Taylor’s first class of the day is her Humanities Block – her favorite. The Learning Studio is a classroom with a variety of learning spaces.  There are spaces for independent work at a desk, as well as space on a carpet with bean bags, pillows, portable lap desks, and soft chairs. The Humanities Block is divided into two parts: Seminar and Lab.  Yesterday, Taylor had Humanities Seminar.  In this class, her two teachers start the class by breaking down the learning target, so she knows the goal of the lesson.  During this unit, Taylor and her classmates have been reading excerpts from the book, It’s Getting Hot in Here: The Past, Present and Future of Climate Change, practicing using annotation strategies to determine key details and summarize the main ideas. Taylor then worked in a small group to put together a 3-D model and presentation to DC City Council members, to inform them about the effects of climate change in DC and proposing neighborhood-specific emergency preparedness actions. Her teacher checked in from time to time to make sure her team was on the right track, but Taylor and her group are so engaged in the work it didn’t take much to keep them focused.

After Humanities, Taylor has her Math Block.  Math is not Taylor’s best subject, but she knows the progress she has made since the beginning of the year. Her teacher, Mr. Jackson, gives them a challenging problem to “grapple” with in a small group of 8 students.  Grapple is Mr. Jackson’s favorite word.  He tells Taylor’s class all the time that math is about struggling a bit to solve problems.  It takes Taylor and her partner, Toni, several tries to answer the word problem Mr. Jackson gave out. But Taylor was excited when she realized her answer was correct and shared with the class how she and her partner solved the problem. In Math LAB, Toni and Taylor like to work together on her Zearn lessons.  Since this is connected to her goal of improving her math data, Taylor appreciates having the work time in class to complete it. Toni is a few lessons ahead of her in math, so Toni normally helps Taylor when something stumps her.  Today, however, when a word problem didn’t make sense, Taylor helped Toni break it down.  The Lab Coach came over to listen and said, “Good thinking!  Taylor, where can you capture those notes?” Taylor jotted down her notes in her math journal. After about 30 minutes they switched gears and gave each other feedback on their climate change data graphs. The Lab Coach showed Taylor how to modify the labels on her graphs to give the reader more information.

Each Wednesday, Taylor has a half day of Lab Courses.  After Town Hall, she reports to Lab and logs into Canvas to check her progress and set goals for today.  She always meets with Ms. Turner, her Crew Leader, on Wednesdays at 10:15.  During these Office Hours, they go over Taylor’s progress towards her goals and create a weekly plan. Together, they check her progress against her own personal goals and work toward completion of her Expedition projects. Ms. Turner is pleased that Taylor has taken initiative to support her classmates in completing their advocacy letters. She tells Taylor that makes her a leader. Taylor smiles to herself and feels so proud to be a student at Capital Village PCS. 

Taylor loves heading to Science after lunch on Tuesdays and Fridays. Her class is currently in the middle of a unit on weather and climate, of course. She and her classmates are building models to show different examples of how Earth’s interconnected systems (the geosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere) interact to shape weather and climate. Today, each group is presenting their plan for building their models to the class. They will be asking questions and giving each other feedback according to the rubric they created together. Taylor is a little nervous about public speaking, but her teacher, Mr. Johnson, has helped her class create a space that feels safe, where it’s ok to make mistakes and learn from them.