Academic Curriculum

Teaching and Learning
The faculty at Explorer is committed to standards-based curriculum and to teaching to the standards in ways that engage and stimulate interest, analysis and continuing discussion and thinking.

We believe that how children learn is as important as what they learn.  Taking risks, challenging one’s self, finding solutions, and working as partners in education, our teachers are role models for our students. We also believe that the more you read the better you write so there is an emphasis on fine literature -- read by students and read aloud by teachers.  All of our classrooms have a strong focus on writing, using the writers’ workshop methods and techniques.  Children learn grade level genres and find their voices as authors.

Honoring Children’s Voices
One has only to enter a classroom at Explorer to see evidence of children’s thoughts being honored at the highest level.  On every wall, charts document children’s brainstorming and contributions to discussions.  Documentation of debates, scholarly circles, literature circles and world cafes fill our walls inside and outside of the classrooms.  At the end of each school year we have an Exhibition of Learning where children share their knowledge of projects they have completed and learning that has taken place over the school year.  At each grade level, interdisciplinary ‘big ideas” such as patterns, influence, power, change over time, and relationships are incorporated into children’s learning and thinking.

Depth and Complexity
Explorer teachers have been trained in strategies to encourage children to think deeply and to make conceptual connections across curricular areas.  In math, literature, history, and science, students look for evidence of concepts such as ethics; unanswered questions; trends and patterns; multiple perspectives; paradoxes and parallels.  In this way, children learn to approach every subject analytically, and come to understand that intellectual concepts and patterns can be applied across disciplines.

 

Assessment
As a public charter school we are mandated to conform to standardized testing requirements.  We do not “teach to the test”, but we do want children to feel prepared when testing time comes so teachers do a limited amount of test preparation before testing. Mountain Math and Mountain Language and Mad Minutes are used by some of our faculty for basic skills practice. We believe when children are invested in their learning they respond with care to assessments. We have developed our own school-wide assessments in reading, writing and math that are rubric scored.  Children at Explorer are often involved in developing their own rubrics, thus they understand assessments as tools for learning and improving behavior, rather than as arbitrary judgments or a competition for top scores.

 

 

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