will act as the lead mentor in the classroom, and the design questions engaged by the students will be focused within that teacher’s disciplinary expertise. A number of other teachers will work with the lead mentor teacher to support the design work with content from other required academic subjects.
Since the Studio School classroom is enabled by the guiding and mentoring abilities of the teacher, the first development of the research aspects of the project are focused on teacher development. In July 2008, six teachers from Oktibbeha and Noxubee County Schools participated in four days of professional development activities to prepare for the opening of three Studio School classrooms in spring of 2009. The workshop included observation and engagement with teacher candidate students and architecture students who were applying studio-based learning in their classrooms. The development work was supported by funding from the Appalachian Regional Commission and the MSU College of Education.
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