New ‘Little Learning Labs’ pushes overall program to record numbers

January 21, 2015

New ‘Little Learning Labs’ pushes overall program to record numbers

More than 700 academically high-achieving students partake in fun yet challenging workshops.

More than 700 academically high-achieving students descended on the UOW campus during their January school holidays to partake in fun yet challenging workshops.

Due to a growing demand within the local community, the gifted and talented program for primary and high school students has now grown to encompass students from as young as Year 1 through to Year 10.

Because of the growing numbers, the primary school program was split into two streams -- LITTLE LEARNING LABS for Years 1 and 2 students and EARLY LEARNING LABS for Years 3 to 6 students. These were followed by the high school program simply called LEARNING LABS.

The high school program was completed on 21 January.

Workshops were led by teachers with specialist training or a specific interest in gifted education. Organisers say the program proved to be extremely popular with all workshops full and many more students on waiting lists. Some of the workshops offered focused on such things as building video games, LEGO robotics, mathematics, science, creative writing and graphic design.

Conducted by the In2Uni program at the University, Learning Labs Project Officer, Sarah Smith, has been steadily building the program since its conception in 2012.

The high school LEARNING LABS program included workshops on the main campus as well as the Innovation Campus.

Ms Smith said the new technology workshops, CodeCamp, Digital Media and Introduction to Building Video Games proved to be extremely popular with students travelling from all over the region to participate.

“Each workshop was developed and presented by university academics or specialists who are leaders in their field,” Ms Smith said.

“We planned to give gifted and talented students from the region something different to what they can achieve at school –a real university experience with a variety of dynamic and challenging workshops,” Ms Smith said.