This week, I'm posting a short essay I wrote for the Learning Creative Learning class, Activity 3: "Visit a Creative Learning Space".

The more labs I experience, the more convinced I am that you've got to lead with some sort of peer paring and ongoing "show and tell" at your learning lab's core to allow the 4 other "P" elements (Projects, Problem-Solving, Passion, Play) to shine. You're building and maintaining an eco-system, right? In nature, eco-systems are fragile and constantly evolving. Static risks stagnation and extinction. And, sometimes what looks destructive (i.e. fire) is actually essential to the system's health (think, "Passion" and "Play").

Lately, I've primarily taught using MIT Media Lab applications (Scratch and App Inventor), and doing so, it's cool to see how they've shaped my teaching, naturally steering me to these 5 "P"s! These days, I post broadly themed project templates to my Scratch 2.0 studio and/or our class wiki for App Inventor for some "getting started" structure, we practice as a class what it means to "remix" and how to do it, and then I turn kids loose. I limit "front of the class" to daily, 5-10 minute overhead projection of class projects in varying degrees of completion so the authors talk about how it's going and lessons learned, and take questions.

As for the actual physical lab space, I worry less about the space itself (I want to foster " creating is where ever you are" minds, even when less than ideal (i.e. distracting)) and concern myself more with making sure equipment is up-to-date and in reasonable working order. This way, you build a fair chance to learn; while software crashes and errors can themselves be "teachable moments", not super fair to new learners!

It's amazing watching "hard play" in action. Is it loud and "buzzy"? You bet. I recently discovered the wonder of chairs with wheels in labs ;) Learning is a whole body process; the other day, I watched a TED lecturer speak about how the older kids get, the less of the body we engage in the teaching process. Learning labs that tap into this wholeness build strong, adaptable learners. And, are a ton of fun and keep kids coming ...