What Are The Teaching Methods at VGHS? The innovative educator, John Dewey, wrote that educational praxis, what is to be done and how it is to be done, must be framed with reference to a clear philosophy of education. At Vista Grande High School, the primary philosophy of education underpinning praxis is essentially grounded in the student-centered, constructivist orientation to education. Expeditionary Learning Outward Bound (ELOB), a reform movement in public education founded on the research that bolsters the use of the student-centered approach to teaching, provides the guidance for the implementation of this philosophy.

A learner-centered model of education essentially entails the co-creation of instructional goals through collaboration between teachers, including their own interests and demands from state and federal mandates, and students, including their own goals and unique perspectives. Expeditionary Learning Outward Bound has provided practitioners with training in the pedagogical methods that have firmly illustrated their effectiveness in the classroom, as demonstrated in research on student achievement and motivation. These methods have also demonstrated effectiveness in meeting levels of proficiency on standards-based and standardized tests.

The teaching methods outlined by ELOB can be used to create learning environments in which knowledge and skills presented in school are actually meaningful and directly relevant to students right now, not just because they need something in the future. The use of the imagination and the completion of authentic projects that actually impact or inform the student’s current life create situations in which students are actively engaged with content. Through this intense level of interaction with academic knowledge and skills, as well as mentorship experiences with teachers and peers, students construct new interpretations of knowledge within the frameworks of their existing knowledge base. Through the resulting positive interpersonal relationships with significant others (peers as collaborators and editors and teachers as collaborators, interpreters, and consultants), the students also attain a high level of motivation because students and teachers alike begin to see themselves as “crew and not passengers” within the academic community.

Through the lens of this social constructivist and student-centered educational philosophy, Vista Grande High School is positioned to effectively address the alienation of adolescence and the anonymity of most high schools with a culture of community and personalization. We recognize that students’ different learning needs, family backgrounds and personal interests require individually crafted support and planning. The deployment of time and personnel at Vista Grande High School maximizes our ability to know our students well. The construction of the physical site of the school, the professional development structures for teachers and administrators, and the implementation of effective pedagogical methods in the classroom will embody the philosophical underpinnings of Vista Grande High School and create a healthy environment for student growth.

INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES

Project Based Learning

Project Based Learning is a systematic teaching method that engages students in learning knowledge and skills through an extended inquiry process structured around complex, authentic questions and carefully designed products and tasks. It engages students in rigorous academic work because they find relevance and meaning in the project and the learning.

Vista Grande High School teachers will use the Expeditionary Learning Outward Bound model of standards-focused project based learning. Students are pulled through the curriculum by a driving question or authentic problem that creates a need to know the material. The driving question or problem is tied to content standards in the curriculum, and assessment is explicitly designed to evaluate the students’ knowledge and representations of the content and associated skills.
Student projects will range from eight to twelve weeks on a single subject to interdisciplinary projects that involve community participation and adults outside the schools, such as the Senior Project. Based on the ELOB model of project based learning, outstanding projects do the following:

Recognize students’ inherent drive to learn, their capability to do important work, and their need to be taken seriously by putting them at the center of the learning process.

Engage students in the central concepts and principles of a discipline. The project work is central rather than peripheral.

Highlight provocative issues or questions that lead students to in-depth exploration of authentic and important topics.

Require the use of essential tools and skills, including technology, for learning, self-management, and project management.

Specify products that solve problems, explain dilemmas, or present information generated through investigation, research or reasoning.

Include multiple products that permit frequent feedback and consistent opportunities for students to learn from experience.

Use performance-based assessments that communicate high expectations, present rigorous challenges, and require a range of skills and knowledge.

Encourage collaboration in some form, either through small groups, student-led presentations, or whole-class evaluations of project results.

Admittedly, projects take a significant time to plan, but it frees teachers to have more time to work with students once the project is under way. Vista Grande teachers will follow the following process - Begin with the end in mind.

Socratic Practice is a classroom approach to teaching students to: 

Socratic Practice consists of the regular, if not daily, practice of reading and discussing intellectually provocative, conceptually difficult texts.  The ideal text is so difficult that no single student can understand it on his or her own.  The class must work together as a team in order to decipher the meaning.  In order to keep the activity engaging, and in order to fulfill the non-test goals (enjoyment of mental work and the development of independent and original thought), the conversation is often open-ended, personal, and/or philosophical.  The leader deliberately moves the conversation between the difficult academic work of deciphering the text and more immediately rewarding conversations about how the ideas in the text apply to life.
 
Vista Grande High School will make every attempt to implement Socratic Practice effectively through:  

1.  A 15:1 student to teacher ratio for conversations (20:1 as a maximum).
2.  Intelligent, philosophically-inclined, well-trained teachers.
3.  Relative curricular freedom in order to follow students’ interest on a day-to-day basis

Reader’s/Writer’s Workshop

Reader’s/Writer’s Workshop will be used in writing through each of the steps: prewriting, drafting, peer-editing, revising and publishing. All are explicitly taught though teacher modeling and student practice. At the same time, writing and the process of writing occur in a supportive, creative, productive and orderly classroom environment, in which students choose their topics of interest, share their various stages of the writing process with a partner, the teacher, or the whole class. In Reading Workshop students are provided dedicated time to read, write, talk and use learning strategies to explore and respond to the topics and ideas they are studying through poetry and prose. Typically either type of workshop follows a set structure:

Mini-lesson

The teacher presents and often models a specific teaching point at the start of each class, helping student draw on their prior knowledge and answering the questions they have. The teaching point, which guides the independent and small-group that follows, is determined by what student work and formative assessment show students need to know to meet standards and is part of a logical sequence of teaching points that comprise the unit of study. The teacher may read aloud, model writing, share reading and writing. Near the end, the teacher explains what students are expected to do during independent reading or writing time.

Independent Reading or Writing time

Most of the class time is set aside for students to read or write independently, with a focus on the concept presented in the mini-lesson. As they become more skilled, students are ready to meet in small book clubs to read and analyze a book together. They usually choose the book and decide what they write, with guidelines and direction from the teacher. In their discussion and writing, they are asked to cite the text. During this time, the teacher holds several individual or small-group conferences, serving as a sounding board, facilitator, coach, and instructor and helping students identify strategies they can use to solve problems they are struggling with. At the same time, the teacher is identifying areas where students - a small number or many - need more instruction, which may become a mini-lesson in a later class.

Peer conferences

There are two types of conferences, the literature circle or book club and the writer’s group. In the latter students offer feedback on peer’s writing, often in the form of praise, questions, and recommendations on how to polish the piece of writing. In the literature circle, students talk about a novel, poem, article or other reading with their peers. Students are in charge of the discussion and through the series of mini-lessons develop understandings to discuss plot, characterization, symbolism, theme, etc.

Whole group share

Frequently the workshop time ends with a student sharing with the whole class a piece of writing or a synopsis of his/her group’s discussion. Learning is extended for all students as they explore issues relevant to that student’s writing or book club discussion.

Dialogue Journals

Dialogue Journals are written conversations between a teacher and student. The teacher responds to student questions and comments, and may introduce her own questions or topics. Rather than correcting or commenting on the writing itself, the teacher is a participant in the conversation, encouraging the student to attend to the meaning of the writing rather than the mechanics. The student is exposed to the writing of someone proficient in English and is able to build writing skills in a non-threatening context. Once the student is more comfortable with writing, the teacher may gradually integrate comments on mechanics into her responses. The benefits of dialogue journals are increased contact time with students ability to address different language levels in the same classroom
individualized assessment of language progress.

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