Preparing Learners for Their Future

College, Career, and Life Readiness

It is our belief that it is never too early to prepare children for the future, so as a creative team (admin, teachers, staff and other community stakeholders), we facilitate the college, career and citizenship readiness beginning the very first day of kindergarten.  As written in our vision framework, we believe that is it essential to equip learners for their future by providing them a learning environment through a personalized education where students become collaborators, critical and creative thinkers, and communicators. Learners are invested in their own learning path. 

We believe learning goes beyond the four walls of school, into the community and that to best prepare our learners, it is important we create an educational experience to mirror the real world. We believe the development of communication skills through unique community partnerships provides students opportunities to learn transferable skills for college, career, and life readiness. Examples include first graders working with health experts to create a health calendar for the Liberty community (online), second graders creating a butterfly garden from neglected memorial garden in our community, third graders addressing the global water crisis by hosting a silent auction, fourth grader proposing design ideas for an empty building to revitalize Liberty Square, and fifth graders hosting an Empty Bowls evening to raise awareness about hunger in Clay County.

As we navigate through the 21st century, there is an incredible sense of urgency to foster a culture of leaders who will continue developing our complex world. It is our responsibility and obligation to teach students the acquisition process of developing new ideas and redesigning existing ideas. We believe it is essential to empower creativity, equip learners and engage communities. We seek to develop and sustain a dynamic innovative culture for all those part of our EPiC journey. We are preparing learners for jobs not yet created and for an unknown future. If we build on the pillars of P21 skills, we are developing transferable skills that would be helpful in any industry. If we build on the strength of learners, we can help them apply their learning in any situation as they navigate an unknown future. And as we cultivate these skills and confidence within students, they will have the foresight and thought to help transform the world.

Our success as a school is built upon the foundation of engaging key stakeholders, both in and outside the organization, and authentic processes that constructed the components of our building and learning environment. It is essential we continue to include these stakeholders in our conversations and work and share our story freely across all leaders and stakeholder groups.

 “People driven by pursuit that push them on the edges are often not on the periphery, but on the frontier, testing the limits of what it is possible to withstand and discover.” - Sarah Lewis

Community Engagement Explored

Driving Question: How can we rethink education where students engage in the cultural, historic and civic amenities of Liberty and the greater KC area to deepen and extend their learning and provide purposeful experiences and focused reflection to discover knowledge, embrace skills and integrate values into their life?

As we have unpacked this driving question, we have identified three key areas to help us facilitate relevant learning experiences. We are excited to see this unfold this year. 

SERVICE LEARNING IN COMMUNITY

Discover: Service learning teaches civic responsibility by integrating meaningful service into the learning process, empowering and inspiring students to be citizens and architects of a better world. Through their service-learning activities, students apply classroom knowledge in practical settings to deepen their understanding of significant content.

Embrace: Students gain academic knowledge and skills, interpersonal skills, and self confidence. Service-learning provides students with opportunities to develop communication and collaboration skills. They can also gain important experience working with diverse members of the community.

Integrate: Students may better understand themselves and know their gifts and talents as they explore and develop ways to contribute to their communities. They can develop self confidence and an enhanced commitment to serving others.

Resources:

• National Service-Learning Clearinghouse
• Public Charities in Clay County

Examples thus far this year:

• Studio 4 has identified non-profits that need help, and they are committed to advocating for these non-profits as change makers. 
• Coming soon--Studio 5 will explore hunger within the community and how they can help. 

COMMUNITY AS RESOURCE: EXPLORATORY, EXPERTS, CREATIVITY

Discover: Community as resource teaches students to explore their world around them and inquire about different topics and interests as it relates to the “real world.” It also gives students access to the world beyond the classroom so students learn relevance and usefulness of content both in and out of school. Moving beyond the classroom walls diversifies learning opportunities, connecting school with daily life and real problems.

Embrace: Students explore their own passions and interests and use the world around them to enhance the learning process.

Integrate: Students gain the experience of working with experts in the community. They develop a sense of self-efficacy as they pursue interests, work with experts, and experience work in the real world.

Resources:

• How Can Schools Use Community as Resource–ASCD
• Partnering with Local Businesses to Display Student Artwork

Examples thus far this year:

• Butterfly garden experts for Studio 2
• Chefs and other visitors on STEM careers in Studio 5
• KMBC anchor for Studio 1 Recess Report and broadcasting skills

COMMUNITY IN PARTNERSHIP

Discover: Community in Partnership is an action-based approach, requiring students to partner with local businesses and act as consultants or freelancers, with the goal of framing a problem or opportunity, collecting data and research, providing and creating solutions, and possibly implementing ideas.

Embrace:  Students infuse their passions and skills into the action-based approach, identifying gifts and talents within themselves as they grow and learn.

Integrate: Students learn transferrable skills such as literacy, collaboration, and communication, along with real life partnerships and real life work that is deeply embedded in customized significant content.

Resources:

• School-Business Partnerships That Work–Education World

Examples thus far this year:

• Studio 3 explored the water crisis in the world and, as a result of their awareness, created works of art to sell and raise money for water.org

Students as Researchers

This past month, Studio 1 and Studio 2 have been busy researching as they both are in process of designing and producing something beautiful for the community. 

 Real Work:

Field research on plants and butterflies

Real Product:

Studio 1: A Plant Field Guide of plants in our Liberty community 

**** 

Studio 2: A designed Butterfly Garden for the Memorial Student Garden 

Real Audience:

The Liberty Community

Butterfly Research: Project-Based Learning

Challenge:

How can we engage today's 

modern learner in learning?

One of the ways we approached this challenge was to move away from teaching isolated subjects that could easily be "Googled" and engaged project-based learning for our students.

PROJECT OVERVIEW:

• Students will study the life cycle and needs of butterflies in order to create butterfly garden on the EPiC campus.

DRIVING QUESTION:

• How can we as butterfly experts and landscapers create an environment for butterflies to thrive at EPiC?

Learning Outcomes/Targets (Missouri Learning Standards):

• Identify and sequence life cycles (birth, growth, and development, reproduction and death) of animals (i.e., butterfly, frog, chicken, snake, dog).
• Identify and relate the similarities and differences among animal parents and their offspring or multiple offspring.
• Ask and answer questions such as who, what, where, when, why and how to demonstrate understanding of key details and in a text.
• Recall information from experiences or gather information from provided sources to answer questions.
• Construct maps with title and key
• Explain how specific images (e.g. a diagram showing how a machine works) contribute to and clarify a text.

AUTHENTIC PRODUCT:

• Redesigning a garden on campus into Butterfly Garden

PUBLIC AUDIENCE:

• All of Liberty and any visitors to our school

After writing a persuasive letter asking for permission to redesign the garden, students meet with the principal to discuss possibilities:

Research on the butterfly lifecycle:

Working with Liberty High School students surveying the space:

Deepening learning about butterflies through movement:

Exploring the butterfly habitat:

A Teacher's Perspective on Project-based Learning

Real work. Real audience. Relevant to students.

A huge part of our EPiC journey this year is to deepen our understanding in designing effective project-based learning experiences that engage, challenge, and cultivate the creativity of our students. We want to grow, learn, reflect, and share.

We sat down with our fourth grade team to hear their reflections and musings on project-based learning, technology integration, and collaboration.

#EPiCback2school

This week the doors opened to 300 eager students, ready for their new adventure to be EPiC everyday. The school buzzed of discoveries, collaboration, creation, and inquiry. 


Second graders embarked on a digital scavenger hunt, exploring their school and documenting the adventure through photos and pic collages. Third graders explored their personalized learning platforms and downloaded their first learning app.


Fourth graders identified character traits of change makers (their overarching theme for the year) by conducting experiments, and the fifth grade learning studio "cooked up a little learning", listened to an expert chef demonstrate creativity, and spent time getting to know one another.


In the halls, in the common spaces, in cubbies, together, individual. Conversations, quiet moments, focused learning.

As one of our fourth grade teachers reflected at the end of the day:

"50 kids, 2 teachers, 50 ipads, 25 explosions, hundreds of pictures, 50 bags of goop, one stellar parent helper, flexibility - creativity - innovation, 4 very full trash cans, buckets of safety goggles, lots of hugs, and a VERY supportive community = an EPiC first day of school.”

Be EPiC Everyday

Google. Dropbox. Netflix. Twitter. Innovative companies that have transformed our culture. Creativity will drive the economics of the future, but where in our current educational system do we actually allow the time and space for creativity? When you walk into a classroom can you see a difference between the 1980’s and today’s classroom?  Are students “dialing down” when they enter school? And if creativity really is the driver of the economy, what skills do our students need to be successful? In the spring of 2013, Liberty Public Schools began exploring these questions and more, resulting in a 20/20 Vision Innovations Team, comprised of administrators, teachers, parents, and board members. 

As we started to seek answers to these questions, we crossed the country and visited highly successful, innovative schools. We tapped into experts, read research and investigated different school models, ultimately discovering effective environments that empowered students to learn. Real tools. Authentic audiences. Projects with meaning. Personalized learning. As our team began to assimilate what we had learned, we posed the questions, “How could we reimagine education for our students in Liberty? How could we step outside the box and incorporate our new learning to create a different kind of school?

"Every Person Inspired to Create, hence the acronym EPiC, was born. EPiC is not just a school, but rather an idea, a philosophy, a journey for every person. So what does that look like in a school? How will we infuse this idea into each and every day? We believe that children learn in different ways and at different paces. Moreover, we also believe it is essential that all our students are engaged at a deep level of learning. And we know that learning becomes real when students are able to take their learning beyond the classroom walls and engage with parents and community experts. 

So then how do we empower and equip students for the evolving, global economy and design a program that is Every Person Inspired to Create? How are we going to make sure students learn the necessary skills to prepare them for life beyond school? 

Curiosity sparks passion and creativity. EPiC re-imagines education by encouraging the in-depth exploration of topics as students participate in the adventures of learning. Our students will apply their new knowledge by creating and exhibiting their own learning to multiple audiences. Daily personalized learning will be the key--students learning at their own level, leveraging the power of quality adaptive technology platforms. Through project-based learning and dynamic teacher instruction, EPiC students will explore real challenges and create solutions and share in front of authentic audiences.  


We are excited to bring to life our vision. 

Come along with us on the journey to Be EPiC Everyday.