Vision Quilt is a volunteer-based, grassroots organization from Oregon. Their members are teachers, business owners, parents, artists, social workers, journalists, retirees and gun owners. Last year, founder and Executive Director Cathy deForest visited Lighthouse and collaborated with 7th and 8th grade students and teachers as they studied gun violence.
With the start of the new year, Lighthouse is putting together a list of official internship and volunteer sites. As they have done for the past 11 years, this spring at Lighthouse, all of the 11th grade students will complete a volunteer internship at a local business, organization or youth development program in the community.…
We were fortunate enough to have the Team from Piper visit our 4th grade class this week and conduct a play-test with their amazing products. The Piper Team brought over several of their Computer Kits and had the students, in groups of 2-3, play-test them for about 30 minutes per group. In this small amount of…
Welcome to our Parent Creativity Lab Workshop Blog Series where, this time, it’s the parents’ moment in the spotlight as they participate in a monthly designing and making activity. Here at Lighthouse, we have parents apply themselves in these projects to experience maker-centered learning for themselves. My teammate, Maritza Ortiz, translates as I do my…
Designing Making Experiences (DME) is a two-day workshop, hosted by Aaron Vanderwerff and Angi Chau, where educators gather to engage in hands-on making and design their own making curriculum to take back to their classrooms. The training alternates between the Creativity Lab at Lighthouse in Oakland and the Bourn Idea Lab at Castilleja School in…
Aaron Vanderwerff, director of the Creativity Lab, was recently featured on “Teaching Channel” website, where he explained how teachers can adopt several subtle shifts that will empower students and promote agency. To find out more, click the link below. Read more!
Lighthouse hosted the Maker Fellows program this past fall! Partnering with Parker Thomas and OUSD, LIghthouse helped to facilitate workshops for teachers eager to adopt a “maker mindset”. Read More!
As part of the Creativity Lab’s mission to empower thoughtful, capable people through making, we disseminate best practices by offering professional development to educators from around country. This past year we offered several opportunities, from a new Making Math workshop — designed to focus on integrating making and abstract mathematical concepts — to Designing Making Experiences.
A couple of weeks ago, Kerri Frederick at La Escuelita Elementary asked us for help setting up their Maker Space. They are another school in the Oakland Unified School District that is partnering with Maker Ed’s VISTA program, and had expected to have two VISTAs arriving before the school year started.
We have two new AmeriCorps VISTAs at the Creativity Lab; they started in the second week of August. Their first day was half-way through one of our Professional Development workshops, and it’s been full steam ahead ever since! Lighthouse is thrilled to have them here, and we hope you enjoy their contributions here on the blog.