Another Boze Exhibit On The Books!

Another Boze Elementary exhibit on the books!

This year, Boze Elementary has experienced great success transitioning into a STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math) focused school. With the help of TAF support by the way of instructional coaches, administration and faculty have made the commitment to adopt our proven STEMbyTAF project-based learning model, the same one we use at our own TAF Academy in Kent.

Within a nine month period, Boze has already received recognition by their district Tacoma Public Schools, and students and teachers alike appear more energized than ever.

We see it from our end too. Shoshanna Cohen, TAF instructional coach over at Boze regularly boasts about the advanced projects and themes the K-5 students are tackling. She’s also been impressed with the level of investment the school is now experiencing from the local community and surrounding businesses.

Arron Wilkins, principal at Boze is magnetic and infuses his energy and enthusiasm into his faculty and students. His desire for excellence permeates and reaches even the youngest students at Boze. Like at TAF Academy, we’re working to produce leaders of tomorrow and future innovators. This desire for the students has become evident by the exposure Boze has worked hard to provide this year through various field trips to places like Costco, United States Postal Service and more.

Students have also had the chance to experience what it means to be an entrepreneur. 5th grade students were afforded the opportunity to participate in BizTown, a program that teaches them about the many aspects of running a business, to which they began their own school store for real-world application. With the information they learned, students were able to pass along their knowledge as the kindergartners developed their own neighborhood community called KinderTown, complete with fully functioning (in play-world terms) restaurants, a flower shop, car wash, post office, and even an ATM!

The learning happening at Boze is unique. It is student originated and teacher guided. We think the education team at Boze is absolutely stellar. The school now views students differently, encouraging them to think of problems and then serves as a guide in student’s’ quests to help come to conclusions and provide solutions. The teachers are also tasked with integrating study subjects so that learning is organic and applicable while still making sure they cover the traditional grade-level benchmarks widely used in public education. Luckily for them, Boze Elementary faculty attended a week-long learning session last summer called the STEMbyTAF Teacher Institute prior to the start of the school year where they were equipped with the tools needed to shift their idea of teaching into that of a knowledge acquisition supporter.

Just recently, we’ve experienced two highly successful events: The Boze STEAM Fair in late April which was a community event with various STEAM focused activities for students to enjoy, and last Thursday, the Boze Spring Student Exhibitions, a finale of the work students completed this past semester.

Each of the events were packed, with attendee parking uncontained by the school’s lot and extending blocks away. At the Boze STEAM Fair, children had the chance to inspect water bugs under microscope, make bubbles with various instruments, construct their own straw rocket, simulate pollution with beads and more.

During the most recent event, parent’s eyes gleamed as they listened to their children give thoughtful remarks about their semester projects and the work they did over the year. TAF CEO and Co-Founder listened and chuckled approvingly to recorded marketing advertisements by 5th grade students, many of which included a jingle. Students had formed teams or “companies” and were tasked to develop marketing strategies to promote a product which include various channels including poster advertisements and radio commercials. One of the highlights of this event was watching the principal Arron roam the hallways and probe the students about their work. He treated them all with a great level of respect and the questions he asked seemed to be aimed at an older student, yet the kids answered them knowledgeably. That’s when it was apparent that they hadn’t been fed information, but had actually internalized the learning they’d acquired over the year.
We’re so excited about the progress happening at Boze and are looking forward to another year supporting them to prepare young STEM leaders!