Robots, 3D printers and graphic design make summer school more interesting

MT. PLEASANT — The Mt. Pleasant Community School District has taken a different approach to summer school this year after students faced a massive loss of learning from the spring of 2020.

The district opened enrollment to all students interested in the program, allowing even those not in need of traditional remediation to attend.

This has allowed for enrichment programs at the high school, including a makerspace class and or a class that allows students to use the tools available to make a project and earn a class credit after 40 hours of work.

Taught by career and technical education teacher Ronnie Waggoner the class focuses on allowing students to use classroom resources to create projects that interest them and serve some purpose.

The classroom has resources such as a 3D printer, animation and graphic design software, a laser-cutting machine, a Cricuit (a vinyl sticker designer) and robots.

The classroom uses a type of instruction called project based learning where students learn through the process of completing a task.

“It allows students to work in groups and teams to solve problems in unique ways without immediate direction from a teacher,” Waggoner said. “So it’s not like I have to lecture and test and quiz someone over what they know, I’m testing them on the project or what they made.”

There are several different ways that they use project based learning to create independent learners. Specifically through a process called gradual release of learning.

“At the school level, we try to that in several different ways, one of the ways we tried to do that this year is by gradual release of learning, that is creating independent learners — students, people who can take the skills that they know and create things on their own,” Waggoner said.

They have used this in numerous ways this summer to help students learn in a more creative way.

“Project based learning this summer has really been about exploring new opportunities especially in creative ways to create projects for them to use what they’ve learned over the years,” Waggoner said.

Waggoner explained that project based learning and other types of instruction like it have been phased into schools within the last decade.

“It is a definitely a spectrum of learning, it’s what schools have been moving into for about a decade. It isn't about simply using one method for a student to learn. Instead it’s about giving the student any different ways to learn,” he said.