I made the treck to State College to visit CLC charter school. This is what I learned:
CLC is a charter school for grades 5 - 8 multiage classrooms meaning they group grades together. The school has been opened for 10 years and began with 48 students but now has 100 students. It is charted for 200. It has a 33% of their student base with IEP's.
The school philosophy is to build skills, knowledge and attributes through a project based technology environment.
Teachers are on a first name basis with their students. All are certified teachers and certified in math as well. All classes are project based except for math which is the only formal instruction. They've had the same staff for 6 years. Teachers create their own curriculum design as long as their students meet AYP goals. Students also score adequately on PSSA. Teachers are expected to present at the end of the year their achievements and are evaluated by their peers and rated based on rubric.
All classrooms have smart boards and students have their own Mac laptops, e-mail and websites. There aren't any desks. Instead they have long portable tables that they move around as needed. The rooms are always changing according to the needs of the lessons. Students do not receive grades and are scored on rubrics.
The daily schedule is: an AM project in the morning followed by lunch then a readould for a half hour then a PM project.
This is what I observed in the PM: A 7th and 8th grade multiage class of students were presenting their creative writing projects using Power Point. It was apparent that they were meeting specific requirements according to rubric goals. Students refered to literary terms such as "rising action", "foreshadowing", "Man vs. Man", and defining terms. One group even gave informal and formal definitions of terms.
Reflection: Although my time there was short, I observed student work that was technology based and demonstrated an understanding of academic content. I myself wonder if students concentrate more on their outcomes because they don't have to worry about studying for a test because in most classrooms after the test, one usually moves on to other content and here, the task is ongoing.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
It seems like you saw some interesting things on your visit to CLC. One thing I think is noteworthy is that students are scoring well on their exams, even though there is no teaching to the test. I also think it is interesting that 1/3 of the students have IEP's. Perhaps the project based environment the school presents appeals more to their unique learning styles than a more traditional curriculum.
Two things I can relate to directly are the idea of calling teachers by their first names, and not receiving any grades. In my high school we generally called teachers by their first name. It did not change the amount of respect that I had for my teachers, in fact I respected many of my teachers a good deal. Maybe because of this I never understood the connection between being a Mr. or Ms. and being respected. I also feel that respect is something you earn. I also went to a high school where we did not receive grades, only "formal, constructive feedback." I think this was a good thing because it kept the focus on what was important, the learning that was taking place, not a letter or number. To this day, grades are still not very important to me. Not that I don't enjoy getting good scores, but I would rather walk away from a class knowing that I took some risks and looked at things in a new way, than just breeze by and get an "A." I don't think I would have developed that outlook if I had gone to a more traditional high school.
Very interesting that you picked out the importance students place on a task. I never thought of that. They seem to learn for learning sake instead of for "teacher's sake".
Very interesting that you picked out the importance students place on a task. I never thought of that. They seem to learn for learning sake instead of for "teacher's sake".
Post a Comment