Setting Description
This is how teachers at HTe Interact, What a Typical Day looks like, and how time is used throughout the campus.
One element of design in this butterfly garden is the Gulf Fritillary tunnel covered by a host plant called Passion Vine. Upon visiting a local farm earlier in the year, we found a tunnel much like ours. The students thought it would be a great way to bring a three dimensional aspect to our garden design. In the last fall season, it provided food and shelter for nearly 100 Gulf Fritillary Butterflies.
High Tech Elementary Butterfly Garden and Monarch Waystation.
Parents assist with the set up of tents at camp.
One element of design in this butterfly garden is the Gulf Fritillary tunnel covered by a host plant called Passion Vine. Upon visiting a local farm earlier in the year, we found a tunnel much like ours. The students thought it would be a great way to bring a three dimensional aspect to our garden design. In the last fall season, it provided food and shelter for nearly 100 Gulf Fritillary Butterflies.
The culture of High Tech Elementary was built on collaboration. We founded the school on democratic principles and to this day decisions are made from the bottom-up. Thanks to vision of our Director Anne Worrall, Teachers are the driving force for change, innovation and support at HTe.
The culture of High Tech Elementary was built on collaboration. We founded the school on democratic principles and to this day decisions are made from the bottom-up. Thanks to vision of our Director Anne Worrall, Teachers are the driving force for change, innovation and support at HTe.
Collaboration
Collaboration is highly fostered in our school culture. Our faculty meets two times a week to discuss relevant issues facing the school, to plan events and to celebrate each others’ successes. Students are dismissed early on Wednesdays allowing Professional Development opportunities for growth and continued collaboration with colleagues. Two days out of each week, while students are attending Exploratories such as Visual Arts, Performing Arts, or Engineering classes, teachers at each grade level are given a total of three hours, individually or as a grade level team, to plan and fine tune projects, observe other teachers in order to hone in on their craft, or are scampering about putting pieces of projects together.
Cross-Grade Level Collaboration
Cross Grade Level Collaboration is encouraged. Many models of cross grade collaboration throughout “El Pueblo” have been demonstrated. Student of the High Tech High school have created projects where students in the Elementary school have been their clients. One example is one particular is when a Junior class of students adopted two first grade classrooms in order to build nightlights for their young counterpart. Another example is when a class of first grade, fifth grade and seventh grade students worked together to build a Monarch Waystation and Butterfly Garden.
Project-Based Learning
Learning at High Tech Elementary is rooted in project-based learning. This means that our faculty guides our students through the creation of projects designed to develop their understandings of the world around them. Kindergarten through Fifth graders are immersed in the process of learning: exploring, discussing, designing, reflecting, and refining. They create something together that demonstrates their new understandings to a real audience, often outside the school walls. Our sources of information are not limited to traditional textbooks and basal publications. At HTe, students examine information from “expert” adults, primary source documents, other teachers, Internet resources and each other.
Structures for Learning
First Graders and Fourth Graders team up at Buddy Readers.
Collaboration across the grade levels is highly fostered at HTe
First Graders and Fourth Graders team up at Buddy Readers.
Matthew proudly stands tall at exhibition night. In this project we learned about the various members in our local community and how they practice our High Tech High 5 character traits in their workplace. Students also learned mapping and scale skills as we built our own mini city in the Commons.
Matthew proudly stands tall at exhibition night. In this project we learned about the various members in our local community and how they practice our High Tech High 5 character traits in their workplace. Students also learned mapping and scale skills as we built our own mini city in the Commons.
Exhibition
What a child accomplishes as a result of study is tremendously important. Most assessment at High Tech Elementary is performance-based: students develop projects, solve problems, write reflections of their findings, and often present them at Exhibition presentations three times a year, typically at the end of each trimester. Consequently, our students are given traditional weekly exams and tests sparingly. At High Tech Elementary, the measure of accomplishment lies primarily in the students’ ability to explain or demonstrate his/her learning from the beginning of the project to the end.