Instructional Strategies
The instructional tools that we focus on include application to the real world, collaboration, and physical activity. To show how students can apply the content they are learning to the real world, we bring in those who use the instruction on a daily basis. Guest speakers are usually parents who volunteer to explain what their profession is and how they apply the knowledge to be successful in their profession. To promote physical activity, we have a greenhouse that the students are responsible for keeping up. The greenhouse gives students the chance to learn about plants while moving around and getting fresh air. We use tactics such as breaks in the class time for students to stretch and to also show how physical movement can affect human biology. English and history teachers often use roleplay in the classroom to allow students to engage in the learning rather than sit in their desks and read. To give back to the community, we have collaborations with local organizations such as Keep America Beautiful and explain to students what synthetic materials due to the environment. Service learning creates a bridge for students to see how they can help their community while learning and also find organizations that help students as well. Field trips are used to show the application of the instruction in the real world. Students often learn better hands-on with tangible and concrete models so we often incorporate experiments and models to best meet different learning styles.
Grouping Strategies
The students are grouped based on age and separated into smaller groups based on random selection. Tracking is not a focus at the school to allow students to focus on their own growth without being objectified by their track. Teachers are grouped together based on their concentrations and student needs. Teachers are able to structure their block times to give the teachers the freedom to move students around as needed. We believe that every single student has the potential to be whatever they strive for and we are not meant to make that decision for them by placing them in higher or lower achieving teams. Tracking students have been shown to cause division within the class by intellectual ability. Our school believes in a heterogeneous grouping of students to promote teamwork and build relationships. Students are grouped in a randomized setting to provide each group with a diversity of race, gender, and opinion. Heterogeneous grouping allows for students to be grouped randomly, not based on intellectual ability. Students grow rather than settle for their track and develop social relationships with peers that they may not have spoken to if they were tracked. We group students in instruction with collaborative and inquiry-based activities such as discussions and group projects. Our school believes that students learn best when they discover the instruction for themselves and with their peers rather than being told from textbooks. We use instructional group strategies such as team games, think-pair-share, randomized grouping, and roleplaying. Students are grouped at random and the groups change every two weeks so that students are encouraged to build relationships with new people while learning the material and breaking down misconceptions.