News at St. Catherine's
Innovation Fellows Program Kicked off over the Summer
In a school full of failure, a group of St. Catherine’s educators found success and inspiration.
As the first-ever Innovation Fellows at St. Catherine’s, the group of six traveled to the Nueva Design Thinking Summer Institute in San Mateo, Calif. over the summer.
“It is intentionally designed for students to hypothesize over and over again,” said seventh grade Science teacher Greg Heimlich, one of the Innovation Fellows. ”In doing so, students will find that failure is part of the learning process and that they need to find the value in learning how to fail.
“This learning model is not unique to students, but it can also be used by teachers to review our
own pedagogy.”
Innovation Fellows is a new cohort of St. Catherine’s faculty and staff members interested in strengthening the culture of innovation and collaboration within the School community. The Fellows bring together faculty and staff across all three divisions. The first group of Innovation Fellows is Raven Baytops '12, Caroline Schultz, Regan Sprenkle, Savannah Salter Watson '12, Meg Zehmer and Heimlich.
The group traveled together to the Nueva Design Thinking Institute in California over the summer and will be working together over the next two years to implement design thinking in their daily work. Funded by a generous donor, the Innovation Fellows program provides a stiped to each participant.
During their time at the Nueva School, the Innovation Fellows explored emotional ties, viewed mock lessons, engaged in deep interviews with peers and worked in dedicated maker spaces.
“We learned the path of innovation, which is a different path for all of us that were involved,” Schultz said. “Our emotional ties, our brainstorming and connections were all unique, which makes the learning at the Nueva School so complex and involved yet unified. There are no right or wrong answers in design thinking; it pushes you to find your own answers.”
All six Innovation Fellows returned to Richmond eager to implement what they learned.
“A big takeaway for me was how to increase student curiosity and commitment to school by giving them more space to think outside of the box and reward creativity and deep thinking,” Watson said.
Located in the heart of Richmond, Virginia, St. Catherine’s School is a private, all-girls pre-K, kindergarten, elementary, middle and high school. We provide a well-rounded educational experience for girls from communities across Richmond, Chesterfield, Henrico and all of central Virginia. St.Catherine’s all-girls educational experience is rooted in more than a century of history and tradition. From our revolutionary past to our dynamic present, St. Catherine’s has always focused on preparing students for a boundless future.
