About us

Students need to feel cared for and safe.

• Students cannot focus fully on anything else if they are filled with anxiety about their surroundings, schedule and the people around them.

Students need to learn. 

• Students want and need to learn as much as they need food, clothing, and shelter. Educators fill that primal need for learning by creating engaging and relevant learning experiences every day. The greatest gift you can give students is motivating them to experience repeated learning success. 

Students need to be active participants in learning. 

• Students learn best by doing, and active teaching encourages active learning. Treat students as active participants in the learning process, providing them with skills, such as: how to study; how to take notes; how to memorize; and how to express themselves effectively.  These skills will help them be part of a high-performance learning team. Also, students need to be encouraged to explore and research information beyond the confines of the classroom and textbook.

Learning is a physiological activity involving the whole body. 

• The best way to engage a student is to have a solid classroom management plan and a well-planned lesson that is grounded in relevant, purposeful activities designed to enhance that student's knowledge and skills and leave her or him wanting to learn more. Teachers should be strongly aligned with student-centered and student-directed learning that embraces exploration, discovery, experiential learning, and the production of academically rigorous products. 

Students need timely feedback to improve. 

• Teachers gather data on student performance to adjust the learning environment and instruction so that they can target students' learning needs.  Share that data with the students so they know where to focus their efforts.

Students need structure and repetition to learn. 

• Create an exciting learning environment that makes it difficult for students to not learn. Include all students in learning at their own level, and inspire the students to push themselves to the next level. 

Students need information, knowledge, skills and tools. 

• Having access to knowledge resources is as important to a child's education as the actual curriculum content. Relevant and current information must be at the teachers' and students' fingertips to provide answers when the questions are still fresh. Information "on demand" is more valuable than information "just in case."  Educational tools are a means to an end. Technology used appropriately can magnify the students' capacity to learn and the teachers' capacity to teach, inspire, and motivate, but it is not an “end-all.”  It is important that students learn to “Take information and use it in new ways.”