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March 3, 2021
Dear TSA Families,
It is with great excitement that I write this letter to you, outlining a major change to TSA High School's curricular program and schedule to be implemented at the start of the 2021-2022 school year.
I am excited to write this letter for multiple reasons:
- It is really nice to be planning for what I believe will be a fully in-person school year! While there is still much thinking, planning, and work to be done to finish this school year as successfully as possible, now is the time to start planning for our future. And with vaccinations on the rise, I am tremendously hopeful that next year will look much closer to "normal" than school has looked for the past year.
- The curricular changes we are implementing, known as Deeper Learning, are rooted in research, observations, and experience. They are backed up by data from other schools and they are designed to capitalize on what TSA already does well, making our curriculum and culture ever stronger and more forward-thinking.
- We have been considering these changes for years. Now is the time to make them. The disruption of COVID-19 has created an opportunity to design the kind of schedule that is essential for implementing this more powerful learning experience for our students.
This is a lot of change to wrap your head around. But I also know that there has never been a better time to make big, meaningful changes to how we educate our children.
Please find the following information detailed below:
TSA is a remarkable school. I have known that from the day I walked on campus as a teaching intern in 2007. Our culture--- the way we know, value, and challenge our students--- is the foundation of good education. It is TSA's safe, nurturing environment that provides the foundation to make these teaching initiatives succeed.
And so we are perfectly positioned to make a huge difference in our students' lives. It is our responsibility as a school to help our students navigate and improve the world they have inherited. I have more confidence than ever that we are on this path.
Thank you for your support of and faith in the work we do. With profound gratitude and tremendous hope,
Mary Newman
TSA Head of School
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What Is Deeper Learning?
Deeper learning is transformative. It infuses us with a desire to continue learning; it teaches students how to learn, so that they can apply their learning across disciplines in meaningful ways.
The fundamental characteristics of deeper learning are:
PURPOSE:
Students see their work as relevant and connected to the real world through authentic research (like interviewing people or collecting their own data), tackling current real-world problems, and investigating their own questions and hypotheses.
CHOICE:
Students have agency in decisions about what happens in class, what content is covered, and how learning is captured.
COMMUNITY:
Students collaborate with each other and members of the broader community, and present or defend their work to a larger audience. Students cooperate to identify and create solutions to academic, social, vocational, and personal challenges.
ACADEMIC MASTERY:
Students develop and draw from a baseline understanding of knowledge in an academic discipline and are able to transfer knowledge to other situations. Most importantly, students learn how to learn.
PROBLEM SOLVING:
Students learn how to think critically and solve complex problems. Students apply tools and techniques gleaned from core subjects to formulate and solve problems. These tools include data analysis, statistical reasoning, and scientific inquiry, as well as creative problem solving, nonlinear thinking, and persistence.
EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION:
Students clearly organize their data, findings, and thoughts in both written and oral communication.
ACADEMIC MINDSET:
Students develop positive attitudes and beliefs about themselves as learners that increase their academic perseverance and prompt them to engage in productive academic behaviors. Students are committed to seeing work through to completion, meeting their goals, and doing quality work, which encourages them to search for solutions and overcome obstacles.
Right now, deep learning is happening at TSA, but not as often in the classroom as it could be. When TSA high school students are asked every June to reflect on the most engaging, meaningful experiences of their year, they consistently respond with moments that take place outside of the classroom: an invigorating season of soccer, an art exhibition at AVA Gallery, their contribution to the Interim musical, a Model UN weekend at Yale, or the sugaring elective. The changes being made to courses and the new schedule will bring this level of engagement into the classroom as well.
Deeper Learning both supports and is supported by TSA's proficiency-based education model.
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Additional Resources:
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The Deeper Learning Schedule
For The Sharon Academy to be a place where deeper, more meaningful learning happens all day, every day, by every student, we are changing the daily and weekly schedule so that students will take fewer courses at a time but spend more class time on each per day and per week. Students will also have more choices for their courses, allowing them to fulfill their requirements with more flexibility to follow their interests and abilities.
The school year will be divided into 8 "modules" during which time students will take only 2 academic courses at a time, meeting every day of the week. By spending more time in each academic course per day and per week, students will be able to complete a year's worth of study by completing three month-long "modules" over the span of the year. Courses will be redesigned to provide a deeper dive into each topic.
This schedule change will allow students to:
- Start school at 9:00 am
- Go deeper into their learning in each course
- Enjoy greater course flexibility, with student voice influencing the choices offered
- Choose courses that give students the pace, support, or challenge that they need
- Have fewer competing requirements each day, helping students to better remember what they are learning
- Tie learning even more closely to real life
- Have teacher-supported work time in class
More details about the schedule will be communicated throughout the next few weeks.
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Why change?
Over the past several years, teachers and students have faced four fundamental challenges:
- Teachers struggling to equitably, visibly, and meaningfully assess student work
- Students struggling to complete assignments outside of school
- Teachers struggling to meet a widening range of student skill levels
- Students and teachers experiencing a lack of student engagement in core academic classes
Shifting to proficiency-based assessment (mandated by the state) was a major step in meeting #1. Student learning is now shown by evidence and assessed according to the skills it represents, rather than simply measuring seat time in a classroom.
After years of research, professional development, and hundreds of hours of conversations with educators, we believe that the solutions to problems #2, #3, and #4 lie in how we use our time during the school day, week, and year to create more experiences of deeper learning with and for our students.
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Course Redesign
Now that the Board of Trustees has given their enthusiastic support for this initiative, the next step is for faculty and staff to begin the process of planning for next year. We have received an E.E. Ford Foundation grant ( E.E. Ford: The Sharon Academy) that will make it possible to compensate faculty for the work they do to redesign their courses this summer and next.
Sharing Details
Detailed information about next year's schedule and the course selection process will be communicated soon. There will also be 2 virtual forums dedicated to explaining and answering questions about the changes.
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