It was the second week in January and the first day for second graders at St. John’s Episcopal School in McAllen to visit the school’s new SmartLab.

A second grader, Lily, said she wasn’t sure she wanted to return after the first half hour of instruction. 

“It’s kind of confusing,” she said. “This is your left, but it’s not the robot’s left.” 

Lily’s SmartLab partner for the day, Juliet, saw things differently in saying, “It’s fun. The robot can do anything you want.”

Beginning Opportunities

St. John’s is a private school and normally ineligible to apply for government grants. New funding opportunities opened up for private schools in addressing academic challenges following the COVID-19 years of the early 2020s. Sharon Flores, the head of school at St. John’s, said she took full advantage of the GEER Assistance to Private Schools Grant Program offered through the Texas Education Agency.

“I applied for everything, the sun and the moon,” she said.

The school eventually received $500,000 in GAPS funding. St. John’s shut down classes for two months in April and May of 2020, when the pandemic began. St. John’s welcomed students back to school in the summer of that year. With the GAPS funding, Flores first purchased mandatory cleaning and disinfecting supplies.

Then St. John’s learning-loss grant wish list kicked in and allowed school leaders to update the school’s computer lab and to replace old Macintosh computers with state-of-the-art Macs. Teachers at St. John’s also received new Macs, upping their technology game.

Introducing SmartLab

Flores attended a meeting where SmartLab was mentioned in getting introduced to the program.

The concept was pioneered in 1987 by Creative Learning Systems. SmartLab transforms learning from lectures and seatwork to cutting-edge technology and student-led project-based learning. 

“Learning is different here,” says the SmartLab motto, and the ADA-compliant labs are customized. They include island tables with mounted computers, allowing students to work collaboratively. There are pylons within each island that deliver data and electricity. Shelves of kits are at the ready for SmartLab projects. Smartboards are available for student and facilitator demonstrations. St. John’s added a 3D printer and a laser engraver.

Teamwork, creativity, relevance and critical thinking are expertly built into the research-based K-12 curriculum and consists of hundreds of projects. SmartLab instruction is based on the constructivist theory of education, with students developing knowledge through experience and introspection. The adults in the room are referred to as “facilitators” and there to offer support, not to lead the way.

Creative On Their Own Terms

Flores discovered that St. James Episcopal School in Corpus Christi had the only SmartLab south of San Antonio.

While visiting the school, she learned they consider their lab a “STREAM,” rather than a traditional STEAM (science technology engineering arts mathematics) lab. She asked what the “R” in STREAM represented.

“Religion,” they told her and Flores loved the idea as it fit in with St. John’s spiritual teachings. 

“We are able to do this through God’s love,” she said.

School leaders used the remaining $184,000 in GAPS funding, along with $70,000 in fundraising monies, to purchase a SmartLab. A Creative Learning team visited the school to create a custom design. Facilitators Elsa Rodriguez, Luke Wooldridge and Merrick Flores underwent three full days of training with a trainer who has first-hand experience with SmartLab.

“She taught us how to ask probing questions and showed us how to get our students to think in a different way,” Wooldridge said of the trainer. 

Learning New Lessons

Facilitators Wooldridge and Flores both attended St. John’s.

“What I’m most excited about is giving children something I didn’t have as a student here,” Flores said.

“It’s not about finishing a worksheet,” Wooldridge chimed in. “I want them to be able to finish a project, start to finish, without my help. I want to let them be creative on their own terms.”

The conversation went back to Flores. 

“Here’s the idea,” Flores said. “Figure out how to get to it.”

Teachers at St. John’s will visit the SmartLab regularly, taking with them the constructivist strategies being used there. Students will take lessons in leadership and collaboration with them. On this first day in the St. John’s SmartLab, second graders attempted to move their human robots from a starting point on a floor grid to a finish line. They quickly learned language matters (turn right is not the same as step right). Directions must be based on the robot’s perspective and there are many ways to reach the goal. 

Lily, the young who was initially unsure if she wanted to return to the SmartLab, soon had a change of heart.

“Maybe one day, we’ll build a robot,” she said, eyes sparkling as she and Juliet rushed over to the grid to finalize their robot’s code.