More than 75 faculty members committed a part of the summer to develop these innovative educational ideas, often working closely with colleagues across subjects and grade levels.

Our students will benefit from new classroom learning experiences that will be more engaging and meaningful than ever before. The following curriculum projects represent a few more of the ideas that teachers developed over this past summer.

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Reading Apps

Middle and High School Reading Specialist Laurel Riehs completed a project called “Reading Apps in the MHS Classroom.” She used the funds from a Title 1 Grant to purchase fifteen iPad minis and applications. She studied the apps and decided how to best implement them into the classroom to improve the reading skills of our Title 1 students.

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Content Area Centers

Allison Smith and Jenny Winch created Content Area Centers for grades 3 and 4. They created active and engaging lessons and units that emphasize analysis, creativity, critical thinking, inquiry and problem solving. The Common Core requires students to be proficient at reading nonfiction, using maps, charts, diagrams and manipulatives (lab materials), and discussing data analysis. Each topic is broken up into 3-5 different learning centers with each one focusing on a different topic or activity.

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Learning centers

Seventh Grade English teacher John Mullane created a project entitled “The Implementation of Learning Centers in 7th Grade English.”

While reading and writing may come to mind when thinking about what goes on in English class, there is actually much more. Learning centers offer students the opportunity to tackle assignments in different ways.

Each center in the classroom offers the student different learning activities. There is a focus on a specific area of study. The centers are designed to enhance a variety of concepts, skills, themes and topics.

Students may work individually, in pairs, or in small groups. Some centers may be skill centers, where students demonstrate their knowledge and abilities from a recent lesson. At the nucleus of each center is the current lesson or activity.

To get an idea of how they work, think about your favorite story and look at it from a variety of points of view: creating your own Fireside Chat when reading about the Great Depression, or perhaps composing and performing a Blues number when learning about the Harlem Renaissance, or writing a speech defending or denouncing the use of the atomic bomb in World War II. The possibilities are limitless.

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Biolish DRiVE Project

Dana Damp and Amy Spicer worked together this summer on a project to combine their respective disciplines: biology and English. This resulted in “The Biolish DRiVE Project.” This interdisciplinary project is for students taking English 10 and biology. The students will read the book, “DRiVE: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us,” by Daniel Pink and learn about the scientific research on human motivation.

Students will also interact with their peers and teachers in an online blog throughout the unit to apply their scientific understanding in ways that allow them to increase their own motivation and improve their own lives.

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The Merrihuggan Project

This summer, Global Studies 9 teacher Jeanette Duggan and English 9 teacher Karyssa Merrihew developed several interdisciplinary projects they have named The Merrihuggan Project.

The Merrihuggan Project’s first joint venture is reading Divergent by Veronica Roth and studying ancient civilizations. Students will produce an infomercial that compares one ancient civilization with the Divergent civilization. Another project in the works is one based on the life of Dian Fossey, her research with the gorillas of Rwanda and the history of Africa with an emphasis on the area that is now known as Rwanda.