About

What is the Kol-lab?

The Kol-lab is a space that provides students with tools, instruction, and opportunities to design, experiment, build, and invent as they engage in STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics). Students problem solve, and develop skills, talents, critical thinking, and mental rigor, all promoting the value of the making experience. 

Students use the learning done in the Kol-lab to broaden the way they approach new topics and challenges. It expands the possibilities of what they can create and gives them the confidence to be innovative risk-takers when faced with challenges or opportunities outside of the Kol-lab. 

What does "Kol-lab" mean?

The name "Kol-lab" has multiple meanings. When said aloud, we hear the beginning of the word collaborate. In any STEAM Lab, collaboration is at the forefront of all making. We use the skills and strengths of our community to make changes and improve. In the Kol-lab students work together, not in competition, to take their creativity as far as it can go. However, there's more to the name than just collaboration. In the Kol-lab we know that all voices matter and that every voice has something to contribute. In Hebrew, the word כֹּל, pronounced kol, means all or every, and the word קוֹל, also pronounced kol, means voice. Our space captures all voices.

The Design Thinking Process

Design Thinking is in all that we do in the Kol-lab. At its core, it is an approach to problem-solving. Through different challenges, students practice the iterative process from the very beginning of PreK.  We draw their attention to which step of the process we are currently tackling and use the language of the process in conjunction with more age-appropriate terms. For example, in PreK and Kindergarten we focus a lot on empathy. We call this listening to the needs of others. The students know what empathizing means long before they reach middle school. 

Since this process is cyclical, we emphasize the need to work towards a solution, rather than solving the problem. With an inherent need to return to the drawing board, students practice flexibility, creativity, and persistence. Students focus more on the process than on the product and it's during this process that the learning and growth occurs.