What does meaningful learning look like when students are given the freedom to ask questions, explore ideas, and take an active role in their own education?
Across Out-of-Door, educators are creating experiences that move beyond traditional models of instruction and invite students to become participants in the learning process. In Lower School, second graders pursue questions inspired by their own interests and transform their discoveries into hands-on projects. In Middle School, students analyze global data, challenge assumptions, and consider how complex systems affect people around the world. In Upper School, students engage with collaborative projects, emerging technologies, and instructional approaches designed to prepare them for a rapidly changing future.
The lessons may look different in each classroom, but they are connected by a shared belief: students learn more deeply when they are encouraged to question, investigate, create, collaborate, and reflect.
For ODA educators, innovation is not simply about introducing a new program or piece of technology. It is about finding better ways to spark curiosity, strengthen student ownership, and connect classroom learning to the wider world.
Through the work of Mrs. Sara Prete, Mr. TJ Woolford, and Mr. Fernando Azcona, that philosophy can be seen taking shape across every division. Whether students are building and testing kites, evaluating countries through an international competition, or collaborating across state lines on an engineering project, they are developing the curiosity, empathy, resilience, and critical thinking skills that will continue to serve them long after a lesson ends.
At ODA, the classroom is not simply a place where students receive information. It is a place where they learn how to discover, contribute, and make meaning for themselves.
Learning Through Curiosity and Choice
In Mrs. Sara Prete’s second grade classroom, learning often begins with a question.
Sometimes that question is simple:
How do kites fly?
Other times, it grows into larger explorations about healthy eating, roller coaster safety, or even the remarkable power of a dog’s sense of smell. Regardless of the topic, the process remains rooted in curiosity and student ownership.
Through her classroom initiative known as “CHOOSEday,” Mrs. Prete has introduced students to inquiry-based learning experiences that encourage them to move beyond memorization and become active participants in constructing their own understanding. Known more broadly in education as Genius Hour or Passion Projects, CHOOSEday gives students dedicated time to explore topics that genuinely interest them while developing essential academic and interpersonal skills along the way.
“I love inquiry learning because it allows children to move out of the position of knowledge consumers to knowledge co-constructors and gives them a position of power in their learning,” Mrs. Prete explained.
The experience begins with students selecting a topic they are excited to investigate. From there, they research using books, articles, educational websites, and videos before organizing their findings into presentations designed to teach others what they have learned. Each student also creates a hands-on artifact that reflects their thinking and understanding.
To help introduce the process, Mrs. Prete first guided the class through a collaborative project centered around kites. Together, students researched how kites fly, experimented with different materials, tested designs, and learned through repeated trial and error before finally achieving success.
The project was about far more than simply building a kite.
Students practiced asking meaningful questions, organizing information, solving problems, communicating ideas, and persevering through failure. Just as importantly, they began developing the confidence to guide their own learning and present their thinking to others.
“These experiences teach students that their interests matter in a classroom and that their voices are worth sharing,” Mrs. Prete said.
That emphasis on student agency reflects a growing shift in education toward learning environments that prioritize curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking alongside traditional academic content. Rather than viewing students as passive recipients of information, inquiry-based learning invites them to become collaborators in the educational process.
For young learners, those opportunities can have a profound impact.
Mrs. Prete has also incorporated social-emotional learning into her classroom culture through the “CHOOSEday” initiative’s broader focus on kindness, empathy, and intentional decision-making. Each Tuesday, students are encouraged to think carefully about how their actions affect the people around them, reinforcing the idea that leadership often begins with small, everyday choices.
“Children have an incredible ability to lift each other up,” she shared. “When students realize how much power they have to positively impact someone else’s day, it changes the environment around them.”
Together, these experiences help establish an important foundation for lifelong learning, one where students recognize that curiosity, compassion, and resilience are just as valuable as academic achievement.
Bringing the World Into the Classroom
In Middle School, learning takes on an increasingly global perspective.
Inside Mr. TJ Woolford’s seventh grade World Cultures classroom, students spend the month of April immersed in a fast-paced international competition known as “April Absurdity,” a creative academic tournament inspired by the excitement of March Madness. But instead of basketball teams competing for a championship title, students evaluate countries from around the world using constantly changing global indicators and data sets.
The structure is familiar: a 64-country bracket gradually narrows through rounds that mirror the Sweet 16, Elite 8, Final Four, and Championship. What changes from round to round, however, are the criteria used to determine success.
One matchup may be decided by literacy rates, another by environmental sustainability, economic performance, access to clean water, or progress toward humanitarian goals. As students analyze each category, they are challenged to reconsider assumptions about what makes a country successful and how different global systems intersect.
The result is an engaging, highly interactive learning experience that transforms abstract international concepts into something students can actively explore and debate.
At the center of April Absurdity are the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, a collection of 17 global objectives designed to address challenges such as poverty, hunger, education, environmental protection, and equality by the year 2030. By examining how nations perform across these goals, students begin developing a deeper understanding of global citizenship and interconnected problem-solving.
Rather than simply memorizing facts about geography or government systems, students are learning to interpret data, evaluate competing priorities, and recognize the complexities facing countries around the world.
The tournament format also introduces an important lesson about perspective.
A nation that performs strongly in one category may struggle in another, forcing students to think critically rather than rely on simplified assumptions or rankings. Success becomes multifaceted, nuanced, and constantly evolving, much like the real world itself.
For Mr. Woolford, the goal extends far beyond a classroom competition.
The experience is designed to help students become thoughtful, informed individuals who understand both the opportunities and responsibilities that come with living in an interconnected world. By encouraging students to engage with real-world issues through collaboration, research, and analysis, April Absurdity helps transform global awareness from an abstract concept into a meaningful personal responsibility.
The tournament even culminates in a memorable tradition inspired by The Masters golf tournament: the winning student in each class receives a coveted green jacket, symbolizing not only victory within the bracket, but mastery of the broader concepts explored throughout the experience.
While the green jacket may go to a single student, the larger impact reaches the entire classroom.
Students emerge with stronger analytical skills, greater empathy for global challenges, and a clearer understanding that informed citizenship requires curiosity, adaptability, and a willingness to consider perspectives beyond their own.
Preparing Students for the Future of Learning
For Mr. Fernando Azcona, innovation in education extends far beyond the walls of a single classroom.
As an Upper School science educator, Mr. Azcona has become increasingly involved in national conversations surrounding instructional design, scientific literacy, emerging technologies, and future-ready learning practices. His participation in both the Smithsonian’s Teacher Innovator Institute and the National Conference on Science Education has allowed him to collaborate with educators from across the country while bringing new ideas and strategies back to ODA.
At the Smithsonian’s Teacher Innovator Institute, Mr. Azcona returned as one of only six alumni selected to mentor educators participating in a 17-day immersive program. In addition to guiding fellow teachers through the experience, he also co-led presentations focused on creatively integrating biographies into science instruction and facilitating collaborative student projects between schools in different states.
One particularly successful project connected ODA engineering students with seventh grade students in New Jersey through a birdhouse design exchange centered around migratory bird species traveling between the two regions. Students collaborated across geographic boundaries while applying engineering concepts, environmental science, creativity, and communication skills in authentic ways.
“The students had so much fun working on this project—they considered it a highlight of the year,” Mr. Azcona shared.
That emphasis on interdisciplinary, collaborative learning reflects a broader shift taking place in education nationwide. Increasingly, educators are designing experiences that encourage students to connect knowledge across subjects, communicate effectively, and engage with real-world challenges that rarely fit neatly into a single academic category.
Mr. Azcona continued that work at the National Conference on Science Education in Anaheim, California, where he presented sessions on “Flipped Classroom and Literacy in Life Science” and “Visible Thinking Routines in Science” to educators from across the United States. His own professional learning at the conference focused heavily on the responsible integration of artificial intelligence in education, AI literacy, drones, and three-dimensional science instruction.
These emerging areas are becoming increasingly important as schools work to prepare students for careers and technologies that continue to evolve at a rapid pace.
Rather than viewing innovation as simply introducing new tools into the classroom, educators like Mr. Azcona are focusing on how instructional practices can help students become stronger communicators, collaborators, and critical thinkers.
For students, that can mean participating in more hands-on, discussion-driven, and inquiry-centered experiences that emphasize problem-solving over rote memorization. It also means learning how to navigate complex technologies responsibly while developing the adaptability needed for an uncertain future.
“This program has been a life-changing experience for me,” Mr. Azcona reflected. “Being surrounded by educators from all over the U.S. and feeding off each other’s enthusiasm for education is cup-filling.”
That enthusiasm continues to shape the experiences students encounter at ODA every day.
Shared Vision for Learning
Although their classrooms may look very different, Mrs. Prete, Mr. Woolford, and Mr. Azcona share a common educational philosophy.
Each is creating learning environments where students are encouraged to ask questions, think independently, collaborate with others, and engage meaningfully with the world around them. Whether students are building kites in second grade, analyzing global development data in Middle School, or exploring scientific innovation and AI literacy in Upper School, they are developing skills that extend far beyond any single lesson or assignment.
At a time when education continues to evolve alongside technology, globalization, and rapidly changing workforce demands, ODA educators are helping students cultivate something even more enduring: the ability to remain curious, adaptable, empathetic, and engaged throughout their lives.
Those qualities cannot be measured by a single test score or classroom grade.
They emerge through experiences that challenge students to think critically, communicate thoughtfully, persevere through setbacks, and see themselves as capable contributors to their communities and the wider world.
Across every division, ODA educators are proving that some of the most meaningful learning happens when students are invited to move beyond the role of passive learners and become active participants in discovery itself.
