“Our visitors’ focus was capturing video footage of six of our students asking their most curious questions. These questions will be answered by MIT lecturers and researchers as part of their inspiring AskMIT series. I’m particularly excited to see the outcome, including the feature of one of our inquisitive Year 12 students, who asked how we can develop sustainable materials for the fashion industry,” says MIT Collaboration Lead for Europe, Mark O’Brien.
In addition, our visitors:
- Ran workshops for five different year groups.
- Engaged parents about MIT’s values and how our students can benefit most from our partnership.
- Led a thought-provoking Primary assembly connected to our International Primary Curriculum learning goals.
- Toured our school hosted by our six interviewees.
- Chatted with Secondary staff over a shared lunch.
It was a full schedule and extremely rewarding for all LCIS students, staff, and parents.
Workshops
Year group workshops started with three key videography tips from professional videographer Abby. The rule of thirds – learning how to compose the frame, being aware of background noise and choosing a quiet environment, and distractions behind the camera. A few fun exercises: How loud can we shout? How many silly faces can we pull to make the interview subject laugh? and students were ready to film one another asking their Curiosity Question, which they uploaded to the MIT ‘becurious’ portal.
LCIS and the MIT Values
MIT’s values have significant crossover with the International Baccalaureate (IB) Learner Profile, designed to nurture young people who have the skills to be enquirers, risk takers, open-minded, reflective:
- “…we believe in learning by doing, and we blur the boundaries between disciplines as we seek to solve hard problems. Embracing the unconventional, we welcome quirkiness, nerdiness, creative irreverence, and play.” MIT Values
- Exploring interdisciplinary approaches to problem solving is key within the IB, as is accepting failure as a crucial step on the path to growing and improving.
- “We accept the risk of failing as a rung on the ladder of growth. With fearless curiosity, we question our assumptions, look outward, and learn from others.” MIT Values
- Giving our students the chance to experience collaborative opportunities with MIT from Primary school onwards sows important seeds of curiosity and questioning. In Secondary we run MIT Challenges as extension projects targeting different year groups and have an interdisciplinary transfer day later in the year as part of our lower secondary curriculum.
MIT Resources and Engagement for Students and Parents
Students of all ages can log onto NAE Global Campus at any time. In the STEAM section they can help MIT mathematicians, scientists and engineers solve MIT Challenges, join live MIT Abstracts sessions and take part in the Global Campus STEAM Club. All of the Curiosity Correspondent videos are here as well, and students can also upload their own STEAM Questions at becurious.mit.edu and selected questions will be answered.
LCIS teachers make use of these fantastic resources, notably for events such as our recent Primary STEAM week, where students spent dedicated time focussing on select MIT STEAM challenges, thinking, discussing, designing and making models of their proposed solutions to the chosen MIT posed questions.
Our Students Visit MIT
We are incredibly proud of two of our Year 12 students who applied for coveted places on the annual 60-student Nord Anglia Education visit to MIT in Boston. As the smallest NAE school in Europe we were thrilled that both students were accepted. As well as showing the focus and dedication of our chosen students, this is testament to how well STEAM is taught at La Cote International School.
The group were first presented with their real-world challenge for the week: to design innovative tools in support of MIT’s research for an upcoming expedition to Alaska. Workshops and lectures followed that fed into their ideas and the skills they would need to draw on for their project. These included a fascinating talk on marine conservation in Antarctica, a deep dive into how dust affects solar panels and workshops on robotics, slow motion photography, and the engineering secrets of origami.
Collaboration
More than challenging their knowledge, the trip to MIT demanded a test of soft skills, core to the International Baccalaureate that we teach at LCIS. The students had to swiftly form teams, choose a leader, and assign roles. They then had to collaborate effectively to complete a challenging project in a set timeframe. The teams’ ideas for the design of a camera that can withstand Alaskan weather in a remote and isolated location will be shared with the MIT project team who are studying the Aurora Borealis.
By giving the trip’s participants a real-world project, with a real-world outcome, the students felt keenly how their ideas, their knowledge, their STEAM skills, teamwork and passion can make a real impact. With a focus always on environmental responsibility alongside practical problem-solving ideas, science, technology, engineering and maths was placed in an ethical framework that added a great sense of responsibility, which is high in most of our students’ minds.
Siobhan Newell, Head of Design Technology, says: “The collaboration between Nord Anglia Education (NAE) and MIT continues to inspire and empower students at La Côte International School (LCIS) by fostering curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking. Through unique opportunities like visits from MIT representatives, interactive workshops, and immersive projects at MIT, students are not only engaging with innovative STEAM initiatives but also developing the interdisciplinary and collaborative skills central to the International Baccalaureate and future success. This partnership exemplifies the transformative power of education, equipping students to tackle global challenges with innovation and responsibility, while firmly connecting them to a world of limitless possibilities.”
