The Times, They Are A -Changin’ With the start of a new year, new policies surprise students BY ELLA KRUG Last spring, confusion surrounded pruject-based learning (PBL) and personalized learning (PL) for both students and parents alike. Valley parents voiced their concerns over the implementation of the approach, some even participating in a protest outside of the school. Students worried over how their academic careers would turn out under this new educational system. This misconceptions that have plagued the community may all have been caused by a lack of communication. Administration has worked over the summer to come up with a new school management system including a few schedule changes, new rooms and different duties for some staff members. “We’ve really worked on improving our communication with families and making sure that our message is clear about what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, and how we’re doing it,” assistant principal Bill Gulgert said. This is what students and parents can expect for the 2019-20 school year.
Personalized Learning, Project-Based Learning
Powerpoint. Powerpoint. Quiz. Test. This process is all too familiar to high school students all over the country, and it has forced many who have grown tired of this type of education system to look for non-traditional forms of schooling. Administrators and principals all over the county have recognized that problem and want to appeal to millennial students who are hungry for alternative methods of education. Thus, personalized learning was born. Principal Sue Ross prefers to refer to this method as 21st-century learning because the world has changed so much with the arrival of advanced technology and the internet. Schools have come to the conclusion that they need to adapt to the changing world to support a new wave of 21st-century adolescents. The whole goal of 21st-century learning is to push students to think critically. Ross has acknowledged the reality of students struggling through Powerpoint after Powerpoint and how 8
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it doesn’t positively impact students the way decision? Loudoun County Public Schools is it should. supporting schools using it as an initiative, and “That doesn’t have you guys thinking other schools in the county are applying for the critically,” she said. “It has you doing training. Valley is one of them. knowledge and understanding that knowledge Three other high schools utilizing this and maybe even applying it on a multiplesystem are Tuscarora, Heritage and Park View. choice test.” Ross said Stone Bridge has also come on Twenty-firstboard this year. century learning Middle schools are is supposed to testing Project-Based push students’ Learning (PBL), a skills even further teaching method where by teaching students work on a them to analyze, project over an extended evaluate, and period of time that synthesize. The engages them in solving goal is to embed a problem. Tabs on thinking skills into middle schools’ websites everything students describe the new do. These skills are education initiative. vital to get students Part of Ross’s through college. rationale was that if “What college students were coming Sophomore Keira Anderson has her English class in one of professors say up from middle schools the Flexible Learning Spaces. photo | Alison Pike is their frustration exposed to PBL, then is that college freshmen come to them with Valley should be ready. opinions but not really being able to state a Ross has talked to a number of Valley position and back it up with facts,” Ross said. alumni about how college is going, to which This is what administrators and faculty those past students remark how difficult the were seeing last year at Valley. It was all about year has been in terms of managing their time. spun-up opinions and no facts. Project-Based Learning is supposed to help Ross and fellow administrators have been students plan those timelines by picking a very supportive of teachers at Valley when it project and planning it out themselves with the comes to 21st century learning, advising them facilitation and support of the teacher. College students have stated that their ability to plan and get tasks completed sooner so they’re not as stressed is because they lack I know e-hallpass was a experience with Project-Based Learning. shock to upperclassmen.” “The idea of this kind of learning got confused and conflated with the greater Principal Sue Ross freedoms that we gave you guys last year,” Ross said. to take baby steps or just dip their toes in. As parents protested against this new “I’ve never insisted that teachers go slam learning style, they also associated it with the full into anything,” Ross said. “There are a supposed lack of safety in the school and kids couple teachers who are struggling a little always being in the hallways, where they were bit with it, and we support them. We don’t collaborating. hammer teachers any more than we hammer In addition to PBL, there is also a kids.” personalized learning initiative, the point of So how is personalized learning being which is to make students take more initiative implemented at Valley, and who came to that to get work done and be more involved with
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