Engineering Innovation & Design is a popular elective providing a student-centered, project-based curriculum that challenges students to interpret real-world engineering and design problems. Mr. Aubrey Love has been involved with this class, and building the Engineering elective pathway, for over fifteen years. Read more about this on our Programs page and in the BHS Course Catalog.
Q: How has the course evolved since its inception?
AL: It started off purely as an Engineering course but we realized that there was a need for students to learn about collaborative problem solving so we also now offer a new course called “Engineering, Innovation & Design.”
Q: So how does the new course differ from a traditional engineering course?
AL: Well, we encourage students to use empathy when problem solving and ask themselves: “who is benefiting from this?” and “how will the user feel?” In other words, they are being asked to apply unique perspectives to problem solving and also think about form and function. We want students to experience a real world collaborative endeavor.
Q: How do you get students to problem solve from a variety of lenses?
AL: We have students from all different pathways who bring unique, multidisciplinary perspectives to the table. Having a problem looked at from the lens of an art or English student is invaluable and the students learn from each other.
Q: So this course isn’t just for students who are strong in science or math?
AL: No, in fact, we encourage students with different skill sets to join the course but we do ask that students come with confidence and are strong in one area of study. This way, they know they have something to contribute to the course and believe their voice will be heard.
Q: What would former students say about your course?
AL: I have had former pupils tell me how they have been able to apply what they learned on the course to all aspects of life. Even an English major told me that they apply the processes they learned here, all the time, both in their academic life and in the real world.
Last summer, the BHS Innovation Fund provided a grant to enable coding to become integrated into the 9th grade math and science curriculum. Josh Paris (JP) is the Math Department Chair who, along with Ed Wiser, Chair of the Science Department, and Britt Stevens, Chair of Career and Technology, supervised the initiative. Mr. Paris discusses what excites him about the Coding initiative and its impact on students:
Q: How did the Innovation Fund enable you to integrate Coding into the 9th grade curriculum?
JP: We have had two coding elective courses called Python and SNAP at BHS for several years but this is the first time it is being integrated into the 9th grade curriculum. The grant began last summer (2020) and it was a collaboration between the math, science, career and tech education departments. Teachers usually teach four courses but the grant gave course releases to Adam Fried and Christine Shen (both from the math department) and Tyler Brown (from the science department) to instead teach three classes. This – and the hiring of another teacher – enabled them to spend time collaborating and modifying the curriculum so that they could implement coding into the 9th grade math and science curriculum.
Q: Are you intending to integrate coding into the curriculum of the upper grades at some point?
JP: Yes, we started with 9th grade and then will move to the older grades in the following years, one year at a time.
Q: Why is it important to have coding as part of the curriculum?
JP: It is very important to have coding be accessible to everyone for so many reasons; not only is it the way of the future and opens a lot of career doors but it also helps enhance math deduction and reasoning skills. For instance, the same logic is applied in both coding and formal proof in geometry. Furthermore, giving all students access to coding is important for equity reasons since it has historically been a profession dominated by white males. By having equal access to coding beginning in 9th grade we are hoping that will change.
Q: Since coding is integrated into the math and science curriculum does it mean you need to be strong in those subjects to be good at coding?
JP: Motivation and hard work – like many things in life – are the keys to success with coding. Coding is something that draws upon and enhances many life skills and cuts through many disciplines, for that reason, students often find something about coding that “speaks” and appeals to them!
We are excited to announce upcoming investments in teaching and learning at BHS: two brand new courses will launch, four courses will continue through their final year of funding, and faculty will have the opportunity to reflect on pedagogy in the pandemic year at an upcoming summer summit. We are grateful to our generous donors whose support enables us to work with BHS leadership and faculty to fund these important programs.
Rethinking the Restaurant: Creating Community through Social Impact (NEW COURSE) $66,000 Year One Investment
Rethinking the BHS restaurant will integrate the program more cohesively into curricular and co-curricular experiences for the entire BHS community, with students taking the lead in running its business operations in meaningful and creative ways. Faculty are excited by the multifaceted opportunities for innovation where the restaurant has potential as a lab for interdisciplinary learning with a social impact lens. For example, the restaurant could be a place where English Language Learners could introduce dishes from their home cultures as a special menu item; World Language teachers and students could work with the culinary program to design “take-over” menus for cultural observations or holidays; and students in Social/Food Justice or Environmental Action clubs could team with our culinary program to understand and improve how to sustainably run our business. Rethinking the Restaurant opens up outstanding experiential learning opportunities for students not only in the restaurant itself, but also for a diverse range of students in clubs, courses, and throughout the campus. Faculty lead: Britt Stevens, Chair, Department of Career and Technical Education
Climate Science and Social Solutions (NEW COURSE) $43,000 Year One Investment
Climate Science and Social Solutions is an interdisciplinary team-taught elective with instruction from both the scientific and historical perspectives. The course will enable students to engage in project-based learning by analyzing real world policy options related to climate change, and then research and posit definable and effective solutions. The goal is to have seniors engage in advocacy campaigns designed to shape perceptions on climate change and encourage personal mitigation strategies. Faculty leads: Briana Brown (Science) and Roger Grande (Social Studies)
Faculty COVID-19 Reflection Summit $10,000 for BHS faculty to convene this summer to reflect on lessons learned through the pandemic and how their important work funded by our COVID-19 Teaching and Learning Response Grants this year can inform pedagogy for 2021-22.
Continued Funding for Ongoing Courses $186,000 for continued funding for four pilot programs through their final year in 2021-22: Experiential Physics for Ninth Grade; Brookline Lens; Hub; and Coding @BHS. Learn more about these programs here.
As we wrap up the last of the end-of-year BHS traditions, congratulate the Class of 2021 and look forward to the summer and together-time with friends and family, I just want to take a moment to reflect on this extraordinary year.
This past year—my last as Chair of the Innovation Fund—was both challenging and rewarding. Fund volunteers have been working harder than ever to use the time and space that we were given to think differently about how we engage our donors in a remote environment, and how we expand on the funding that we give to BHS faculty to support teaching and learning at the high school.
Our primary focus this year has been on our COVID-19 Response Grants. Our COVID grant work started last June to prepare faculty for the upcoming school year and continued through the winter to support the shift to hybrid teaching and learning. It will culminate this summer with the COVID-19 Reflection Summit. The best practices and insights gleaned during the three phases of the COVID-19 grant will be carried forward to continue to positively impact students.
Our collaborative work with faculty has yielded stronger relationships and set up scaffolding for school-wide student success moving forward in a post-COVID classroom environment. A cohesive, new standard approach with all faculty using Canvas improved communications with students and made a huge difference in “equalizing” everyone’s experience. This work led to the creation of multiple progress reports for check-in with parents/guardians throughout the year. Intentional instruction on Executive Functioning (EF) helped students develop the skills needed both online and moving forward to in-person learning. And finally, an emphasis on SEL (Social Emotional Learning) and community building online made being back together now very meaningful.
The COVID-19 Response Grants allowed faculty to innovatively rethink teaching, curriculum development, and school culture as they responded to challenging logistical scenarios throughout the year. Interdepartmental collaboration last summer was groundbreaking and culture-shifting for BHS. Now as faculty emerge from remote and hybrid teaching, annual assessment of student content, SEL and EF are much more collaborative across departments and are more efficient and effective. The three phased COVID-19 Grants provided the faculty with the time and space to think and plan which was the impetus to this change. This time also provided an opportunity to reevaluate curriculum and to think about what worked and what didn’t. These are conversations that faculty will continue to have during the upcoming summer COVID-19 Reflection Summit.
As we look forward to the Fall, the investment in teaching and learning will continue. Two new programs were accepted for funding and will launch in the 2021-2022 school year. Briana Brown (Science) and Roger Grande (Social Studies) will lead Climate Science and Social Solutions; and Britt Stevens, Department Chair of Career and Technical Education, will launch Rethinking the Restaurant: Creating Community through Social Impact.
Climate Science and Social Solutions is an interdisciplinary team-taught course with instruction from both the scientific and historical perspectives. The course will enable students to engage in project-based learning by analyzing real world policy options related to climate change, and then research and posit definable and effective solutions. The goal is to have students engage in advocacy campaigns designed to shape perceptions on climate change and encourage personal mitigation strategies.
Rethinking the Restaurant will launch the restaurant program as a lab for interdisciplinary learning with a social impact lens. This is a space where English Language Learners could introduce dishes from their home cultures as a special menu item, where World Language teachers and students could work with the culinary program to design “take-over” menus for cultural observations or holidays, and where students in Social/Food Justice or Environmental Action club team with our culinary program to understand and improve how to sustainably run our business. These are only some of our curricular aspirations.
So, as you can see, the BHS Innovation Fund continues to have a broad and meaningful impact at BHS, despite the challenges of the past year. It is because of the incredible support of donors and volunteers that we were able to meet and exceed our fundraising and programmatic goals. I look forward to handing the leadership of this amazing organization over to Maureen Fallon and Masu Haque-Khan who will continue the work that was started more than 20 years ago. While I will be stepping down as Chair, I will continue to play an advisory role in the growth of the Fund.
I wish you all a wonderful, peaceful and safe Summer and send a hearty congratulations to the Class of 2021!
Warm Regards, Ellen Rizika, Chair, BHS Innovation Fund Board of Directors
We did it! Thanks to generous participation from the Brookline High School community, we raised $98,000 of our $100,000 goal for Gala-Rama (Goes Virtual!). This support for academic innovation is truly inspiring, and the volunteers of the BHS Innovation Fund are grateful for the partnership of parents and caregivers, faculty and leadership, and business and individual sponsors and donors.
THANK YOU TO THE EVENT TEAM
The Gala-Rama Steering Committee
Polly Ross Ribatt, Mary Beth Landrum, and Louise Shah
Event Committee
Live Host: Stacey Irwin Downey
Committee Members: Steve Davis, Chris Noe, Michele Rozen, Elizabeth Schlosberg, Bonnie Sherman, Olga St. Clair; Lara Szent-Gyorgyi, Stacey Zelbow
Event Speakers:BHS Faculty and Leadership*
Marika Alibhai, John Andrews, Tyler Brown, Adam Fried, Roger Grande,
Kate Leslie, Aubrey Love, Andrew Maglathlin, Julia Mangan, Hal Mason, Stephanie McAllister Poon, Anthony Meyer, Thato Mwosa, Josh Paris, Christine Shen, Brit Stevens, Jennifer Spencer, Jenee Uttaro, Eli Williams, Ed Wiser *See all BHS Innovation Fund Faculty Grant Recipients here
Event Speakers: BHS Community Members and Partners
Betty Bagnani, Steve Davis, Maureen Fallon, Emma Finkelstein, Marc Foster, Andy Jonic, Raiya Kahn, Masu Haque-Kahn, Sam Lasky, Ben Stern, Reid Stern
Earlier this year, the BHS Innovation Fund provided the groundbreaking COVID-19 Teaching and Learning Response Grant which enabled over 30 BHS educators across the core departments to work collaboratively to develop best practices, and then share their learning to their colleagues school-wide. This emergency grant made a direct, positive impact on teaching at BHS, benefitting all students this year.
We need your help to fund the next phase of this important work. Your tax-deductible donation to the BHS Innovation Fund will ensure that academic innovation continues to drive teaching and learning at Brookline High School. Together, we can make a difference by investing in public high school education. Thank you for supporting inspiration and innovation at BHS!
This winter, the BHS Innovation Fund is raising $50,000 to support the next phase of our COVID-19 Teaching & Learning Response Grant program in 2021. We can respond to these kinds of emergency requests from our school leadership and teachers thanks to your continued financial support. We are so grateful to those who have donated to the Fund in the past and recognize the value of investing in public education.
The next phase of grants will be used to support teachers as they continue to provide a positive and successful remote/hybrid learning experience for students at BHS.
The first new grant provides funding for faculty to augment and enhance the BHS Remote Learning Toolbox Website, a teacher-created online resource designed to help staff educate students effectively in a remote classroom environment, and to identify additional innovative pedagogical tools and ideas in response to the changing academic environment and shift to a remote/hybrid classroom. The Toolbox was a direct outcome from our initial COVID Response Grant, and has quickly become an invaluable resource for teachers. It will be a critical asset moving forward.
The second grant will support individual faculty with innovative ideas that will contribute to their individual teaching and will be shared with colleagues across BHS.
By contributing to the BHS Innovation Fund, you are supporting our teachers as they continue to deliver a BHS education that fosters flexibility, resilience, curiosity and inspiration in the classroom. Your support is so meaningful, especially right now when creative and thoughtful approaches in education matter. We hope you will consider making a contribution this year.
A donation in any amount makes a difference and demonstrates your commitment to academic innovation at BHS. Please help the BHS Innovation Fund respond to teachers’ needs by donating now to help us fund the next immediate phase of our COVID-19 Teaching and Learning Response Grant. Thank you!
In Spring 2020, the BHS Innovation Fund awarded a special COVID-19 Teaching and Learning Response Grant to Brookline High School educators, led by the Curriculum Coordinators, to support their work in preparing for the current school year with the goal of rethinking educational approaches to teaching and learning during the ongoing pandemic. This past Summer, more than 30 Brookline High School teachers, administrators, program leaders and specialists met remotely over the course of three weeks as part of this first-ever multi-departmental collaborative curriculum programming initiative. Representing the Departments of English, Math, Science, Social Studies and World Language, as well as Special Education and Career and Technology Education, participating educators conducted an important assessment of their experiences teaching remotely this past Spring in order to prepare for the school year. Acknowledging the many challenges that the pivot to remote teaching had required due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they used an inquiry model to explore these questions:
How do we engage students in their learning and help students develop understanding?
How should we blend synchronous and asynchronous lessons?
How will we build relationships with students when not able to work with them face to face?
How should we adjust assessments and diagnostics in a remote learning environment?
Throughout the project, educators used these guiding questions to research and develop best practices and a collaborative, holistic approach to teaching that will:
More effectively engage students in the remote and hybrid learning process by focusing on strategies to develop executive functioning skills to teach students how to learn remotely as well as approaches to introduce experiential learning work; and
Support social-emotional learning by incorporating community building activities into each and every lesson to establish student-to-student and student-to-teacher connections in classes.
“I am grateful to the Brookline High School Innovation Fund for making this critical work a positive and productive reality and to BHS teachers and staff for working together to identify the gaps and opportunities to strengthen the remote teaching and learning experience as we continue to navigate the changing academic environment.”
~ Anthony Meyer, Head of School, Brookline High School
Grant Work Yielded New Opportunities & Inspiring Outcomes
BHS faculty members who participated in the project presented and shared their research with colleagues in early Fall in multiple professional development day demonstrations and workshops using the BHS Remote Learning Toolbox, a best-practices online resource designed to help staff teach students effectively while remote. While the Toolbox was not outlined as a deliverable in the grant proposal, teachers quickly realized that the best, most innovative way to share these important recommendations would be to build an online toolkit and make it accessible to all faculty at the high school. It is already proving to be an invaluable resource to many educators.
Topics in the Toolbox include:
Building a Digital Classroom: Strategies and tools to set up a hybrid classroom
During Planning: Strategies and tools for taking the analog to a digital environment
Tech Tools: Tech Tool support from PSB and colleagues, and tech support for students
Research and Synthesis: A deep dive into the research and synthesis completed by subgroups
Curriculum Coordinators share that working collaboratively across departments yielded several inspiring outcomes. As teachers began to envision the initial back-to-school period, they were excited by opportunities that remote learning presented. With a more flexible block schedule this year, teachers can engage students in assignments and activities that give real-world meaning to school, and increase connection and rigor. Then, moving into the year, teachers anticipate identifying new, experiential work that can involve students in their community. Rethinking teaching in this way will have benefits beyond the pandemic response. Remote strategies can be used when presenting digital material even when BHS returns to in-school learning. If students are unable to be present, teachers will have a menu of activities that students can still follow at home. Because the grant funded inter-departmental work on a large scale for the very first time at BHS, and contributed greatly to creating connections across curriculum, students will benefit by experiencing a more coordinated approach and manner of communication with all their teachers.
Founded in 1998, the BHS Innovation Fund is a community-supported 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that is unique for a public high school because it offers grant funding to faculty and administrators for initiatives that aren’t covered in the current curriculum and budget.
“The BHS Innovation Fund has supported teacher-driven curricular initiatives that are innovative, interdisciplinary and forward-thinking for over twenty years. As an organization, we are constantly evolving and responding to the academic needs identified by BHS teachers across departments. Given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, we were thrilled to be able to partner with educators and provide the necessary funding to support this important work during this challenging time at BHS.”
~ Ellen Rizika, Chair, BHS Innovation Fund Board of Directors
