NuVu High School Seminars are produced three times a year, and are focused upon specific skill building and learning goals, with an emphasis on hands-on learning. Distinguished from our typical design studio model, where an open-ended prompt drives the learning process, Seminars are more focused learning—and a great opportunity to dive deep into a particular subject.

Held Tuesdays and Thursdays this winter session through February 21, NuVu students embark upon two very different Seminars: Computational Calculus and Artistic Inquiry.

The Language of Calculus

Technology Coach Ayush Gandhi has adapted a Powderhouse method of instruction to create Computational Calculus, offering a unique perspective on the mathematical study of continuous change. With Tuesdays set up for theory introduction and class discussions, and Thursday’s Lab for building and project based learning, Ayush says he’s excited to make math learning more interactive than the typical instruction.

The coach points to a quote by Seymour Papert, author of several math education books: “Being a mathematician [is] like being a poet, or a composer or an engineer, [and that] means doing, rather than knowing or understanding.”

By using the NuVu processes students are familiar with, Ayush hopes to illustrate how calculus can be viewed as an User Interface design challenge, and can be used as a particular language to communicate project work.

“We will be using all our making and creative energies to bring calculus to our hands. For example, we will laser cut a x-y coordinate plane and use threads to create straight lines but visually look like a curve.”

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Insights of Art

Taught by Boston-based interdisciplinary, conceptual artist Kyle Brown (with an assist from Dean of Students Jon Turnquist), Artistic Inquiry opens new opportunities to relate to content and construct knowledge.

Kyle believes traditional research can be dryly academic, and artistic inquiry uses arts processes to explore original insights, challenge assumptions, gather data and present outcomes. Through hands-on projects and discussions, Kyle hopes students will learn different approaches to artistic research, "and see it just as valid as scientific research - to give them tools to socially and emotionally engage viewers in their inquiries,” she says. These include using contemporary art to inform artistic concepts; utilizing art practices to gather information and data; learning interdisciplinary practices that combine arts with other fields of study; and material experimentation and the role of making in generating new knowledge.

For topics, Kyle says students will focus on food, nature and self in relation to the immediate vicinity of Central Sq., learning how to apply artistic research. Students will then present a self-driven, arts-based research project as their final project.