Connect to evolve student learning at Collab Lab

Name: CL56: Heeding the Call of the Student
Start: 2023-10-12T17:30:00-05:00
End: 2023-10-12T20:30:00-05:00
Location: WE Energies STEM Center at MSOE

collab-lab-4c — Ward 4 entrepreneur space provides an inspiring setting for our discussion nights

How often do you have an opportunity to connect with colleagues in other districts to share innovative practices in education?

Learn Deep brings educators from across Milwaukee together to share what we’re working on to benefit our students. Each gathering includes individuals from organizations in the greater Milwaukee community who have looked at parallel innovation practices from another perspective. Together, we explore the goals educators hope to reach, hurdles which stand in the way, and opportunities to move forward, however small at first.

Collab Labs provide an opportunity to learn what strategies others have used to succeed, and to solicit help and feedback from others who have worked towards similar goals.

We’re practicing what we preach, so Collab Labs are also evolving from season to season. This year, we’ve developed our calendar of topics along the Hero’s Journey concept that we’ve started introducing in our project design work with teachers. Although each individual Collab Lab can be enjoyed as a standalone workshop, teachers making use of one of our 4 Community Engaged PBL Frameworks will find the connection to student project work extra valuable.

Each Collab Lab is focused on a specific topic relevant to Community Engaged Learning. Past topics included ‘Youth Mental Health challenges‘, ‘Maker Spaces‘, ‘Finding Room to Innovate‘ and ‘Engaging Community Partners‘. At each session we bring in featured participants from schools and the broader community who have significant and often unique experience in the subject at hand. Across all of our attendees, you’ll find folks who are willing and open to share what they know to help others in the room, whether that’s an approach to a problem, a strategy to get buy-in, or connections to others that can help.

Participation in our Collab Labs is always free, but space is limited. Our dates and topic focus can be found in the listing to the right on this page.

This is our 8th season of Collab Labs. We’re happy to be meeting each other in person again. We ask our attendees to follow appropriate social distancing and masking guidelines as set by our hosting organization, MSOE. This season we’ll be back in WE Energies STEM Center at MSOE for our Collab Labs.

Sponsorship opportunity

We invite organizations which are interested in fostering the kind of constructive conversation that leads to greater awareness, empathy and willingness to consider new ideas to inquire about Collab Lab sponsorship options.

To get a conversation started, please use our contact page.

Up Next

Collab Lab 56: Heeding the Call of the Student

Thursday, October 12th, 5:30 to 8:00 pm at the MSOE’s WE Energies STEM Center

Join us as we kick off our 8th season of Collab Labs with a discussion focused on the value of elevating student voice, and what might unfold when we do so. As always, you’ll be joined by peers and collaborators from K-12 higher education, industry, and the nonprofit community.

The contributions of middle and high school students at our last two Collab Labs of Season 7 added a new dimension to the conversations. In light of that we invite the participation of students in grade 7 and above at each of our sessions this year.

More Info:

Collab Lab 56: Heeding the Call of the Student

Who will you find at Collab Labs?

We pull in a diverse group of educators and others who are are looking for ways to help Milwaukee area schools move forward. Attendees have joined us from the following organizations:

K12 Schools

Arrowhead School District
School District of Beloit
Carmen Schools of Science and Technology
Cedarburg School District
Cudahy School District
Elmbrook Schools
Escuela Verde
Fox Point/Bayside School District
Holy Family
Kettle Moraine Lutheran High School
Kettle Moraine School District
MC²School District of Menomonee Falls
Milwaukee Jewish Day School
Milwaukee Montessori School
Milwaukee Public Schools
Muskego School District
New Berlin School District
Nicolet High School
Norris Academy
Notre Dame School of Milwaukee
Oak Creek Franklin School District
Pathways High
Pewaukee School District
Oregon School District
Racine Unified High School District
School District of South Milwaukee
Seton Catholic Schools
Shorewood School District
St. Joan Antida High School
St. Monica
St. Robert
St. Thomas More
Tenor High School
UCC Acosta Middle School
Union Grove Union High School District
University School of Milwaukee
Veritas High School
Wauwatosa Schools
School District of Whitefish Bay
West Allis-West Milwaukee School District
Wisconsin Lutheran High School

Higher Ed

Alverno College
Cardinal Stritch
Gateway Technical College
Marquette University
MATC
Medical College of Wisconsin
MIAD
MSOE
University of Wisconsin Milwaukee
University of Wisconsin – School of Education
Wisconsin Lutheran College

Business & Non-Profit

88.9 Labs
Artists Working In Education
ArtWorks for Milwaukee
Arts@Large
Betty Brinn Children’s Museum
Brinn Labs
Baird
Black Arts Think Tank
Bray Architects
Brady Corp.
Broad Street
Brookhill Institute of Mathematics
BU Magazine
CESA 1
The Commons
Dance Circus
David Jakes Designs
Design Fugitives
Digital Bridge
Employ Milwaukee
Epiphany Learning
GE Healthcare
Growing Minds
Groundwork Milwaukee
Haldeman Homme
Islands of Brilliance
Kohl’s
Johnson Controls
Junior Achievement, Wisconsin
LISC
Linden Grove Communities
Mad Genie
City of Milwaukee
Milwaukee 7
Milwaukee Makerspace
Milwaukee Repertory Theater
Milwaukee Succeeds
MKEGrind
MMSD
Next.cc
Northwestern Mutual
NVISIA
Project Foundry
Re-Creation Station
REDGen
Reflo
Riveredge Nature Center
Rockwell Automation
SafeNet Consulting
Sharp Literacy
Sixteenth Street Community Health Center
STEM Forward
Sustainable Formations
TEALS
Teens Grow Greens
Tiny Earth
Translator MKE
Urban Ecology Center
WI Department of Public Instruction
Workshop Architects
Young Enterprising Society
ZipMKE
Zoological Society of Milwaukee

Thu 12

Collab Labs Return
September 6, 2023

We’ll be back at MSOE’s STEM Center on Thursday October 12th to kick off our 8th season of Collab Labs. If you’ve been looking for an opportunity build connections with individuals who share your passion to do more for students, exchange ideas with folks inside and outside of K-12, and explore opportunities to collaborate, this is the place to do so. If you are a student that would like to see your school value all that you can bring, take on real challenges, and build connections to the broader community, this is your place to. Building off our experience with students in our April and May Collab Labs, we’re now extending a formal invite to middle and high school students who want to be part of the conversation. Our discussion topic for October is Heeding the Call of the Student — where do we hear that want to go, how can create opportunities for their concerns and passions to drive a richer exploration of what you had hoped to cover anyway? Collab Labs run 5:30 to 8:30 pm on the 2nd Thursday of each month October through May, except for January. There is no cost to attend, and beyond great people and great conversations, we provide food and drinks. We look forward to seeing you there.

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Collab Lab 55: Recap & Notes
May 18, 2023

How does mental health manifest itself in k12education? How is it compromised and what are the levers we may use to positively impact the learning culture for our students (and teachers etc.) May is Mental Health Month. It felt appropriate to continue the work our #CollabLab54 attendees had begun with a follow up conversation. So last Thursday, we hosted Collab Lab 55 to create a safe space for conversations about the factors that influences mental health negatively/positively for students, teachers and others, such as trust, empathy in education, difficult conversations etc.. Building on our first conversation in April, we gave our attendees a first draft of a model map of factors we collected together. Attendees at each table reviewed this map for accuracy and completeness using their particular perspective. They could focus on a specific area, review it as a particular stakeholder, etc. This was truly a ‘kitchen table conversation’ where people from different backgrounds, ages and experiences engaged in open dialog about what they experience every day. Together we identified how many of these factors are connected (but differently for teachers and students) and what we might do to break through the negative cycle many are experiencing. You can find our updated mapping here: Where might this lead?- Over the coming months, we’d like to see additional conversations taking place with people representing all stakeholders at the table- We’re going to make our STEM Studio time available over the summer for teachers (and students) to participate in a student project design lab.- we’d like see a project develop to add stories from students, teachers, parents to the map as illustrations of when culture ‘works’ to affirm students and build a positive culture of respect and collaboration in learning. There are many more opportunities that present themselves from having a comprehensive mapping like this. We’ll be exploring those over the coming months. Curious about the map that’s is under development? Have an idea you’d like to explore to address youth mental health in education? Since this was our final official Collab Lab of the 2022-23 school year, We want to thank Milwaukee School of Engineering for offering the use of the STEM Center this year (and again in the coming school year!), as well as Northwestern Mutual for sponsoring ‘our lab room’ in the STEM Center. The Collab Lab formula keeps getting better every season. We’re grateful for all of our attendees who came out for one of the Thursday evening sessions. We look forward to seeing many of you again next season and can’t wait to hear what cool learning you are offering your students as a result of the conversations you’ve had. Have a great summer!

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Collab Lab 54: Recap & Notes
April 26, 2023

Collab Lab 54 explored issues around youth mental health and violence. One of our largest groups to date, which included middle and high school student leaders, focused on factors that impact the degree to which students and teachers feel safe and affirmed at school. Matt Nink and Vanessa Rodriguez from SKY Schools kicked things off for us with a mindfulness exercise, after which we dove into the discussion. The output of those conservations was a long list of interrelated factors, and some initial thoughts on how those influence each other. We pulled those factors into the first draft of a system map. If you’re not familiar with a system map, each of the factors identified in the Collab Lab is represented as a node. Solid arrows connecting two nodes indicate that an increase in the factor represented by the first node leads to an increase in the factor represented by the second node. A dashed line indicates a negative relationship between nodes. As an example, zooming in on one area of the map, we indicate that Students’ feeling of affirmation are driven by level of student voice and leadership, and in turn an increase in the degree to which students feel affirmed at school leads to higher levels of respect for teachers and greater levels of engagement. Conversely, we suspect that an increase in the frequency of policing interventions will lead to a decrease in students’ feeling of affirmation. We invite you to explore the map in greater detail here. Again, this is a first draft, we haven’t been able to connect all of the factors raised in the session, so we know we are either missing nodes, or don’t understand how those do connect. It’s also likely that the connections we show between nodes might be off, and the phrasing used for some of the factors is unclear. Your feedback and ideas are more than welcome. Let us know what you see, or join us for Collab Lab 55 on May 11th, where we’ll use the discussion to get to an improved version, identify nodes where community partners are already focused, where some of the projects we’re looking at for the 2023-24 intersect and how this mapping might inform how we approach those. A special thanks to Kyle Ashley, Lawrence Battle, Nate Deans, Clintel Hasan, Maria Hamidu, and Sharlen Moore who got us started on this path, helped us plan the session, and recruit participants. A big thanks to the students from Glen Hills Middle School, Pathways and Reagan High Schools, and Youth Forward MKE sharing your voices and experience, and keeping the discussion focused on issues that matter most to youth!

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Collab Lab 53 Recap & Notes
March 31, 2023

What if students could see their work and stories impact the community? Collab Lab 53 attendees explored new or unexplored ways in which educators might enable students to share their voice and practice advocating for a cause they believe in. They explored: What experience(s) can we offer to give students a story worth telling? What do students need from those experiences to have a story worth telling? What are the assets we can draw upon to help students tell effective stories/share their work? Experiences we can give We surfaced 4 major themes as we introduced examples of impressionable storytelling to each other at our tables Creating an inventory of experiencesOur attendees this evening first discussed an often overlooked aspect of storytelling: In order to be able to tell a story with conviction, passion etc. you need to have experienced it or something like it. How do you create space in your approach to teaching to start building that inventory of experiences? What experiences should you prioritize on, because they are new or unique and not part of the reference context that students bring to your classroom? Discovery and IdentityMany teachers may have students in their groups that do have a lot of personal experience with certain issues, such as food insecurity or housing instability. Those experiences have certainly contributed to identity development of the individual student. That offers the opportunity to explore what that identity is and how the identity of the narrator influences the telling of the story. What are the biases that the storyteller may bring with her that may present a certain perspective. How do I as a teacher create opportunities to explore identity and bias in story telling and enable students to practice? Using animals as proxy to tell the storyWhat would happen to the strength, color, impact of the story one narrates if we put ourselves in the place of an animal proxy? Will the story become more interesting to our audience because we take the human identity out of the equation? How can we as teachers encourage students to step outside their identity and tell the story from a (neutral) point of view? Talking WITH the person, not ABOUT the personAnd lastly, we can make our story more engaging and impactful if we engage our audience in the process. That means learning how to consider the audience, the perspectives that the individuals in that audience bring to the room, and how we can be respectful towards them while we also have a position that may differ from theirs, at least at the start of the story. What students need Before we get to the technicalities of developing a great story, we need to understand what many of our students need in order to get to a place where they feel safe and trusted enough to want to explore that. Many have been ‘burned’ by people in their environment (including sometimes teachers) in their interactions to the extent that they are confused and distrusting of intentions. Layer on top of that the many voices that are generated through access to technology, and by technology (Bots, AI, etc.) If we want to create space for student practice in storytelling and advocating for their interest (or that of their community or group), how do we as teachers recognize our students’ needs? How do we create our own space to learn and practice, knowing that the pacing guide dictates what we should be teaching, when? Authenticity of exposure Trust Safety – safe spaces Passion for an issue – connection to an interest, their world Opportunity and time to reflect Assets All humans have a need to share through storytelling What students bring: Rapidly building life experiences Developing identity (with a lot of uncertainty) A curiosity about the world they are experiencing What we can provide them: Interest in hearing them individually Ability to assemble resources, create experiences Structure through Process: Engineering and scientific process Are you actively experimenting with ways in which you can guide your students into deeper learning about the various stories they might consume and how they need ‘listen’ to them? We’d love to hear about your experiences! Need some support and guidance as you start to explore what you can do for your students? Let’s explore some experiments that you can try without a lot of planning time. Consider sharing your experience so far by joining the Collab Lab space on our Collaborative Learning Community ‘inspirEd’. Check it out, we’d love to welcome you into the inspirEd Community Thanks go out toOur featured guests: Katie Felten – CEO and Brand Strategist, Strategy House Marissa Jablonski – Executive Director, Freshwater Collaborative of Wisconsin Supporting organizations: MSOE for use of their space at WE Energies STEM Center Northwestern Mutual for sponsoring the NM classroom at MSOE STEM Center Our next Collab Lab Join a diverse group of Milwaukee community members who share a concern about the rising number of Milwaukee youth struggling with mental health challenges preventing them from successfully participating in their education. Collab Lab 54: Student Led Collaboration to Address Youth Mental Health

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Collab Lab 51: Recap and Notes
December 14, 2022

Collab Lab 51 attendees explored the hopes and fears attendees commonly express having when it comes to letting students drive the issues that are the focus of their learning. What do we hope for when we offer students the opportunity to pursue issues they are passionate about? What fears might hold us back from doing so? Hopes Across the discussion groups we heard a number of common themes among the hopes that were expressed — that students feel heard, they are motivated and engaged in work that is meaningful to them, they have the opportunity to discover what it is that they do care about, that the work allows them to build the skills, confidence, and empathy to take on more complex challenges. We also heard hopes for what that process could look like — that students have a chance to iterate and learn from missteps along the way, that we are able to design and support project based learning experience effectively, with scaffolding in place that allows students to take on the work, that teachers are equipped and supported as they do this work with students. The overarching paradigm for participants is that student driven issues would drive the process of project based learning: allowing students to discover their passions and to let those passions drive their education. Fears Moving forward to create opportunities for student driven work won’t happen if we don’t recognize and address the fears that hold us back as teachers. Chief among those is that a lack of structure on an open ended project could lead to chaos, with some students left behind. Our participants also worry school or district leadership won’t recognize what’s going on in the classroom as productive learning, that it deviates from curriculum, that we won’t hit standards, and don’t have the right tools to evaluate student learning progress. Other fears center on the challenges we might offer students — what if the topic fails to engage them, we don’t have the time or support to pull it off, or are blocked by competing curriculum demands. Participants also noted fears students themselves might have — how they will know if they are making progress, that they won’t get “the right answer”, that it feels weird to take on work that is by nature open-ended. Next Steps Our final question of the evening focused on what one might do in the next 30 days to push things forward. For our participants, the key to moving forward is building the support to take some risks and align resources that can both support and inspire students in their work. That’s the hard work that teachers find difficult to navigate individually. The inspirEd Community recently established a Collab Lab group to explore these and other topics in a community setting. Consider joining the Community if this sounds like something that could help you in your teaching. Acknowledgements We are especially grateful to our featured participants for the experience and insight they brought to the discussion: Leslie Fee – Talent Manager – Development, J.W. Speaker Clintel Hasan – Strategic Initiatives Manager, Milwaukee Succeeds, GMF Maria Hamidu – High School Success Project Coordinator, Milwaukee Succeeds, GMF Adam Hengel – Coordinator of Instructional Services, West Allis/West Milwaukee School District Chad Johnson – CEO and Founder of Tip-a-Script, Milwaukee Thanks again to MSOE’s STEM Center for hosting our Collab Lab series this season.

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Collab Lab 50: Recap & Notes
November 30, 2022

We hit a milestone with last Thursday’s Collab Lab — our 50th session since we started in the summer of 2016! Thanks to all the attendees who were there to celebrate with us in person. The focus for the evening was Community Engaged Science for K12 students (AKA community engaged research or citizen science) — what do we hope students might gain, what assets we can bring to bear to support the work, and what we can do in the short term to move towards those goals. We started the conversation by asking participants what community engaged science means to them. Beyond goals such as “the chance to see what professionals are working on and how they approach their research”, beyond “opportunities to engage in or contribute to research efforts that extend beyond the classroom”, and even beyond “:giving students a chance to connect with scientists in industry, higher education or government agencies”, was the idea that the community is engaged in deciding the issues to focus community research and science on. That set us up nicely to talk about our goals for students. Goals for students Participants had a broad range of goals for student involvement with community engaged science. From those several common themes emerged: We want students to see that they can make contributions, that science is something they can participate in, and that scientific understanding can empower them to be more effective citizens who can take on issues in their community and become stewards of the environment, We want students to see that they can be lifelong learners, that there are broad opportunities to apply scientific knowledge and skills, and that they can make connections with working scientists in the community who might serve as role models or mentors. We want this work to bring diverse voices, perspectives, and ways of knowing into conversations within science and and the focus areas for that work. Finally, we want students to experience the joy that can come from scientific investigation, discovery, and understanding. The question then becomes: “where are the scientists, the voices and perspectives, that we as educators may include in student inquiry projects?” Assets we know We took advantage of the broad mix of folks in the room to inventory the assets available to Milwaukee students and teachers. It turns out, there are a lot of resources and programs to explore ideas and connect with partners who can support community engaged science. Just consider this (not curated) list: Business/Professionals Higher-ed, nonprofits Badger State Science & Engineering Fair natural world school yard rivers, trails, & parks community partners multi-visit relationship follow-up curriculum (training and capacity needed) Project Lead The Way school Leadership teams, teachers, admin & district staff teacher experts extracurricular & interest groups local science projects (water inquiry project) SIFTR Other schools’ older & younger students media/news local science experts academia local government nonprofits Parks museums nature centers field experiences Green Schools Consortium Funding United way Donors choose ESSER Funds NSF MMSD (funds for green schools projects) Wisconsin DNR WSST NRF Partners/Physical Resources Teens Grow Greens WAEE local nature centers county parks systems Flex Farms users Museums UWM School of Freshwater Sciences Reflow MMSD Green Point Partners How do we move forward? Just knowing (or just now learning about) assets that are available, is nice but not very useful. We wrapped up the conversation by asking “What can we do in the next 30 days to get closer to your vision for community engaged science for K-12 students?” All of our discussion identified some version of “Continue the conversation with the folks I met here” as a key next step. This could be to: learn more about what another school or teacher(s) is doing, availability of programming or expertise offered by community partners, or for those partners, ways to better understand the needs and goals of educators. Acknowledgements We are especially grateful to our featured participants for the experience and insight they brought to the discussion: Jessica Knackert – Volunteer Coordinator, Wisconsin Department of Natural ResourcesPeter Lenaker – Physical Scientist, USGSChristopher Simenz – Practicum Coordinator, Clinical Professor, Marquette UniversityBernardo Traversari – Director of Science Outreach, Edgewood CollegeAdriana Vázquez – Director of Education & Public Programs, Milwaukee Public MuseumThanks again to MSOE’s STEM Center for hosting our Collab Lab series this season. Be part of the Conversation If you like the topics we select every month and would like to be part of the conversation, we invite you to join us next time for Collab Lab 51 (RSVP). We’ll explore how we can let students drive issues that are the focus of their work (essential component of inquiry based learning, student voice, project based learning). Come share your experience if you are practicing student inquiry with your students, or join the conversation by asking your questions to expand your thinking about how your peers do this and why they believe in this approach. Join us by RSVPing here

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Connect to evolve student learning at Collab Lab

Sponsorship opportunity

Up Next

Who will you find at Collab Labs?

CL56: Heeding the Call of the Student

CL57: Dealing with Uncertainty

CL58: Supporting Authentic Work

CL59: Facing Challenges/Recognizing Wins

CL60: What’s Your Monster in the Cave?

CL61: What Have We Learned From Students?

CL62: Return & Celebration

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