The Adventure Continues!

When we met in November, our team officially began its adventure. We got to know each other quickly through a series of problem-solving challenges, explored the MURSD Portrait of a Learner and the "superpowers" they provide to our students, and brainstormed a variety of learning opportunities that will help us to explore our superpowers. (Phew! That was a lot for one day!)

In our February 2020 workshop, our adventure continued! During this session, we reconnected as a team, engaged in a rapid prototyping process to design our adventure, and decided which adventure we'll pursue. It was an awesome day of teamwork, design thinking, and excitement as our adventure continued! 

Adventure Warm Up

A great way to build creative energy and get to flow is through short bursts of structured exercises, or warm-ups, unrelated to our design problem."   
​Molly Clair Wilson, Creator of Protobot.org
Our work in this session asked us to dive into the design process as we turned our creative ideas into a reality. Our first activity helped us to get reacquainted with our team, refresh our memories about the Portrait of a Learner, and have some fun with the design process. 
Through each of the three rounds, our team members connected with a person from a different school. During each round we explored one of the following prompts. 
  • Round 1: What is your favorite Portrait of a Learner superpower? Why?
 
  • Round 2: What do you think the difference is between a field trip and a Learning Adventure? (Check out how our team answered this prompt in the image on the right.)
​
  • Round 3: Behind your name tag you will find a design challenge. With your partner, draw as many different solutions as you can think of to this prompt. Each round will last one minute in length. 

Learning Adventure Survivor

During the first session, we generated so many great ideas! Our challenge today will be to narrow the list of adventures down to just one that represents the interests of the entire group. To begin this work, we will divide into six "Survivor-style" tribes. Each of the tribes represents a type of adventure that our team could experience based on the ideas shared in November. These teams will be asked to review each of the suggested adventures based on the following criteria: 
  • Can it be done in one day?
  • Is the budget reasonable?
  • Does it provide opportunities for active involvement of all team members?
  • Does it connect to what we learn about in school?
  • Does it provide you with the opportunity to practice/use your MURSD Portrait of a Learner superpowers?
Based on the team's review, they will suggest two ideas for our Learning Adventure team to consider and will present them to the team. 
While our teams were worked, we shared an immunity challenge! Our teams worked together to solve a riddle that led to the location of an immunity idol they could use to save any of the Learning Adventure ideas proposed by the team. Click here to see the challenge and solution. 

Our Learning Adventure Tribes and Suggested Learning Adventures

SYNERGY
​Team Building and Problem-solving
  • Create a Zoo-musement Park
  • Create an escape room
  • Explore a ropes course
  • Learn how to play cricket
  • Experience rock climbing
  • Make a documentary in a particular location (airport) 
ALTRUISM
Serving Our Community
  • Go on a mission trip
  • Help the homeless
  • Create a handicapped accessible playground
  • Create a playground out of recycled materials
  • Plant a butterfly or community garden
EXPLORATION
Exploring Our Environment
  • Go on a kayaking or hiking adventure
  • Participate in a team scavenger hunt
  • Explore geocaching
  • Develop skills outdoor living amd survival skills (ie camping, making shelter, fishing, starting a fire in the wilderness)
ARTISTRY
Exploring the Arts
  • Create something through glassblowing
  • Paint a mural in the community
  • Create a photo journal of our journey
  • Explore artistic expression including painting, pottery, etc
  • Write and perform a play
  • Make a movie
INNOVATION
Creating, Innovating & Repurposing
  • Build and race a cardboard boat  
  • Find something broken and fix it
  • Invent something
  • Renovate and rebuild something
​OCCUPATION
Experiencing a Day in the Life​
  • Through career shadowing, experience a day in the life of a: 
    • Sports player
    • Newscaster
    • Podcaster
    • Teacher 
    • Other professions/careers?
  • Visit a professional workplace 

Adventure Tribal Council 

At the conclusion of our initial round, we will began our Survivor-style "tribal council". Gathering in the media center, we discussed the adventures, make a case for our favorite ideas, and then cast a vote to eliminate ideas from our list. 

We encouraged our team to build an alliance to support your idea. Make your case for the Learning Adventure they were most excited for. Convince the tribes to vote as they wished. 

The Tribe Has Spoken!

After completing our tribal council, each of our Learning Adventure team members made their way to the voting area where they shared their opinion about which idea to "vote off the island". Our team agreed that there this was extremely challenging because all of the ideas are Learning Adventures that we'd like to explore. Regardless, we used the our collaborative conversations, personal interests, and individual curiosities to narrow down the list. 
​The twelve Learning Adventure ideas they considered included: 
  • Synergy: Create an escape room & make a documentary
  • Altruism: Volunteer at a homeless shelter & plant a community garden
  • Exploration: Geocaching with challenges related to outdoor living skills or Block Island Adventure
  • Artistry: Glassblowing & Explore artistic expression
  • Innovation: Refurbish furniture from a flea market & race a cardboard boat
  • Occupation: Career shadow at a hospital & shadow a professional athlete
By the end of the event, the tribe had spoken and had narrowed the list of twelve potential Learning Adventures to six!

Learning Adventure App Design

Once we narrowed our list of ideas down to just six, it was time to consider the details, design the experience, and pitch it to our group.

For this challenge, we worked in groups to build an app store of all of our Learning Adventure options. Working with the provided materials, our teams created a template for an app interface. Each group's poster included:
  • A title
  • A 10-word or less description to catch our attention
  • An app logo
  • A description of the Learning Adventure (see the storytelling prompts we've provided) 
  • A list of curriculum connections, showing how the Learning Adventure relates to what we learn in school
  • Highlights of the connection to the Portrait of a Learner by listing the most relevant "I can..." statements
  • A rating and a review of what you think a person might say about this Learning Adventure. 
As they build your app, they considered how they would present this information to the Learning Adventure Team. 

Welcome to the Learning Adventure App Store!

In just a short time, our Learning Adventure teams were able to collaborate in order to design learning experiences that will truly inspire! After collecting the creative and inspiring app designs, we transformed their brainstormed drafts into digital versions, allowing us to create our Learning Adventure App Store. 

Take a moment to browse the store... Now, imagine how exciting it would be for students to plan their learning experiences in school by downloading the experiences that match their curiosities, aspirations for growth, future plans, and interests. Consider how this type of "on demand" menu of innovative learning can help us to bring of vision to learning to life. 

We bet you can't wait to download their ideas!
View the slideshow above to see how each team's sketches of
their app designs have been transformed into a digital app store. 

Learning Adventure Shark Tank

Have you seen Shark Tank, the show where people with innovative ideas pitch them to potential collaborators? Well, in this Learning Adventure activity it was our learners turn to step into the tank! 

Along with their group members, they presented their own innovative idea - their Learning Adventure app - to the team. They were prepared for feedback, as each member of our group provided some ideas or questions during the presentation. After each group presented, we conducted our final vote to decide upon our Learning Adventure. 

And the winner is in!  Leaving a Legacy!

Using a rank/sorted vote on SurveyMonkey, our Learning Adventure team members voted for their top adventure options.
​See the results below. 

What's Next? 

As wrapped up our day, we spent time with two final challenges: brainstorming and reflection. 
  • Brainstorming: Our group helped us plan the Learning Adventure by adding suggestions of ideas we should consider in planning the adventure. They put single ideas on each sticky note, giving us a bank of thoughts to act as a starting point. 
  • Reflection: Our Learning Adventure work is focused not only on which adventure we choose but also on what we can learn from this process. To share their work and learning, Learning Adventure team members recorded their reflections using Flipgrid, capturing their thoughts and ideas about our collaboration, the Portrait of a Learner, and the adventure to come! Check out their thoughts by viewing the videos in the Flipgrids linked at the buttons below. ​

​Check out our Learning Adventure Team in Action!