Our learning is authentic, connected to life beyond school and matters to all learners.

We know that students must be ready to live and work in an environment that is subject to constant change. We know that students will be working in jobs that may not even exist yet. Therefore, we are developing an approach to teaching and learning that enables students to 'learn how to learn.' Students must understand how to ask good questions for themselves, in addition to answering the questions their teacher asks. When they enter a world that is characterized by an intensifying rate of change, students must have the skills to make sense of it themselves, rather than wait for someone else to explain it. At the same time, our community expressed an increasing interest in doing work in the short and long term to help make the world a better place rather than just making a living.
 

PROJECTS

• Implement an inquiry approach at all levels and in all courses that empowers student autonomy, curiosity, and self-advocacy.
• Regularly review and add to our offerings future-oriented curriculum and course options (e.g. robotics, animation, design, AI).
• Develop centers for excellence to pair academic learning with future endeavors, beginning with the ASH Center for Excellence in Entrepreneurship.
• Ensure assessment and reporting relate to real-world competencies applicable “beyond school.”
• Develop a profile and portfolio mechanism that allows all learners to collect work and input, demonstrate their learning, and reflect on themselves as learners regularly over time.

OUTCOMES

• We use a common language of learning and questioning protocols so that every  teacher can learn from every other teacher in our school, regardless of the grade level they teach. 
• Every classroom, every online experience, and every public space in our school shows recent  evidence of the depth and progression of our students’ thinking. 
• We apply a novel model of professional learning, research and development of new approaches, and agile curriculum review practices, that teachers the world over choose to learn  
• from. 
• Student perception of their actual learning experiences reflects the intent of the ASH Learning Principles.  
• Students are included in discussion of what and how they learn in ways that are embedded in  our everyday processes