Explo Studio

Too many classrooms focus on compliance rather than engagement. Explo Studio provides teachers with experientially based professional development, a network of colleagues committed to teaching differently, and novel curricula so that classrooms can be turned into creative playgrounds where students explore powerful ideas.

With the advent of the 4th industrial revolution, we are facing an era of increasing volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity.  The World Economic Forum has identified the skills needed to thrive in 2020 versus 2015 and they are skills that few schools have the time or resources to address. 

Too many classrooms focus on compliance rather than engagement. The foundation of future success is self-motivation driven by curiosity – the deep desire to know.  The challenge is, how do we give teachers the tools, both personal and physical, that they need to foster and sustain their student’s innate curiosity?

At Explo, we believe, “That learned without joy is forgotten without sorrow.”  Our pedagogical and curricular approach celebrates play and rigor.  We have extensively tested this approach in our summer programs (grades 2-12); with public and private schools & educators in the U.S., Canada, China, Brazil, and India; and with non-profits serving more than 1200 low-income students.  We run a highly successful camp for educators from the U.S. and abroad and we are about to launch a pilot course in Boston area schools.  Our workshop for 100+ Maine STEAM educators led to multiple requests for classroom units and partnerships.

Explo Studio is targeted to helping teachers unlock their potential so that they can unlock the potential of their students. Teachers will gain the creative confidence to build classrooms where students are engaged, challenged, and working not only on content, but the skills they will need to thrive in an uncertain future. Teachers will be served through in-person experientially based professional development camps; an online platform that connects teachers with thoughtful colleagues for support, brainstorming, and sharing; and access to highly engaging, content rich, curriculum that has been built on the Explo Studio model and vetted by content area experts.

In 2018, engage 120 educators, including teachers from schools serving low-income urban and rural students, in five-day professional development camps, including 20 in an advanced program designed to turn these educators into Explo Studio coaches. - Expand the number of educators who participate in our experiential professional development camps.

By 2019, test platform with teachers who attended professional development; secure content area experts to review curriculum; develop materials kits to tie to curriculum and provider sources. - Launch an operational on-line platform to connect teachers and to access approved Explo Studio curriculum.

By 2020, have enough trained professional development coaches to run professional development camps for 450 teachers in three regions of the U.S. and one site outside of U.S. - Expand educator professional development camps to various regions in the U.S. and abroad.

We believe the quickest way to make the largest,most lasting impact is to train our teachers. By empowering teachers to rethink how they design and present curriculum, how they can use the new technologies available in their schools, and how to use familiar materials they have always had available in new ways, we can reach the most learners. We will run our educator camps at our Boston location and we plan to build out a web platform where teachers can share their student's work on similar projects and support each other's work.

All of our projects use technology to interface with affordable and accessible materials. We use laser cutters to slice paper and cardboard. We use CNC machines to cut cardboard, plywood, and MDF. In addition, for all of our curriculum, we design the use of these tools as an add-ons to the project itself. The foundation of every project we create is simple materials — often paper alone. We want teachers to design projects that tackle complex content using anything available to them — whether that is a Ultimaker or an index card. 

We believe that the quickest way to make the largest and most lasting impact is to train our teachers. By empowering teachers to rethink how they design and present curriculum, how they can use the new technologies available in their schools, and how to use the familiar materials they have always had available in new ways, we can reach the most learners. We will run camps for educators across the globe.We are looking to build out a robust website where teachers can stay connected, share and download free curriculum.

Explo Studio has emerged from the 40-year history of Exploration Summer Programs, or EXPLO, which now runs its summer programs on the campuses of Yale University, Wellesley College and Wheaton College.  EXPLO has produced an operating surplus which has allowed us to invest roughly $400,000 in the development of the Explo Studio concept over the last couple of years.

Over the last year we have demonstrated several revenue models, per teacher fees for our Critical Making and Innovation Camp for Educators, (Educators Camp), a flat fee for middle school curriculum development, a per session fee for “Corporate Training” that uses Studio curricula. 

Ultimately, we envision a school district level subscription model that provides complete access to all curricular content on the Studio Web Platform, however, that access is limited to teachers who have attended Ed Camp, or whatever replaces it as it evolves.

The key limit is reaching teachers.  UNESO suggests we should target 70 million teachers by 2030.  This summer’s Ed Camp invigorated the first 16 Studio teachers. Next year we plan to reach 120. UNESO level success requires us to increase that by a factor of 10 each year for six years.  Perhaps…

In parallel we need to develop the online platform that sustains the Studio teachers, and distributes the curricula developed by Explo Studio and Studio teachers.

Ultimately, we need to be running multiple Ed Camps for existing teachers, while bringing the Studio process and curricula into teacher colleges worldwide.

https://www.explo.org/explo-ed/

https://twitter.com/EXPLOStudio

http://blog.explo.org/stopping-summer-slide-explo-partners-summer-collaborative

We have been asked to start a school by hundreds of parents and students.  But we think our biggest impact can come from serving teachers across the globe, each of whom touches many students each day. We’ve done heavy research and experimenting with curriculum development, pedagogy, use of technology within the classroom, and technology use for remote training and support of teachers.  Our ability to scale is limited by our current bandwidth for staffing, funding, connections to educators in various parts of the world, and the need for partners who can help us navigate the challenges of scaling.     

Summer Collaborative (Wilmington, DE) & its 17 community center camps

Norwood Public Schools

Wareham Public Schools

Thomas College Center for Innovation in Teaching

Thayer Academy

Catholic Memorial School

Garrison Forest School

Berkshire Academy

Sunflower County Freedom Project

Oppi

Perhaps NuVu Studio. Others that run academic enrichment summer programs.