Culture
Everything we do is for our students. We facilitate their learning experiences through mutual respect and effort. Each student is a precious individual who is on a learning journey both academically and personally. It is our job to nurture them in ways that are helpful, creative, and productive in that effort.
Our culture is that of support and encouragement, where triumphs are celebrated, and errors are stepping stones for creative thought and greater learning.
Pedagogy
IDEAL4Gifted provides innovative learning experiences. The programming is a synthesis of the work of several eminent experts in the field of gifted education into a practical system fitting into a standard school day. Our well-organized, well-thought-out curriculum scope and sequence in every subject is created for highly able students by gifted education specialists.
We engage students in meaningful activities that provide cognitive nutrition that genuinely engages them in their learning. They should come away from a class with greater understanding and insights than when they started and the learning experience should be enjoyable.
We use a “diagnostic/prescriptive” approach in most classes. This helps to ensure a good fit for students in every subject. We use pre-assessments to help determine a student’s prior knowledge and constant formative assessment to inform what will be taught next. In this way, we build knowledge without drills.
We not only have teachers who instruct, conduct demonstrations, and lead discussions but there is also a teacher who supports students while they are working on their projects and assignments. There are live teachers, in real-time, all the time.
One of our tenets is that students should function “in the manner of the professionals” with support for their level of development. For example, discussions of literature will often be done using the Socratic Method with the leader facilitating, asking questions, and drawing out students’ thinking. In science, students will use the Scientific Method, do experiments, have labs, and share their findings. In math, students will delineate how they arrived at an answer through demonstration.
