"Quest to Learn" is a new public school in New York City, which seeks to narrow the divide between playing and learning by creating a game-like curriculum that engages students. The presentation illustrates how traditional school environment that focused on ensuring students acquire basic numeracy, reading and writing skills, has taken steps to create the condition in which students are challenged to help solve the invention and innovation challenges necessary for our time.
(extracted from Handout)
The speaker presented how a typical school day looked like, for students who undergo this non-conventional curriculum approach:
- 8.35 am - 8.50 am: Morning Meeting - Whole school meeting; wellness focus; teacher and student led
- 8.50 am to 9.10 am: Homebase - Advisory programme with 10 to 1 student/teacher ratio; consistent groupings, grade 6-12
- 9.10 am to 10.03 am (Period 1) Domain: Being, Space and Place - Integrated ELA and Social studies; Graphic Novel Mission; Need to know, need to share, Occasion to share
- 10.05 am - 11.47 am (Periods 2 & 3) Domain - Codeworlds: Integrated maths and ELA; Block schedule; SmallLab
- 11.49 am to 12.40 pm (Period 4) Domain: The Way Things Work - Integrated Maths & Science; The Troggles; Video tutorials; Email Introductions; iChat and Skype
- 1.30 pm to 2.15 pm (Period 5) Domain: Sports for the Mind - Media Arts and Game Design; Gamestar Mechanic; Podcasting
- 2.15 pm to 3.06 pm (Period 6) Domain: Wellness - Integrated Health, Physical Education adn Social Emotional Learning; Being Me; Media posting and ratings
- 3.08 pm to 3.20 pm: Homebase
Our Observations and/or Takeaways...
From Kwai Yin:
This gives an idea to enhance our existing "A Day @ SST" story, which is currently based on the 4 research initiatives. Perhaps our students could probably create a clip along this line for publicity purpose?
From Kin Chuah:
While I am not sure how effective their programs will be, I like their courage to do something different in terms of timetabling. At SST, while we work with different models for ADMT and I.Humanities, I find that we are still on the conservative side in terms of the core subjects.
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