Our Approach
Project FRACTAL is founded on rich, equitable partnerships with teachers and students where their expertise and experiences drive design and innovation.
Why rural schools?
Our team is passionate about rural education with the majority of our team having grown up in rural communities attending rural schools.
Rural schools are culturally and linguistically rich spaces that do not get the attention they deserve in the research literature. Nearly 20% of the people in the United States live in rural spaces, and the agriculture industries these spaces support feed the other 80% of the United States. Rural schools are also especially well positioned for emerging industries, such as agrotechnology, which will build systems that could redefine our relationship with the land we live on. Our team believes that rural perspectives need to be brought forward, helping build a 21st century that both our grandparents and grandchildren would be proud of.
What is Design-Based Research?
Design-based research (DBR) is an approach used in educational research and other fields that focuses on designing, implementing, and evaluating innovative solutions to real-world problems within authentic settings. Unlike traditional research methods that aim primarily to observe or analyze phenomena, DBR is characterized by an iterative cycle of design, enactment, and analysis. It seeks to develop and refine theories, frameworks, or practical interventions through systematic inquiry conducted in authentic educational contexts.
DBR is particularly well-suited for addressing complex educational challenges that require innovative solutions tailored to specific contexts. By engaging in systematic cycles of design, enactment, and analysis, researchers using this approach can develop practical interventions that have the potential to improve teaching and learning in meaningful ways.
What is Co-Design?
Co-design research is a collaborative approach to research that involves active participation from all stakeholders, including researchers and end-users, in the design process. It emphasizes the inclusion of diverse perspectives and expertise to create solutions that are more relevant, usable, and sustainable.
In co-design research, stakeholders work together in all stages of the research process, from problem definition to solution development and evaluation. This collaborative approach can take various forms, such as workshops, focus groups, interviews, prototyping sessions, and iterative design cycles. By involving stakeholders directly in the design process, co-design research aims to generate insights, co-create knowledge, and develop solutions that address real-world needs and challenges more effectively.
What are Expeditions?
At the core of Project FRACTAL, are five, week-long units, called Expeditions, that will be evaluated in middle school art classrooms. These units incorporate art and computer science concepts and state standards as well as 21st century digital ethics and digital citizenship skills. Each Expedition has been developed in partnership with middle school art teachers and their students, using design-based research and co-design methods.
Each Expedition is five instructional days that culminates in a classroom art exhibit activity where students learn to be critical consumers and producers of art. At the start of an Expedition, students engage in exploration of target concrete or analog art concepts and move to digital creations and parallels. For example, Expedition 3 begins with students studying and physically creating tessellations and ends with algorithmic digital art.
Alongside student-facing instructional materials, each Expedition comes with a wide variety of teacher resources needed for teachers to feel agency in implementation, including lesson plans co-created with participating teachers, instructional guides, a resource and professional learning website, and how-to videos or PowerPoints.