High Tech High🚌🏫
In San Diego, California, High Tech High school follows a type of education new to society and different from traditional schools. There are currently 16 HTH charter schools that follow a unique structure for education. At High Tech High teachers are on one year contracts, they have no specific curriculum they follow and students have a flexible non structured day. Rather than a structured curriculum, students have full autonomy and independence to create projects that some people would think to be impossible to do in a school setting.
Jason Goodman | Unsplash
What I learned…🧠💡
What’s interesting is how the students have complete autonomy over their success in school. The school focuses on collaboration, peer support and imagination to drive students to success and create their own paths with teacher support. We see in the documentary that there is not one way to learning or one way to approach teaching. The students take part in project based learning, where they tackle problems as they arise and collaborate on solutions. In the documentary there is a lot of discussion about student success and we see that their students are in fact very accomplished and are prepared for post secondary. Furthermore, another interesting suggestion is that schools do not need extra funding for this type of education. In the documentary we see a wide range of tools and supplies in the school, however HTH receives the same amount of funding as any other public school in California.
So what?📝📒
This type of schooling that HTH integrates into its schools challenges traditional ways of teaching. Dismantling the idea that traditional schools is the only path to success. Instead, HTH focuses on the individual learner and letting their inspirations guide them to success. HTH forces us future educators to ask questions about today’s education and what it could look like in the future.
Into My Career as a Teacher🧑🎓✍️
In my career as a teacher I will create a safe space where my students have freedom to explore their interests in the classroom. It’s not expensive or a burden to give students the space to be creative. Ultimately, it helps the students develop into ambitious learners with a great tool box of skills. To add, I encourage myself and fellow peers to bring in collaboration and imagination into their classrooms. By encouraging this approach students will be more motivated and have greater success inside the classrooms.
Inquiry Based Learning😁🖇️
Inquiry based learning is new to me. However, through reasearch I have read inquiry based learning can be a very useful strategy in the classroom. Just as HTH uses inquiry based learning, students create a project over the course of time that will demonstrate learning in multiple areas.
Check out my Free Inquiry project on my page!
