Today in class we visited the new Inquiry based independent High School “Pacific School of Innovation and Inquiry.” We had a presentation by the founder/principal/educated Jeff Hopkins. You can tell Jeff is extremely passionate and works so hard to ensure success for all his students.
It surprised me that the school tuition is so low for this independent school – only $7,500 and that they are able to pay teachers the same as the school district and in fact have better benefits. There are currently 50 students on the waitlist for the school so they must be doing a lot right…
This approach to teaching is very interesting and innovating but I do have some concerns and doubts as it is against the way I was taught in school and I worry that students might not stay on track with their “questions” and that they may neglect subjects in school that they are less interested in (eg math).
All of the students I talked to seemed very engaged and happy to be at this school. One girl was passionate about acting and theatre, and another student was passionate about cars and race car driving.
I am curious how this inquiry-based learning approach would look like in an Elementary school. I am also curious about what type of learners do not do well in this kind of learning environment and what are the downsides to this type of learning.
Information from their website:
As educators we help our learners to develop unique inquiry pathways that act as the umbrella for projects and other learning activities. These activities comprise a learner’s personalized, interdisciplinary curriculum.
Many years ago, the Russian psychologist, Vygotsky, coined the term, “zone of proximal development.” This zone is the place where a perfect balance is struck between challenge and ability for a learner. And it is, of course, different for each person. That is why at PSII we do not pretend that groups of learners will learn optimally from exactly the same activities at exactly the same time.
Not only is the optimal curriculum, therefore, not a universal one, but it also cannot be completely predetermined, even when one is thinking of individual learners. In the inquiry process, learning is organic, with new questions emerging all the time. Many of those questions are unpredictable, making it necessary for teachers to manage this emergent nature of learning at PSII. That is not to say we don’t plan ahead; we do! But we plan in a way that allows significant openings at suitable times for emergent learning to fit.
Retrieved from : https://learningstorm.org/about/whats-different-about-psii/
