Laura Cole

Brainstormer, Change agent, Connector, Designer, Educator/Teacher, Environmentalist, Explorer, Idea generator, Parent, Philanthropist, Scientist, Student, World traveler

Laura Cole is currently the Educational Innovator of the SPARQ Innovation Space at the Good Shepherd Episcopal School with students PK-8th grade. She creates curriculum and collaborates to design lessons using high tech and low-tech tools to help students think more deeply about what they are learning. Laura has presented at the Lausanne Learning Institute, TCEA, and SXSWEdu conferences on Maker Education and Design Thinking in Education. Her students have presented their own work at Dallas Start Up Week 2015, the Dallas Aurora Festival of Light 2015, and the Dallas Festival of Ideas 2016. Laura aims to build community partnerships through SPARQ to deepen student engagement and thinking in all learning communities.

Empathy and Creativity in all things

Idea #1: I believe that partnering a variety of teachers with different gifts from different kinds of schools to team teach. They will support one another and try new ways of teaching at both campuses. The time would be chalked up to Professional Development at no cost. The teacher growth would be enormous in areas of creativity, empathy, and educational innovations. When you pair different points of view to work on one problem together, great ideas develop. Idea #2: Diverse students from different schools and communities partner to solve design challenges that have value for them personally. How might the next generation reflect these collaborations? Might we see more empathy towards others? Might we all benefit from the innovative thinking that comes from sharing many points of view in solving problems? Might we see future citizens who are experienced problem solvers?

Facilitating Collaborations, Speaking and Presenting on Creativity in Education, Teaching and Learning in PK-8 grades

communicating with animals empathizing with those around me caring