Prospective Noxubee County Studio School students Latreasea Gibson, Fredericka Johnson, Kenyattia King, Martize Mitchell, Lavareous Young, and Matthew Webb have befriended seven MSU Day One Leadership team members this semester. The new friends attended the MSU vs. Vanderbilt football game, enjoyed a picnic on the drill field, toured the MSU campus, participated in a career study, and shared a movie night while they got to know what college life was like. Click below to view some more pictures of participants at the event.

Studio School was originally conceived to be created as a stand-alone program on the MSU campus, where students could engage in design projects with University researchers and community professionals, and benefit from the wide array of mentorship opportunities available. The following model of the all-day, stand alone Studio School was first developed at the beginning of the project as a way of seeing the scope required for this kind of success. These ideas were written by a group of Starkville, Oktibbeha County, West Point, and Mississippi State University community members, and are continually under critique for the purpose of a continually better design for Studio School.

Studio School Project Elements:
1. Literacy Intensive STEM Study
2. Digital Literacies as Catalyst for Others
3. Internships

a. Professional Business Interships
b. Research

i. College of Veterinary Medicine
ii. Bagley College of Engineering
iii. College of Forest Resources.
vi. Service Learning

4. Ambiguous Questions in Case-based Learning
5. High Expectations for Performance
6. Juries and Exhibits of Performance
7. Small Group Work
8. Dual Enrollment Potential
9. Relationship Centeredness
10. Counseling Program
11. Personal Design Plans
12. Corporate Health & Wellness Program

Studio School Policies and Procedures:
1. Governance
2. Logistics
3. Selection Process
4. Studio School Staff
5. Academics
6. Assessment & Evaluation
7. Professional Development
8. Budget Options

a. Ideal
b. School-within-a-school

Studio School Research:
1. System Change &/or Improvement
2. Sustainability & Replication

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.

School-Within-A-School Budget Option