MVA students transfer understanding across contexts, connect the big concepts of expeditions, and honor multiple perspectives.
Story Behind the Evidence:
Success and failure is an EL Design Principle to have students push through increasingly difficult challenges. They learn to persevere when things get difficult and find a way to improve on their own performances, even when faced with rigorous standards. Complexity at MVA means students use their strengths in learning to persevere through challenges to create high quality work. With the diversity in our nine expeditions, opportunity to study multiple perspectives, and increased complexity in products, students’ learning styles are demonstrated through their work.
Breadth of Final Products
In the three years students are at MVA, they participate in 9 interdisciplinary expeditions that encourage students to tackle complex topics and high quality products. Our documentation panels are a snapshot of evidence that shows how students experience and work through these expeditions. Completing the High Quality Work Protocol after our expeditions, allows expeditions to be revised for complexity. These revisions are documented in the Quality Work Data profile and revisions are then made on the documentation panels. The photos and narratives shown in the slideshow encompass both revisions that have been made and revisions that will take place after that expedition takes place.
Culture of Climate Change, Sustainability, and The River Within Us expeditions allow students to transfer understanding from all classes, and fully participate in fieldwork that connects student understanding to the world beyond our four walls. The guiding questions for these expeditions encourage kids to demonstrate higher order thinking and create authentic work that serves a purpose outside of school.
The Body, Mind, Spirit, Exploring New Frontiers, and Innovation expeditions encourage kids to connect big ideas through case studies in classes, meaningful fieldwork, and experts in the field. Students then transfer these big ideas to create high quality products, which encompass the breadth of learning in the expeditions.
Operation Pride, Civil War/Civil Rights and Becoming American have allowed students to make deep meaningful connections to real-world issues by participating in experiences that serve others. With current issues regarding human rights and cultural diversity both nationally and globally, students have been able to understand the importance of credibility in forming their own viewpoints. Although these lessons have been difficult to learn at times, they are important skills to learn as a citizen of our world. Student products in these expeditions showcase this learning of multiple perspectives using supporting evidence.
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