Hands-on learning is integral to student growth and success. That’s one of the ideas driving Innovation Shop. Eric Jankoski, Transition Coordinator at Baldwin High School, explains,“Innovation Shop is the latest example of our Partners Model that pairs students with and without Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, this time in an integrated employment setting. The goal of this model is to not only teach employability skills in a real-world setting, but to also further promote inclusion.” Innovation Shop launched in 2021. This year it added personalized products to its offerings, including magnets, pens, and phone stands.

The venture is funded, in part, by EdCorps, by Real World Scholars, which works “with hundreds of classrooms using entrepreneurship as a vehicle for real world learning.” EdCorps has supported 305 organizations over the last seven years. Teachers report that their EdCorps projects increase collaboration, creativity, and student engagement.

The success of Innovation Shop features heavily in the EdCorp year-end report, including the story of BHS student Ayden. Jankoski told EdCorps, “One of our students, Ayden, stood out to me the most. By the end of the year, he became our lead designer. We were tasked with creating commemorative magnets for Miracle League of the South Hills to present as gifts to the traveling baseball teams they are playing this summer. We gave Ayden the general specs of what they wanted and he ran with it from there. He designed a few prototypes for them to choose from, then made other tweaks and adjustments. Ayden was also able to convert their logo into a different file format so that tour Glowforge could easily upload the logo and make it more visible. Coming to work in our Innovation Shop was a huge motivator for Ayden throughout the year. He wanted to come to our shop and get to work on projects. Ayden also became great at communicating with me via email to ensure that he was doing what was asked of him and how he could adjust things as needed.” Ayden is just one example of how energizing and empowering real-world learning is.

You can read the EdCorps report here. And head over to Innovation Shop’s website to get started on your holiday shopping or pick something out for yourself.