Blogs on High (9-12)

Exhausted from a day of teaching, managing projects, and lunchtime detention, you head home, knowing a stack of ungraded student work awaits your arrival. You ask yourself, "What would happen if I didn't grade those papers?"

At Eagle Rock School, in Estes Park, Colorado, the alpine air is so thin, it literally takes your breath away. For most of the 96 teens living and learning here, the Rocky Mountain setting couldn't be more different from the city streets they've left behind.

When we consider constructivist teaching, or a constructivist approach to learning, what comes to mind? For me, I see Socrates standing not in the center, but to the side of his students.

In my last post, "Preparing High School Seniors for College," I outlined the College Success Portfolio, a performance-assessment system used at Envision Schools. We developed this system because we believe students demonstrate college readiness not only by passing rigorous courses but also by actually producing college-ready academic work, demonstrating 21st-century leadership skills, and mastering college-level work habits.