Authentic Learning

List of 5 items.

• 8th Grade Showcase

  The 8th Grade Showcase highlights our students’ individual strengths and talents on the eve of the 8th grade promotion. Faculty, family, and friends come together to celebrate our students’ hard work, creativity, and efforts throughout their middle school careers, especially their 8^th grade project-based assignments. Each 8th grader selects products that illustrate their talents, dreams, and accomplishments. A variety of academic and non-academic artifacts are on display including videos, artwork, projects, and live performances.   

• 8th Grade Public Address

  Each 8^th grade student delivers a speech that is both personal and research-based.  The students advocate for various local, national, and global causes.  The speeches themselves are an act of civic responsibility, and students are inspired to draft and polish such speeches by their summer reading, The Boy Who Harnessed the Win, an extraordinary true story conveying that the human spirit, innovation, and advocacy can surpass struggle and hardship.  The novel fosters the idea that the essence and power of a single person’s capacity can enhance the community and its people. 

   

  Secondly, the speeches have proven to shape and establish a greater sense of community membership in the middle school.  Delivered during  morning meeting, the speeches entail the 7^th and 6^th grade students to practice listening and civil behavior, as they are the authentic audience for the teaching and learning of well crafted, thoughtful writing and refined speaking. The 8^th graders develop a keen voice through community advocacy and build personal confidence in the process. In fact, for a recent advisory reflection, many 8th graders stated the speech was one of their biggest challenges in their middle school experience, yet it was also the most satisfying while experiencing and completing the task of speaking publically in front of the entire middle school community. 

• 6th Grade "This I Believe" Narratives

  At the end of their academic year, 6^th grade students write and deliver their This I Believe compositions. Modeled after the NPR program, the essays ask students to consider what they value in their lives. The writing assignment also requires students to reflect on their 6^th grade English novels.

   

  During the writing process of the essay, students continually ask: how do my values connect with the experiences, the challenges, the worldviews of the characters about whom they read throughout the 6^th grade year? The essay writing encourages text-to-self connections and calls for deeper reflection with students’ values and sensibilities. Better still, the assignment culminates with the sharing of essay writing in front of their classmates and their parents, providing a real audience and true learning occasion. 

   

   

• 6th Grade Introduction to Design Thinking and Innovation

  In Design Thinking and Innovation, students create meaningful solutions to certain needs. In the class, students will engage in hands-on activities to explore the four majors themes in engineering: health, security, sustainability and joy of living.  Students think and engage like engineers as they apply their creativity and knowledge to better define, analyze and solve problems in the "real world.”

  
  
  

  
  
  

  While students engage in the Innovation Lab and use 3D printers and a laser system, they ultimately present their innovations and creations to the Lower School kindergarten classes. Throughout the design process, students are aware that their projects are meant for a real audience which guides their design and building choices. 

• Middle School Coffeehouse

  Our Middle School students have an opportunity to share their creative works—whether a poem, a short story, a visual arts creation, or a song. The Middle School literary magazine, The Admirals' Pen, sponsors two coffeehouses a year in the fall and spring.  This experience gives students an authentic audience for their creative enterprises. In the true spirit of a coffeehouse, real coffee is served in a casual atmosphere.

   

  In the spring, the coffeehouse event is held in the Stine Environmental Center’s outdoor theater. It’s a wonderful setting that attracts a large audience, inspired by our students’ shared creative work.