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Welcome to St. Luke's designLab
When older students at St. Luke’s were asked to find a toy to teach difficult concepts to Middle School students, they didn’t buy one, they built one.
Welcome to St. Luke’s designLab, where problems become projects and challenges are transformed into solutions. Thinkers become makers and along the way, ideas take shape, empowering students to go beyond screens and into real world applications.
designLab is a place—located in St. Luke’s new science wing with the latest fabrication equipment such as 3D printers, a laser cutter/engraver, soldering stations, and physical computing platforms such as Arduino and Raspberry Pi.
But it’s also a state of mind—a new, powerful way of thinking and learning.
When the students were asked to create a toy to engage younger students, they were learning experientially. designLab Director Michael Mitchell described a higher level of engagement than a typical science project, because “students were interacting with both their peers and their teachers and developing a product that was actually going to be used. The project had purpose; it meant something to someone else, which resulted in a more meaningful experience for the students,” said Mitchell.
It might have been the kind of challenge Steve Jobs took on, once upon a time. But as the available technology becomes increasingly complex, we know less about how it works, said Mitchell, and “we ask fewer questions.”
Mitchell aims to change that through design thinking. “It starts with empathy. In keeping with St. Luke’s mission and motto, designLab projects will often reflect a service-oriented influence.”
designLab ties together strands of computer science, engineering, design thinking and innovation in a way that is unique to St. Luke’s according to Jim Foley, Director of the Center for Leadership: “designLab will help students hone their creative problem-solving skills, fueling our work to create new generations of strong, capable, ethical leaders.”
Next year, designLab will create new opportunities for subject mastery and problem solving skills. Mechanical and Electrical Design and Robotics will be offered as project-based, portfolio courses that shift the variable from time to mastery. This means that students taking these portfolios earn credit for the course when they successfully complete the portfolio, not simply at the end of the traditional academic semester.
Also on the horizon for designLab are an alternative spring break, where students enrolled in designLab courses would offer workshops off campus to partner organizations like Waterside and Inspirica.
On campus, Upper School students might rethink prom, and teachers might design more hands-on lesson tools. Formal ties beyond science into the arts and humanities will also be forged. Mitchell envisions challenges of all shapes and sizes arriving at designLab’s doorstep.
There they will be met with the enthusiasm captured in designLab’s motto: Make it Better.
St. Luke’s School is a secular (non-religious), private school in New Canaan, CT for grades 5 through 12 serving over 40 towns in Connecticut and New York. Our exceptional academics and diverse co-educational community foster students’ intellectual and ethical development and prepare them for top colleges. St. Luke’s Leading with Humanity curriculum builds the commitment to serve and the confidence to lead.
