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Maharishi School teacher Michael Cook featured on Atomic Blog

Maharishi School of the Age of Enlightenment Translate This Article
14 August 2016

The Excellence In Action page of Global Good News is featuring Maharishi School of the Age of Enlightenment's Project-Based Learning curriculum structure. This approach to learning is an answer to every student's question, ''when am I ever going to use this?'' - as some of the school day can be eaten up with busywork that doesn't particularly engage the interest.

The process begins by choosing a meaningful problem to solve or question to answer from within the subject requirements for the semester. Student preferences and opinions are taken into account in this choice, and this autonomy increases as kids move through the grades.

MSAE's Upper School students had several choices for their Project-Based Learning Period. One group designed, sewed, and modeled upcycled clothes for the EcoJam Fashion show. Another team chose to draft, build, and launch rockets. Some students joined an entrepreneurship class and learned how to brainstorm product ideas, then manufacture and market them. The final choice was an app prototyping course taught by Maharishi School graduate, teacher, illustrator, and designer Michael Cook.

The class used Atomic, an online subscription service that allows users to accomplish their design work from a blank canvas or pull in work done in other common computer applications. Michael explains, ''Atomic made it possible for me to orient my students and get them up and running very quickly. I was able to walk them through a super simple design and have them run it on their phones in their first session.'' He chose app development for a project choice as the Atomic platform ran on any computer and handled some of the technical challenges, because ''that allowed us to go deep into the interpersonal challenges of collaboration.''

Please click on the following link to read more about Maharishi School teacher Michael Cook featured on Atomic Blog on the Excellence in Action page.

Michael explains, ''the class worked through a series of prototyping exercises making simple weather, music, chat, and shopping apps. They then went through two rounds of prototyping their own ideas with the requirements that the apps would have a positive social impact and ethical ways of bringing in revenue. This resulted in students exploring app prototypes for charity, personal health, and personal finance.''

Read the Atomic Blog featuring Michael Cook —how he described MSAE and Consciousness Based education, designed the app project, drew on interfacing computer applications, and guided the class through the steps of app development.

Copyright © 2016 Maharishi School of the Age of Enlightenment

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∙ Students enjoy success without stress at Maharishi School of the Age of Enlightenment

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