Innovation School making headway
What officials are calling a never-before partnership between a school district and university is progressing with a goal to create innovative leaders and lifelong learners who will positively impact Lee County’s ever-changing society.
The Innovation School journey began in August 2018 with a memorandum of understanding, providing the opportunity for the School District of Lee County and Florida Gulf Coast University to work together, a first in the nation, according to Chief Academic Officer Dr. Jeff Spiro.
FGCU interim Dean Dr. Thomas Roberts said nothing could be more important than educating the community’s youth and preparing teachers to be ready for when they enter the classroom.
“The Innovation School is a great opportunity for us to prove that public education can and will adjust,” he said.
Roberts said it is about being the best they can be, while being bold enough to lead and work together to transform the young lives in the community.
“They can in turn transform their communities in society as a whole,” he said.
The creation of the Innovation School, Pre-K to 8th grade, has been challenging for education leaders, as they have to look into the future five to 20 years, while improving the quality of life for students, teachers, the community, state, nation and beyond.
The mission of the Innovation School is to “foster educational learning opportunities that inspire individuals’ innovative thinking, creative expression, collaborative engagement, effective communication and critical thinking into action.”
On March 9, 2021, the school board gave its consensus for the Innovation School site, located on Treeline Avenue, followed by approval to work with RG Architects for the design of the building on July 27, 2021.
The district created subcommittees, which consist of professional development and curriculum, communication and community engagement and facilities and construction. The visioning and programming work began on May 12 with RG Architects, as the committee has met every two weeks.
Teaching and Learning Director Dr. Bethany Quisenberry said their Summer Series and Professional Development Pilot attracted more than 1,000 teachers, who were able to design their own path for professional development, choosing from more than 260 sessions.
“Teachers were able to choose those pieces that we had already isolated out to be innovative for that school,” she said.
The workshops included Teach Me to Teach: Playing our Way Through Classroom Experience; There’s Always Time to Play: Why Our Students Need it; Student Choice in Kindergarten: Developing Work Stations that Foster Student Agency; Introduction to Universal Design for Learning and Application of Universal Design for Learning.
The school will focus on inquiry-based learning while focusing on collaboration, communication, critical thinking and creativity.
Superintendent Dr. Christopher Bernier said the Innovation Center is a professional development center where all teachers can come to learn. He said what teachers and FGCU are bringing to the table is an opportunity to revolutionize instruction.
“This is a way for us to change the way all of our teachers approach instruction,” he said.
Professional Development Assistant Director Dr. Helen Martin said today’s learners are different, as they want to be active participants in learning, set their own goals and see where they are, while having quick tangible measures of success.
“Because of these shifts, today’s students, tomorrow’s leaders need collaboration, communication, critical thinking and creativity,” she said.
RG Architects Architect Javier Salazar said the Innovation School, which is in the design stage, is research driven.
The three areas that impact the student learning progress includes individual student variability at 50 percent, teacher effectiveness at 30 percent and physical learning environment at 16 percent.
Salazar said there needs to be flexibility to address learning in different spaces, the teacher having tools at their disposal and creating different spaces for learning.
The presentation broke down the designs into five options ranging from a traditional classroom to a flexible open plan that can be closed off, or opened. The research resulted in having a space that provided an open plan with the ability to have multiple combinations.
The design should have flexibility for movement and space for learning activities; individualization for personalized activity settings and the right sized furniture; naturalness and nature to provide connections to nature and natural light providing comfort and stimulation providing the right size and appropriate colors, Salazar said.
“Every learner is different,” he said. “Research shows that space does matter.”
Spiro said a meeting that was held the third week of June was the most challenging day to date.
“We had to put it all into action. This is going to be a school with inquiry based learning, critical creative learning and active participation,” he said.
The educators were given different shapes to represent classrooms and they had to work as teams to create what a possible learning suite would look like. From there the committee provided recommendations of the possibilities of those spaces.
The idea was to be bold and innovative.
The tentative opening of this school is set for the fall of 2025.
Salazar said they need to understand what it means programmatically for the campus, how big of a footprint they would need to support 1,200 students. He said you start with due diligence by understanding the site at hand and what can fit on that site.
“In this case it is a little different. All those things need to be put into a mixer and put into the report,” he said of the environmental assessment that has been done on the property.
Board member Cathleen Morgan said everyone is going to have to “stretch” as they talk about the Innovation School, as they need to understand how they came to the place they are landing.
“I love how it is research based. You all had me at inquiry based,” she said.
To reach MEGHAN BRADBURY, please email news@breezenewspapers.com