Exploring Student Voice at LearnLaunch2020
What do students think about the future of education? What about the present of education?
Ted Sizer said it best: “You can’t motivate a student you don’t know.” At LearnLaunch, we work hard to put student voices front and center in the conversation. Let’s take a look at how we include current students – their experiences, their needs, and their goals – at LearnLaunch Across Boundaries.
Learning Innovation Showcase
Long a highlight of the conference, the Learning Innovation Showcase fills Friday morning with the energy and excitement of student teams from across New England. Each team of four students and their teachers sets up a table to share the innovative practices from their classrooms, then cycles through 1-minute pitches in front of the whole room.
For students, it’s an opportunity to present in front of an authentic audience of interested adults who are deeply engaged in the education sector – last year, Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education Jeff Riley stopped by between sessions and stuck around to try a virtual reality tour put together by students from Fitchburg Middle School!
For educators, it’s a chance to see what peers in other schools are doing to personalize learning and apply new technologies in the classroom.
And for policymakers, entrepreneurs, and education business leaders, it’s a moment to speak directly to students about their experiences with using advanced technologies and new pedagogies.
If you’re a teacher looking for opportunities to share your students’ work and learn from your peers about innovations in the classroom, consider applying to join this year’s Learning Innovation Showcase. The link is below and the deadline is Sunday, November 17th, 2019.
Past projects
We’re amazed by the projects that students and their teachers bring to the Learning Innovation Showcase each year. Here are a few examples from the 2019 conference to give you a taste of what’s to come!
Sharing New Realities in VR/AR: Virtual Reality Tours
Fitchburg Middle School – Fitchburg, MA
Bringing History to Life with 3D Design
Dedham Country Day School – Dedham, MA
Innovation Bioreactors
Greater Lawrence Technical School – Lawrence, MA
Practicing Sustainable Gardening with the Raspberry Pi
North Reading High School – North Reading, MA
Student Ignite Speakers
Beyond the Learning Innovation Showcase, we elevate student voice at the conference by bringing high achieving young people onto the main stage. In 2019, we featured ignite talks by Carla Duran Capellan, a student at Middlesex Community College and former representative to the student leadership board for Generation Citizen, and Steven Wang, a high school student from Cranbrook, MI and the co-founder and CEO of a virtual reality science lab emulator. Watch Carla and Steven’s talks on the #LearnLaunch2019 YouTube channel to hear what they had to say about being a student in 2019.
Concurrent sessions
You’ll see them at the Learning Innovation Showcase, you’ll see them on the main stage, but students are also involved in the panel discussions during our concurrent sessions. Where appropriate, we invite students to join the conversation alongside teachers, principals, researchers, journalists, and CEOs. Here’s a high school student from Greater Lawrence Technical School joining best-selling author Michael Horn in a discussion on moving to competency-based learning.
Are you ready to hear from the students at LearnLaunch2020?
Register today to get the best rate on the conference and to join the conversation. We’ll see you in January!