GRADUATE STUDENTS SPEND JANUARY IN JOURNEYS SCHOOL CLASSROOM

February 16th, 2010

Douglas Connelly, Faculty – Graduate Program
Graduate student Tom Lyon described the Journeys School Practicum as “hands down the best thing we’ve done all year.”  Kelly Barr agreed, “Yeah, it was great, really great.”  These educators, and the other four in their cohort, spent the last month immersed at the Journeys School – a K-12 day school that is one of six major program areas of  Teton Science Schools.

This teaching experience differed from the fall practicum because it was classroom-based.  The Journeys School operates as an accredited independent school in the State of Wyoming.  In addition to traditional academics, the Journeys School innovates with strong roots in Place-Based Instruction and recently was approved to offer the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program to its 11th and 12th grade students.

The graduate students spent one week taking seminars on curriculum planning, assessment, classroom management, and other topics specific to Journeys School.  Their goal was to fully understand the philosophy of the school, and the strategies of their instruction, before teaching.  They then performed a week of observations with their host teacher to understand their new classroom and students.  The two weeks of teaching that followed provided tremendous growth for all.

Tom Lyons taught middle school physics, and his students built bridges of spaghetti in their final lab.  Kelly Barr helped K – 2 learn to read, and explore social studies.  Alice Roby fluently speaks Spanish, so she joined the  school’s language teachers to teach Spanish to grades K – 5.  Erica Lyons, skilled artist, brought her talent to art classes throughout the K – 12 school, working with paints, block prints, and even totem poles.  Tshering Dema stepped into the high school biology classroom, teaching mitosis.  And Chris Beltz tapped his literary roots to teach Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar to the High School English students.

Now back at our Kelly Campus, the graduate students reflect on ideas that were essential to their success.  “Planning” one said.  “I learned the importance of planning each lesson with great detail, and then plan it some more.”  Another grad student takes away the importance of “Big Picture clarity” for her students.  Every assignment or handout in her classroom clearly showed the lesson’s objective.  Students always knew what they were learning and why they learned it.  These are some of the great experiences at Teton Science Schools’ Graduate Program.

Entry Filed under: Journeys School