With the holiday break upon us I have had some time to focus on the School of Inquiry and wanted to utilize a blog post to highlight some of the happenings over the past month.
School of Inquiry Facilitators Announced:
At the December School Board Meeting the four facilitators (teachers in New Tech) for the School of Inquiry were officially hired through the recommendation of the school board. The teachers, and classes they will teach, are:
Jennifer Felke, Grant Masson, Lisa Mercer, and Charlotte Tyree.
Mr. Masson and Mrs. Mercer will team up for the Global Perspectives class that will combine World History with English 9. Mrs. Felke and Mrs. Tyree will combine for the 21st Century Communication class combining Speech with Interactive Media. Mrs. Felke will also be teaching our Leadership Institute for Freshman.
Parent Meeting held at PHS:As the school system prepared for Christmas Break a parent meeting was held for the parents of perspective students in the PHS cafeteria (if you were unable to attend this one you can attend a second one on January 18 as part of the Freshman Orientation program at PHS). During this meeting parents heard a short presentation on New Tech (
click here to look at it), and had questions answered by Mr. Olson (School of Inquiry Director), Mr. Fishback (School of Inquiry Guidance Counselor), and Mrs. Felke.
Courses for Year 1 at School of Inquiry Announced:At the December School Board Meeting the School Board was given a presentation on the course for the first year of the School of Inquiry. Those courses are; Global Perspectives which will combine World History with English 9, 21st Century Communication which will combine Speech with Interactive Media I, and Leadership Institute which will integrate leadership skills with a college and career course. In addition to these courses, students will be able to take 8 class periods of courses in the regular high school. This will allow for students to select electives based on their interests, be in a math course that is specific to their level of mathematics ability, and take biology if they have not done so at Lincoln Junior High.
Thoughts on a Recent Article:One of the best parts of my job as an educator is that it gives me an excuse to devote large amounts of time on a daily basis reading from a variety of sources and to continually build my knowledge base and truly embrace the idea of curriculum vitae. Recently I read two articles that were really encouraging to me as I thought about what we hope to accomplish at the School of inquiry.
The first came from a special section of
The Futurist and was titled
70 Jobs for 2030 (
Link). In the article, author Cynthia Wagner focuses on three drivers of new jobs: Retrofitting-adding new skills to old jobs, Blending-combining the skills of 2 or more jobs to create a new specialty, and Problem Solving. In addition to showing specific jobs of the future for each of these domains, she also lists 70 jobs that could be around in 2030 that do not exist today.
The second article was more related to the School of Inquiry directly and came from the blog
Democratizing Knowledge. The blog, written by Mike Gwaltney had a recent post on titled PBL, Real World Situations, and Reflection Using Eportfolios (
link). The article talks about how PBL helps to engage students and create greater opportunities for learning. Mr. Gwaltney does a great job of explaining why we believe that the School of Inquiry will offer a great learning experience to our students. He not only writes about PBl, but also another component that we will be incorporating, which is a Portfolio project that they will begin as Freshman and complete as seniors.
Announcement of Application Process:Lastly, the Pilot News highlighted the application process in the newspaper on 12/20 (
link). The early enrollment process will begin on January 3. The application will be available online at www.plymouth.k12.in.us and available in paper form at the School Corporation Offices. Students and parents will need to fill out the online application and then print the Commitment Contract that will also be on the website. The Commitment Contract needs to be signed by the parent's and student and returned to the School Corporation Office in order for the application to be considered complete. During the early enrollment period (January 3-January 16) the first 50 students to complete the enrollment process will be guaranteed admission to the school. Students outside the first 50, or applying during the regular enrollment period (January 19-February 3) may be subject to the lottery system if more than 100 students apply. Please contact me at kolson@plymouth.k12.in.us if you have any questions.
RSS Feed