FINDings.
“How can school leaders and students support teachers in project design and empower them to display student work that reflects the deep learning that the students are doing?”
Digging Deeper
Merriam Webster Online defines the word “empower” as “to give power to” and “to give official authority/legal power to”. Through this inquiry I hoped to provide my colleagues with the opportunity to gain more power and authority when it comes to displaying their students’ work around the school so that we may increase student achievement. I also hope to gain more insight into our my colleagues feel about our professional development meetings and workshops and whether or not they are supporting teachers, specifically in project design. Since my research confirmed that beautiful and professional curation cannot happen without a thoughtful project, I wondered whether it was really the former my colleagues struggled with or if it was a deeper issue that needed to be addressed.
At the beginning of the school year through a digital survey I asked my colleagues the questions below:
Many of our teachers felt incredibly empowered to do what they want in their own classrooms. Out of the 22 responses, half of the teachers ranked themselves as a 4, the highest rank they could give themselves. There were no teachers that ranked themselves as a 1 and only 3 teachers that gave themselves a lower score of a 2.
And yet when it comes to displaying student work outside of the classroom, the confidence shifts tremendously. The responses to the question “How much power do you feel you have when it comes to displaying things at our school outside of your own classroom?” is displayed in Figure 2. The responses from Question 1 and the responses from Question 2 are quite literally the polar opposite. Half of the respondents gave themselves a 2 while only 2 staff members felt confident enough to rank themselves as a 4.
And thus the question remains -- why this shift in confidence? Why are teachers so empowered to display work in their classrooms but not outside of it? What structures are in place or lacking for this mentality to exist amongst our teachers and what can be done to change this?
Additionally, I asked my colleagues “How effective are we as a school when it comes to displaying student work?” in order to confirm that we as a staff agree that curating student work is an area we could improve on. The responses were as predicted and are displayed below in Figure 3 -- 65% or 13 out of the 22 responses gave our school a 2 out of 4 when it comes to displaying student work. Only one teacher gave the school a 4 while 6 staff members ranked our school as a 3. With these responses, it can be confirmed that a majority of our staff agrees that displaying student work is an area we could indeed improve.
In addition to the survey, it is also clear through school observations that the teachers at HTHNC do not feel they have the power nor the authority to meddle with school space that is outside of their own classroom. Around our building there are several exhibitions of student work but there are also several blank walls, empty shelves or, even worse, displays that are shoddy or unprofessional. My current assumptions are that teachers do not have the knowledge, skill, resources nor the time to focus on the curation of their students’ work. It could also be that teachers’ projects are not inclined for a public, permanent display (i.e. performance project) or there is also the possibility of this not being a curation issue but a project design issue.
Adult Learning Should Model Good Pedagogy
In addition to gaining more insight about curation at HTHNC, my colleagues and I who were planning the professional development meetings were curious about what our colleagues wanted out of our weekly PD meetings. We distributed another survey with several options of what may be included in these meetings and workshops and the results were as follows: overall the most popular items were (tied at 16 votes) Extended PD with Outside Experts, Pedagogy, and College Going Culture Other College Guest Speakers. Project Tuning was a close second at 15 votes. Community Possibilities and Community Connections were also very strongly represented (13 votes each) and Teaching Philosophies and Alumni Panels also had 13 votes each. Out of the top 3 winners, 2 of the choices include bringing in guest speakers. The runner-ups (Project Tuning and Community) all related to collaborating with colleagues within the scope of project design. Based on these results, I began to realize that our PDs, which is a space to facilitate and encourage adult learning, really should not be that different from the way in which we facilitate and encourage student learning. Teachers want experts to guide them in their practice much like teachers using guest speakers to further support student learning; teachers also want to work with their colleagues to better design projects like teachers utilizing group work in order to achieve a better learning outcome for students.
Positive Feedback for Project Design
Since I predicted that perhaps our curation issue was not a curation issue at all but rather a project design issue and the initial survey mentioned above showed me that teachers wanted more tunings and time with each other, I saw this as a great opportunity to use PDs as a way to support teachers in project design and see if this improves both the quality and quantity of student work displays at our school. According to the Exit Card responses in regards to one of the Project Tune PDs, the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Project Tunings is a structured discussion in which a teacher is able to both express dilemmas and receive feedback from colleagues regarding a project (see Appendix A to see detailed protocol of Project Tunes). When asked the question “On a scale of 1-5, how helpful did you find this Professional Development?”, out of the 25 of my colleagues you completed the Exit Card, 16 of the respondents rated this PD session a five - which is extremely significant compared to other PDs we have done throughout the year. Additionally, when asked “How else would you like to be supported in terms of project planning/designing?”, four teachers mentioned wanting more time with colleagues in effort to brainstorm and tune projects and seven teachers suggested more tunings while the rest of the comments referenced suggestions like “it would be great to know who has great connections in different fields, industries, etc to facilitate introductions and ideas”, “project structures would be really helpful”, and “designing a workshop where we debrief projects after they are done looking for success and improvements”. Although the comments ranged from brainstorming projects to reflecting on projects once completed, all of the suggestions revolved around project design and how to help teachers make their projects better.
Taking my colleagues suggestions from the initial PD survey and from this first Project Tune Exit Cards, my colleagues and I continued to plan more PDs that allowed for teachers to spend more time together that focused on project design. In essence, it was a structured “work time” in which teams or mentors/mentees could use staff meeting time to start discussions that would lead to better projects. This goes back to my previous discovery that teachers are not much different from out students -- they, too, also want more work time to get important things accomplished. According to the Exit Cards for each of these meetings, once again, the responses were overwhelmingly positive. When asked “On a scale of 1-5, how helpful did you find this Professional Development?”, all of my colleauges gave a rating of a four or a five for every PD. Furthermore, when asking for suggestions or improvements, once again teachers wanted more time with each other to share resources and provide feedback as well as more Project Tunings.
Upon interviewing several of my colleagues, their comments further supported the data from the Exit Cards. “The project tunings are very helpful,” said one science teacher. “We do them a lot in our discipline groups….but helpful to have different content areas look at my project and also give me feedback.” A veteran teacher that has experience at other High Tech schools commended our campus’ ability to have teacher leaders generate and implement the PDs. “But the idea phase is left for you to do on your own,” she added, meaning the initial stages of brainstorming project ideas is mostly done independently. “This could be done better and everyone would benefit from it whether you are a new teacher or a veteran teacher.” Another veteran teacher that has worked at other High Tech’s elaborates: “We can improve in collaboration - at this school more so than other schools, there isn’t this collaboration, shared responsibility, division of labor that leads to stronger projects across the board...perhaps work is not being displayed because teachers are in survival mode since they’re working in isolation...there’s nothing that forces us to diversify.” A school leader even commented on how we as a group need to “have more oversight on other’s projects” by doing things like more tunings. Additionally, the school leader added that we could have more post-project PDs that focus on things like student work and reflections rather than emphasizing the beginning stages so much.
Later on in the year as I was concluding my research, the Lead Curator at our school and I did a series of PDs specifically around curation at our school. Based on conversations with my colleagues and a Needs Assessment I implemented earlier on in the year, I concluded that teachers wanted specific instructions in order to become more empowered to display student work outside of their classroom.
However, when our Lead Curator and I brainstormed a plan (see Appendix B to see details of the plan) to give our colleagues what we thought they wanted, the results according to the Exit Cards were puzzling. Once again, when asked ““On a scale of 1-5, how helpful did you find this Professional Development?”, eight of the respondents gave the score of a two, which is the most number of two’s compared to any other PD this year. Despite the fact that my colleague and I were providing teachers with specific instructions on how to go about displaying student work at HTHNC, which according to the Needs Assessment is what teachers wanted, they did not find it as helpful as the Tunings or the structured, collaborative work time we had been implementing. Based on the comments in the Exit Card, teachers commented that they either wanted more hands-on activities regarding this topic and/or more interaction with their colleagues regarding this topic. Since for these two meetings the teachers were not physically doing anything, teachers felt they got less out of the meeting
Space Matters for Students – Sometimes
In addition to surveying the staff, three different, mixed grade advisory classes took a survey regarding student work displays at HTHNC. The results were insightful and somewhat unexpected. Although my research indicated that providing students with an authentic audience will increase motivation and engagement, the responses from the survey showed me that this increase in dedication towards their will can only happen if students are already somewhat motivated and engaged in the work they are doing. In that case a public display of their work will increase the depth of their learning. One student says “When I see mediocre products displayed it motivates me to try and do better and always turn out good work” while another student compared our school to an art gallery and how it affected her learning: “When I see student work around the school, I generally feel inspired. Walking through the hallways and looking at work is similar for me to walking through an art gallery. I almost prefer it, because I know that people close to my own age made the work I am seeing, and I actually can do the same.” For students like these, engagement and motivation can only be increased through the use of student work displays.
However, with students that are disconnected from their work and struggle with motivation, a public display of their work will do little to increase deep learning, in fact it may discourage them even more whether it be from the raise in anxiety knowing that it will be publicly displayed or decrease in self-esteem knowing that their work will not be as beautiful or as worthy as their peers. A student who claims to always do work just to get it done says “I feel like I want to do a better job when I look at other students' work, but I also feel not caring”.
In terms of whether or not having student work displayed around their learning space affects their learning, the results are mixed based on the survey. One thing that is consistent is that all students are aware of their learning environment -- they know when their work is displayed or not displayed, they are aware which students work is most often up and they recognize that their school space is a reflection of the school and the students. “Sometimes when I walk around the school I will look at some of the artwork, sometimes its interesting or eye catching. And it gives me and idea for whats to come,” says one student. For students whose work is most often up and are proud of the work they are doing, of course the student work displays have a positive effect on their learning and self-esteem. However, for students whose work does not get valued or for students who begin to notice that their work often does not get “chosen” to be displayed, the displays begin to have a negative effect not only on their self-esteem but perhaps in their learning as well. According to interviews some students indicated that towards the upper grades when they realize they are not artistic or struggle with creating a beautiful and professional final product, they concluded that there is no point in trying to make it beautiful or professional because their work will not get displayed anyway. The only situation in which this is avoided is during exhibits when every student is displaying their work and discussing about their learning. This should be taken into careful consideration when implementing a permanent display of student work or an exhibition. As a classroom teacher, this reminds me of why every student should participate in exhibitions and why especially teachers should be cognizant of equity when displaying student work. Of course, depending on the space in which the work is curated there may be restrictions. But these survey responses reminds me that not displaying all of the students' works could result in a negative impact on the students' mindsets, self-esteem and the school culture in general.
On the other hand, many students pointed out in the survey that displaying work around the school helps students get an idea of what their colleagues are doing in other classes and grade levels. One student also pointed out that displaying student work should be a no-brainer at a school like HTHNC: “I think it doesn't just affect me it affects everyone as a community and creates a more positive and vibrant environment that makes people confident about their school.” Another student says “I don't feel incredibly affected but at the same time I do think that it reflects negatively upon our school [to not display student work]. To be a school that says it practices ‘project-based learning’, and then doesn't advertise it to its own students, doesn't take ‘pride’ in its students' work, seems hypocritical to me.” Another student states “I think that especially when I was an underclassman, I would see the work that the older kids would do and get extremely excited to know that one day I'd be able to produce work like theirs, and learn the things that they were. I would always get really excited that I would be there one day, and seeing my peers' work up on display also makes me feel pride for them, and for going to a school where beautiful work is appreciated and encouraged.” Some students did point out that they felt the student work displays do not affect them at all however these same students still pointed out it was still nice to have around: “I wouldn't say the student work I see effects me as a student, but I do like seeing some of the work because it is good work” while another student states “It doesn't really influence much and is mostly for visitors to see.” In essence, despite what these students are saying these displays are in fact affecting them because they appreciate the beauty and purpose of the curation.
In addition to supporting my school in developing and implementing PD meetings, I am continuing to support the student-led Curation Club. One of my biggest learning moments was when I realized that regardless of how much passion and enthusiasm a group of students may have, they need the guidance and structure from the school and teachers in order to achieve their goal(s). When the Curation Club first started off, we had over 20 interested students. We discussed the things we could do together, projects we could tackle to improve curation at our school, how we might help teachers, materials we need, etc. When I realized the lunch meetings would not suffice for all the things we wanted to do, I tried to convince the club to turn the meetings into an x-block (an elective-type class that students sign up for). It turned out that many of the students had other obligations for x-block (such as ASB, Yearbook, Community Connections, soccer, etc.). Without the time to execute all of our goals, our meetings soon turned into a lot of talk but not a lot of action. It wasn’t until I started discussing my research with our school’s Lead Curator that we began to brainstorm some specific actions the students could do to support the school in curation. Now, the Curation Club students do monthly building maintenance checks which allows students to take ownership of our building by maintaining projects that are already displayed as well as furniture. Additionally, the students have gone on field trips to visit other HTH schools to see how they are displaying student work as well as assisting me and our Lead Curator with a curating workshop for HTHNC teachers. Furthermore, as the year quickly comes to an end, we have been discussing “next steps” for our club and our school in terms of curation. We hope to have “curators” for every team going forward in hopes that these student leaders can help their teachers with the final but critical step of exhibiting or curating.
Digging Deeper
Merriam Webster Online defines the word “empower” as “to give power to” and “to give official authority/legal power to”. Through this inquiry I hoped to provide my colleagues with the opportunity to gain more power and authority when it comes to displaying their students’ work around the school so that we may increase student achievement. I also hope to gain more insight into our my colleagues feel about our professional development meetings and workshops and whether or not they are supporting teachers, specifically in project design. Since my research confirmed that beautiful and professional curation cannot happen without a thoughtful project, I wondered whether it was really the former my colleagues struggled with or if it was a deeper issue that needed to be addressed.
At the beginning of the school year through a digital survey I asked my colleagues the questions below:
- How much power do you feel you have when it comes to displaying things (student work, resources, posters, etc.) within your own classroom/office?
- How much power do you feel you have when it comes to displaying things at our school outside of your own classroom?
- How effective are we as a school when it comes to displaying student work?
Many of our teachers felt incredibly empowered to do what they want in their own classrooms. Out of the 22 responses, half of the teachers ranked themselves as a 4, the highest rank they could give themselves. There were no teachers that ranked themselves as a 1 and only 3 teachers that gave themselves a lower score of a 2.
And yet when it comes to displaying student work outside of the classroom, the confidence shifts tremendously. The responses to the question “How much power do you feel you have when it comes to displaying things at our school outside of your own classroom?” is displayed in Figure 2. The responses from Question 1 and the responses from Question 2 are quite literally the polar opposite. Half of the respondents gave themselves a 2 while only 2 staff members felt confident enough to rank themselves as a 4.
And thus the question remains -- why this shift in confidence? Why are teachers so empowered to display work in their classrooms but not outside of it? What structures are in place or lacking for this mentality to exist amongst our teachers and what can be done to change this?
Additionally, I asked my colleagues “How effective are we as a school when it comes to displaying student work?” in order to confirm that we as a staff agree that curating student work is an area we could improve on. The responses were as predicted and are displayed below in Figure 3 -- 65% or 13 out of the 22 responses gave our school a 2 out of 4 when it comes to displaying student work. Only one teacher gave the school a 4 while 6 staff members ranked our school as a 3. With these responses, it can be confirmed that a majority of our staff agrees that displaying student work is an area we could indeed improve.
In addition to the survey, it is also clear through school observations that the teachers at HTHNC do not feel they have the power nor the authority to meddle with school space that is outside of their own classroom. Around our building there are several exhibitions of student work but there are also several blank walls, empty shelves or, even worse, displays that are shoddy or unprofessional. My current assumptions are that teachers do not have the knowledge, skill, resources nor the time to focus on the curation of their students’ work. It could also be that teachers’ projects are not inclined for a public, permanent display (i.e. performance project) or there is also the possibility of this not being a curation issue but a project design issue.
Adult Learning Should Model Good Pedagogy
In addition to gaining more insight about curation at HTHNC, my colleagues and I who were planning the professional development meetings were curious about what our colleagues wanted out of our weekly PD meetings. We distributed another survey with several options of what may be included in these meetings and workshops and the results were as follows: overall the most popular items were (tied at 16 votes) Extended PD with Outside Experts, Pedagogy, and College Going Culture Other College Guest Speakers. Project Tuning was a close second at 15 votes. Community Possibilities and Community Connections were also very strongly represented (13 votes each) and Teaching Philosophies and Alumni Panels also had 13 votes each. Out of the top 3 winners, 2 of the choices include bringing in guest speakers. The runner-ups (Project Tuning and Community) all related to collaborating with colleagues within the scope of project design. Based on these results, I began to realize that our PDs, which is a space to facilitate and encourage adult learning, really should not be that different from the way in which we facilitate and encourage student learning. Teachers want experts to guide them in their practice much like teachers using guest speakers to further support student learning; teachers also want to work with their colleagues to better design projects like teachers utilizing group work in order to achieve a better learning outcome for students.
Positive Feedback for Project Design
Since I predicted that perhaps our curation issue was not a curation issue at all but rather a project design issue and the initial survey mentioned above showed me that teachers wanted more tunings and time with each other, I saw this as a great opportunity to use PDs as a way to support teachers in project design and see if this improves both the quality and quantity of student work displays at our school. According to the Exit Card responses in regards to one of the Project Tune PDs, the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Project Tunings is a structured discussion in which a teacher is able to both express dilemmas and receive feedback from colleagues regarding a project (see Appendix A to see detailed protocol of Project Tunes). When asked the question “On a scale of 1-5, how helpful did you find this Professional Development?”, out of the 25 of my colleagues you completed the Exit Card, 16 of the respondents rated this PD session a five - which is extremely significant compared to other PDs we have done throughout the year. Additionally, when asked “How else would you like to be supported in terms of project planning/designing?”, four teachers mentioned wanting more time with colleagues in effort to brainstorm and tune projects and seven teachers suggested more tunings while the rest of the comments referenced suggestions like “it would be great to know who has great connections in different fields, industries, etc to facilitate introductions and ideas”, “project structures would be really helpful”, and “designing a workshop where we debrief projects after they are done looking for success and improvements”. Although the comments ranged from brainstorming projects to reflecting on projects once completed, all of the suggestions revolved around project design and how to help teachers make their projects better.
Taking my colleagues suggestions from the initial PD survey and from this first Project Tune Exit Cards, my colleagues and I continued to plan more PDs that allowed for teachers to spend more time together that focused on project design. In essence, it was a structured “work time” in which teams or mentors/mentees could use staff meeting time to start discussions that would lead to better projects. This goes back to my previous discovery that teachers are not much different from out students -- they, too, also want more work time to get important things accomplished. According to the Exit Cards for each of these meetings, once again, the responses were overwhelmingly positive. When asked “On a scale of 1-5, how helpful did you find this Professional Development?”, all of my colleauges gave a rating of a four or a five for every PD. Furthermore, when asking for suggestions or improvements, once again teachers wanted more time with each other to share resources and provide feedback as well as more Project Tunings.
Upon interviewing several of my colleagues, their comments further supported the data from the Exit Cards. “The project tunings are very helpful,” said one science teacher. “We do them a lot in our discipline groups….but helpful to have different content areas look at my project and also give me feedback.” A veteran teacher that has experience at other High Tech schools commended our campus’ ability to have teacher leaders generate and implement the PDs. “But the idea phase is left for you to do on your own,” she added, meaning the initial stages of brainstorming project ideas is mostly done independently. “This could be done better and everyone would benefit from it whether you are a new teacher or a veteran teacher.” Another veteran teacher that has worked at other High Tech’s elaborates: “We can improve in collaboration - at this school more so than other schools, there isn’t this collaboration, shared responsibility, division of labor that leads to stronger projects across the board...perhaps work is not being displayed because teachers are in survival mode since they’re working in isolation...there’s nothing that forces us to diversify.” A school leader even commented on how we as a group need to “have more oversight on other’s projects” by doing things like more tunings. Additionally, the school leader added that we could have more post-project PDs that focus on things like student work and reflections rather than emphasizing the beginning stages so much.
Later on in the year as I was concluding my research, the Lead Curator at our school and I did a series of PDs specifically around curation at our school. Based on conversations with my colleagues and a Needs Assessment I implemented earlier on in the year, I concluded that teachers wanted specific instructions in order to become more empowered to display student work outside of their classroom.
However, when our Lead Curator and I brainstormed a plan (see Appendix B to see details of the plan) to give our colleagues what we thought they wanted, the results according to the Exit Cards were puzzling. Once again, when asked ““On a scale of 1-5, how helpful did you find this Professional Development?”, eight of the respondents gave the score of a two, which is the most number of two’s compared to any other PD this year. Despite the fact that my colleague and I were providing teachers with specific instructions on how to go about displaying student work at HTHNC, which according to the Needs Assessment is what teachers wanted, they did not find it as helpful as the Tunings or the structured, collaborative work time we had been implementing. Based on the comments in the Exit Card, teachers commented that they either wanted more hands-on activities regarding this topic and/or more interaction with their colleagues regarding this topic. Since for these two meetings the teachers were not physically doing anything, teachers felt they got less out of the meeting
Space Matters for Students – Sometimes
In addition to surveying the staff, three different, mixed grade advisory classes took a survey regarding student work displays at HTHNC. The results were insightful and somewhat unexpected. Although my research indicated that providing students with an authentic audience will increase motivation and engagement, the responses from the survey showed me that this increase in dedication towards their will can only happen if students are already somewhat motivated and engaged in the work they are doing. In that case a public display of their work will increase the depth of their learning. One student says “When I see mediocre products displayed it motivates me to try and do better and always turn out good work” while another student compared our school to an art gallery and how it affected her learning: “When I see student work around the school, I generally feel inspired. Walking through the hallways and looking at work is similar for me to walking through an art gallery. I almost prefer it, because I know that people close to my own age made the work I am seeing, and I actually can do the same.” For students like these, engagement and motivation can only be increased through the use of student work displays.
However, with students that are disconnected from their work and struggle with motivation, a public display of their work will do little to increase deep learning, in fact it may discourage them even more whether it be from the raise in anxiety knowing that it will be publicly displayed or decrease in self-esteem knowing that their work will not be as beautiful or as worthy as their peers. A student who claims to always do work just to get it done says “I feel like I want to do a better job when I look at other students' work, but I also feel not caring”.
In terms of whether or not having student work displayed around their learning space affects their learning, the results are mixed based on the survey. One thing that is consistent is that all students are aware of their learning environment -- they know when their work is displayed or not displayed, they are aware which students work is most often up and they recognize that their school space is a reflection of the school and the students. “Sometimes when I walk around the school I will look at some of the artwork, sometimes its interesting or eye catching. And it gives me and idea for whats to come,” says one student. For students whose work is most often up and are proud of the work they are doing, of course the student work displays have a positive effect on their learning and self-esteem. However, for students whose work does not get valued or for students who begin to notice that their work often does not get “chosen” to be displayed, the displays begin to have a negative effect not only on their self-esteem but perhaps in their learning as well. According to interviews some students indicated that towards the upper grades when they realize they are not artistic or struggle with creating a beautiful and professional final product, they concluded that there is no point in trying to make it beautiful or professional because their work will not get displayed anyway. The only situation in which this is avoided is during exhibits when every student is displaying their work and discussing about their learning. This should be taken into careful consideration when implementing a permanent display of student work or an exhibition. As a classroom teacher, this reminds me of why every student should participate in exhibitions and why especially teachers should be cognizant of equity when displaying student work. Of course, depending on the space in which the work is curated there may be restrictions. But these survey responses reminds me that not displaying all of the students' works could result in a negative impact on the students' mindsets, self-esteem and the school culture in general.
On the other hand, many students pointed out in the survey that displaying work around the school helps students get an idea of what their colleagues are doing in other classes and grade levels. One student also pointed out that displaying student work should be a no-brainer at a school like HTHNC: “I think it doesn't just affect me it affects everyone as a community and creates a more positive and vibrant environment that makes people confident about their school.” Another student says “I don't feel incredibly affected but at the same time I do think that it reflects negatively upon our school [to not display student work]. To be a school that says it practices ‘project-based learning’, and then doesn't advertise it to its own students, doesn't take ‘pride’ in its students' work, seems hypocritical to me.” Another student states “I think that especially when I was an underclassman, I would see the work that the older kids would do and get extremely excited to know that one day I'd be able to produce work like theirs, and learn the things that they were. I would always get really excited that I would be there one day, and seeing my peers' work up on display also makes me feel pride for them, and for going to a school where beautiful work is appreciated and encouraged.” Some students did point out that they felt the student work displays do not affect them at all however these same students still pointed out it was still nice to have around: “I wouldn't say the student work I see effects me as a student, but I do like seeing some of the work because it is good work” while another student states “It doesn't really influence much and is mostly for visitors to see.” In essence, despite what these students are saying these displays are in fact affecting them because they appreciate the beauty and purpose of the curation.
In addition to supporting my school in developing and implementing PD meetings, I am continuing to support the student-led Curation Club. One of my biggest learning moments was when I realized that regardless of how much passion and enthusiasm a group of students may have, they need the guidance and structure from the school and teachers in order to achieve their goal(s). When the Curation Club first started off, we had over 20 interested students. We discussed the things we could do together, projects we could tackle to improve curation at our school, how we might help teachers, materials we need, etc. When I realized the lunch meetings would not suffice for all the things we wanted to do, I tried to convince the club to turn the meetings into an x-block (an elective-type class that students sign up for). It turned out that many of the students had other obligations for x-block (such as ASB, Yearbook, Community Connections, soccer, etc.). Without the time to execute all of our goals, our meetings soon turned into a lot of talk but not a lot of action. It wasn’t until I started discussing my research with our school’s Lead Curator that we began to brainstorm some specific actions the students could do to support the school in curation. Now, the Curation Club students do monthly building maintenance checks which allows students to take ownership of our building by maintaining projects that are already displayed as well as furniture. Additionally, the students have gone on field trips to visit other HTH schools to see how they are displaying student work as well as assisting me and our Lead Curator with a curating workshop for HTHNC teachers. Furthermore, as the year quickly comes to an end, we have been discussing “next steps” for our club and our school in terms of curation. We hope to have “curators” for every team going forward in hopes that these student leaders can help their teachers with the final but critical step of exhibiting or curating.