American Community School of Abu Dhabi won the future-thinking innovators award at the 2021 International School Awards last January.HereSuperintendent,Monique Flickinger tells their award-winning story.
Like many of my fellow heads around the world, I am always trying to find ways to incorporate teachers’ ideas into ourplans for the future. Some ideas,thoughpassionate, do not alignwithour strategic plans,while others hit the mark. This was the case in 2019 when our technology team had the incredible idea totransformabasement area to a hip and cool space where students could be active creators, giving them both a voice and a choice in their learning.
Imagine a classroom that has a radio station, a TV studio,arobotics arena,ananimation station and a small stage for performance where students are so engaged in learning that they ignore the bell for dismissal. That became a reality with the launch ofthe American Community School of Abu Dhabi’s (ACS)BackstageTechttoosprogramme.
Giving students voice and choice
Our High School’s courses already included tendesign andinnovation classes, but we wanted to start this programmeearlier and target students in grades 6–8. For the 2019–2020 year, we introduced the programmeinto the MiddleSchool with 50%of our students making it their first choice.
The programmefeatures a variety of topics, including robotics, coding, digital music,film-making, podcasting, pirate radio, mobile photography, digital art, animation, augmented reality, explainer videos, 3D design and print, graphic design, wearables, electronics, webcasting and video editing. That means in the same classroom, you’ll see students recording themselves playing instruments, while others are exploring creative sewing where they design and prototype interactive garments. Or you’ll find some students working on stop-frame animation with clay, while others are coding using Scratch programming language. Students can pick their own path of adventure with no deadline constraints, enabling them to move at their own pace.
Student-driven outcomes
In the first year of the programme, students were so motivated thatanadditional curriculum needed to be written during the term to keep up with their pace and interest. Students who completed all projects even started to develop curriculumsand projects for beginners in new fields of study.
In recognition oftheirsuccess, a student can earn a‘techttoo’to prove they fully comprehend a skill by creating projects that demonstrate their new knowledge and recording a video reflection aboutthe skill they’velearnt. Like badges of honour, the students proudly display smalltechttoosstickers on their laptops.
How technology skills support other subjects
Through the design of theTechttooprojects, students control their own learning by selecting projects that allow them to continuously improve existing skills and acquire new ones. Often,we have seen students apply their newly learned skills to other content classes. For example, a student could be inspired to animate the metamorphosis of a caterpillar to a butterfly using animation for a graded assignment fortheirscience class or create a podcast in French to complete a group project for French class.
Flexible learning – even during a pandemic!
Aligned to the International Society of Technology in Education (ISTE) standards, the programmeis both rigorous and effective. Students log into Google Classroom to review choices and select aTechttooproject. Each project, depending on the rigour, earns a student a certain number of points. For example, Level 1 projects earn 1 point, whereas Level 3 projects earn 3 points.
Because of the flipped instructional model where students view videos before beginning their projects, transitioning to remote learning during the pandemic was simple. In fact, the restraints of remote learningactually broughtabout some outstanding creativity from our students. In 2020, one Grade 6 student earned a FilmmakingTechttooby completing athat was entirely done from home–from writing the script,to auditioning the cast,to directing and recording theperformance,to editing and distributing the final film.
Resource hacking
While setting up a technology and innovation lab that allows students to explore more than 20 different topics sounds prohibitively expensive, we found success in creatively using existing space and resources, and then investing in a few pieces of technological equipment needed to support the programme. The classroom now thrives in a space that was mostly forgotten under the auditorium stage. And most importantly, the flipped instruction model with students pacing themselves through units means we did not have to invest in classroom sets for every unit. Sometimes students may have to wait for another student to finish their programme, but that limitationactually encouragesstudents to explore other units they might have overlooked.
Expanding on success
Building on the programme’s success, we opened our new Elementary Innovation Lab this year with 24 new iPads,aTV studio,apodcasting studio andananimation lab. Dash and Dot, the robots, greet our young students as they adventure into the world of programming. Additionally, we’vehadto expand the offerings forourHigh School technology courses as students are now entering with a broader range of skills.
Now,all ofour students fromKindergartento Grade 12have the opportunity tobuild the necessary digital skills to be competitive in a dynamic world. At ACS, we believe the future belongs to the creators and the innovators, and this is the place where they find their passion.
Setting up a successful modern tech programme
- Encourage a divisional leaderǰeducator:find an inspired and passionate teacher or learning leader interested in technology.
- Front-load the instructional model and give control to the students: having instructional videos pre-recorded for a variety of topics allows students to take control of what they learn and set their own pace.
- Learn from available resources: the ACS Backstage Techttoos programme can be accessed through an open-source website platform with no password and all videos can be found on YouTube: and
- Use social media to share your school’s success: on social media, our teachers actively share how the badge system works and the secrets to designing an innovative tech curriculum that motivates students to build skills. Check out the ACS Backstage Techttoos and MyTechBadges programmes on Instagram at @mrflicktech and on Twitter at @bradflickinger.
- Stay flexible: whether you’re adding a new unit, developing your own tech programme or evolving as a result of a pandemic, the key is to stay flexible and creative in setting up a learning environment that engages students to take control of their learning.
By Monique Flickinger is Superintendent at, UAE. Contact Monique onTwitterǰ
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