Tag Archives: Purpose-based learning

Of Great Things and Sacred Spaces–A Summer 2025 NOVA Lab Update

NOVA Lab, over five years, has initiated numerous impactful projects, merging education with community service. A standout effort this year is the Joe and Zoe Trail Signage project, which offers educational signage on local ecology. This embodies the principle of Purpose Driven Learning, emphasizing meaningful, community-oriented education beyond traditional classrooms.

NOVA Lab: A Class in Flux

Since 2019, NOVA Lab has utilized Fluxspace, an innovative educational space, for project presentations and learning. The class evolved from a focus on design-thinking to more social initiatives, leading to concerns about diminishing entrepreneurial vigor. Insights from critique panels at Fluxspace prompted reflections on curriculum adjustments to restore a design-centered focus. Revisions aim to emphasize tangible outcomes, community partnerships, and enhanced student engagement.

Future Deja Vu 

NOVA Lab students engaged in a 24-day project focused on futures thinking, inspired by PBS’s “A Brief History of Time.” They explored proactive community-building, envisioning achievable protopias instead of typical dystopian narratives. While reflecting on their participation, students expressed responsibility towards the future, recognizing the urgency for change amidst systemic failures. Their engagement aligns with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, highlighting the need for visionary action.

Dialogues on What Matters–NOVA Lab and the Future of Education

When I first imagined what today is NOVA Lab, my vision was based on years of reading and collecting of research, both quantitative and qualitative, in the fields of Project and Design-Based Learning. (Here’s a document, recently updated but by no means complete that captures a good deal of that research.) When the class launchedContinue reading “Dialogues on What Matters–NOVA Lab and the Future of Education”

“Well,How Did I Get Here?*” Or … Thank You.

I am not an entrepreneur. I do not own a business. Serial startups are not my thing. I am however, entrepreneurially minded. After almost 25 years of living, breathing, and evolving my understandings of creativity–from self-expressive to problem solving to problem finding and the applied creativity of design–I’ve come to enjoy the risks of startingContinue reading ““Well,How Did I Get Here?*” Or … Thank You.”

A Seat at the Table(s): Designing the Space of NOVA Lab

How did a traditional classroom go from traditional seating used in untraditional but unattractive ways to a flexible, adaptable, agile set up that gives students a seat at the table when it comes to setup and usage?

Do Good Things Newsletter: Design for Inclusion

Today, during a half-day of professional development, we high school teachers sat through a Zoom presentation with author and educational consultant Jenna Ruffo as she introduced and discussed the salient points of Universal Design for Learning. Ms. Ruffo has spoken to us before, on our opening day, and so we had already been primed toContinue reading “Do Good Things Newsletter: Design for Inclusion”

Do Good Things Newsletter: Warren Buffett on Happiness

Last year I started a weekly (mostly…sometimes…infrequently) newsletter focusing on the good things that designers and other creatives in the world have been doing to try to make a positive impact on the world. From coffee shops, to bike paths, to baseball camps for young children…there’s a lot of good going on in a worldContinue reading “Do Good Things Newsletter: Warren Buffett on Happiness”