Chapters International

Overview:

If you are teaching young people in the 21st century, you know we are at a new juncture: We are shaping the most materially endowed, the most digitally connected, most culturally diverse, and the most knowledge-rich generation to date-at a time when we are the most physically disconnected (Mc Crindle, 2020). As educators, we know that our positive influence resides in our response-ability: the way we take up young people’s questions, ideas, and dreams.

This virtual series is for educators working with children ages 5-13 years, who want to create hands-on experiences to playfully generate and transfer ideas with agency, artistry, and understanding as learning intentions. As a collective of pedagogical artists and learning activists, we will explore the theory and practice of Pop-Up Studio as a process and a platform for responsive teaching across diverse and personal contexts.

SERIES OBJECTIVES:

We will use active learning approaches to:

Deepen our practical understanding of what it means to be a learner today and the possible implications this has for our curriculum and pedagogy
Explore the critical and creative learning possibilities that can be unleashed when we strategically combine concepts, materials, and playful experience-making approaches
Experience the role of materials play in meaning-making
Design action plans to create pop-up studios in diverse and personal contexts
Develop conducive dispositions and practices for coaching conversations that center learners and learning as sites for connection, trust, and growth

REQUIRED TEXT:

Pop-Up Studio: Responsive Teaching for Today’s Learners by Misty Paterson with Janice Novakowski (2021). A free sample chapter, print and digital copies will be available at https://popupstudioed.com/

ANTICIPATED AGENDA:

Session 1: Preparation as Inquiry: Examining Beliefs, Practices, and Evidence

What beliefs, practices, and evidence do we need to cultivate to be pedagogical artists and learning activists with and for today’s learners? We’ll compose a constellation of pedagogical beliefs, principles, and practices that inform Pop-Up Studio as a process and platform for responsive teaching. We’ll create personal action plans to facilitate inquiry, conceptual understanding, and play with young people within our unique and diverse settings.

Session 2: Lesson Design as Empowerment: Cultivating Joy, Clarity, and Intent

How might we design for immersive, expertise-building experiences that are also playful and delightful? What criteria will we use to determine success? We’ll explore the anatomy of Pop-Up Studio and consider the conditions needed to activate agency, artistry, and understanding using authentic classroom examples.

Session 3: Learning Materials as Thinking Partners: Engaging Memory, Meaning, and Delight

How might everyday materials create entry points for learners to inquire into key and related concepts? How might these same materials support learners in consolidating and communicating approaches to learning? We’ll build a collective cabinet of curiosities, along with a compelling experience menu, to inspire critical, creative, and conceptual thinking across the curriculum.

Participants are asked to try a pop-up studio in their context prior to session 4.

Session 4: Coaching Conversations as Care: Kindling Connection, Trust, and Growth

How might we prepare for, initiate, and scaffold purposeful conversations that center the learner and the learning process? We’ll explore what it means to engage a professional marveller’s mindset in mandated curricular settings and create a collective manifesto that supports young people’s right to be seen and heard as fellow humans facing the unique challenges of the world today.

PLATFORM, MATERIALS AND RESOURCES:

Participants will connect through the ZOOM meetings platform. They will need a laptop, headphones / earbuds, access to everyday materials (e.g., objects that surround us), and a quiet space to be. Participants will agree to use the video and sound function to enable full participation. The workshop will not be recorded.

MISTY PATERSON

Misty is a teacher, parent, and certified, independent concept-based teaching consultant with over 20 years of experience across preschool, elementary, and university classrooms. She holds a Master of Arts in Curriculum and Instruction specializing in cross-faculty inquiry, and is pursuing a PhD in Art Education with a focus on artistry. Misty is well versed in the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme and has facilitated pedagogical transformations in partnership with hundreds of educators, learners, and families across North America and beyond. Misty has embodied virtually every school stakeholder position you can think of: administrator, parent, IB PYP coordinator, parent council co-chair, consultant, and of course, student. These positions have made Misty more empathetic to the many ways school curricula can improve—and the many blocks to achieving that.

As the founder of Pop-Up Studio and author of the best-selling Pop-Up Studio book, Misty champions a creative model of education. She empowers educators of all kinds to integrate concepts, inquiry, and play into multimodal studio spaces at a kitchen table, around a microscope, under a tree, across a classroom desk—anywhere, really! Misty is a trusted leader in responsive teaching practices and a lifelong learner herself. Follow Misty on Twitter @PatersonMisty and Instagram @popupstudioed