Open Learning
What is OPen Learning
Open Learning refers to all the activities that enhance and broaden learning opportunities beyond formal education by opening the classroom to the world and applying theorical skills to real life. The program is built around innovative and collaborative initiatives between the school and local institutions and their stakeholders.
COMPETITIONS, COACHING AND PARTNERSHIPS
Local or international competitions are unique opportunities to apply skills and learnings. Robotic competitions like the First Lego league challenge allows our students to test their knowledge, leadership and skills bringing in the experience to get involved further in Design Thinking events and invite students to tackle science, humanitarian or environmental world challenges. The Start’up Lycée is a two day event during which students are invited to become young entrepreneurs and build a start-up in just 48 hours! Coached and mentored by professionals, the teams create an app, develop content, feasibility, financing, and finally pitch the project to a jury comprised of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. Our academic teams are working at creating partnerships with firms or programs to give students real opportunities to work with professionals through internships (EKSO Bionics), use their products to deepen their learning (Parrot Drones), or invest their brainpower into solving the world’s acute humanitarian problems (Youth Summit Stanford).
Open Learning in Action
START'UP LYCEE in the heart of the Silicon Valley
The Startup Lycée program was initiated in 2016. All Gr10 students participate in this important event at the Hult International Business School. For the 2019 edition, students worked on innovative and sustainable solution for the city of the future and the city of today.
Master Class : Theater
As professional artists come and visit the school, our students benefit from their insights and experience. The TLF, the best stage for French Theater in the Bay Area, is a unique opportunity for high school students to exchange with renowned and awarded artists.
Artists in Residence
For the past few years, thanks to LFSF parents' generous contributions to the Annual Fund, our students have enjoyed the visits of famous artists in residence coming from France.
"Welcoming an artist in residence at first, it’s creating a relation. It’s a great way for all of us here to actually put a face on a book or a series of children’s books. We get to know more about the person who brings this story to us : we can exchange and ask questions. And, of course, we get more attached to the story and the author in the process.
But above all, it’s a fantastic learning experience for the children. They learn real illustrating techniques, they understand how to imagine and write a story, design and bring to life characters, and also how to build the book - I mean, the object itself. And who knows? These visits could be a revelation for some of them, because it is an entire profession that they start to understand. Children realize that writing can be an actual job!" – Nadine LEMAITRE, Librarian
More examples of Open Learning in Action
Congratulations to our talented coders and their teachers: they made us proud and impressed during the international coding competition in Tapei!
"What is innovation to me? It's everything from building apps to creating lipstick." Some years ago, Hannah was a little girl struggling to speak French when she started at LFSF. Today, as she is getting ready to embark on a new chapter at Columbia University, she can officially add Python to her list of languages.
Gilles Bailly-Maitre is a researcher from La Rochelle University in France, and has been working with our students for Math en Jeans. We asked him a few questions about his involvement in the 2019 Math en Jeans conference.
The 2019 Math en Jean conference is coming to San Francisco and is hosted by LFSF. We met with Matthieu Schavsinski, one of the Math teachers leading the organization of this major event, and we asked him a few questions.
Isabella is only in Gr 7 at LFSF and yet it took her just a week to program an online game. She brainstormed questions, drew the animation, and then coded her game!
Le programme Startup Lycée s'installe année après année dans l'écosystème de San Francisco. Cette année, le thème portait sur la ville du futur.