Nau Charter School's Educational Program
Class Size
Nau Charter School will comply with Florida's mandated average class sizes, effective August 2008, of 18 in grades K-3 and 22 in grades 4-8.
Educational Philosophy
Imagine Schools - Nau Charter School was created to provide a world class learning opportunity for students in the county of St. Lucie and the city of Port St. Lucie. By engaging students in a rigorous standards-based curriculum, we promote learning for leadership, academic growth, ability to construct knowledge, and individual responsibility. Our sound educational philosophy outlines how learning best occurs. Our students are part of a community of learners nurtured in a caring environment. To prepare our students for fulfilling lives of leadership in a rapidly changing world, we create a community of learners focusing on how learning best occurs.
§ Developing Academic Excellence
We provide an interdisciplinary standards-based curriculum aligned to the state standards and integrated across the curriculum via essential themes and connections.
§ Promoting Maturity
We foster a sense of self-respect, self-confidence, and self-control within each student through our Character Education Program. Our population will benefit from our proactive approach that enhances the learner’s capacity to make informed and responsible choices.
§ Accelerating Intellectual Growth
We pursue excellence in the application of thinking and problem solving strategies, master standards in all disciplines, and apply data analysis skills and research methodology.
§ Guiding Toward Independence
We teach strategies for quality performance and value high expectations in pursuit of excellence.
§ Providing Balance and Perspective
We encourage the philosophy of life long learning; developing academic and career skills; exploration of the humanities and fine arts; recognition of both achievement and individual differences; parent and community involvement; heightened awareness of community needs and goals; and the importance of regional and global citizenship.
§ Learning for Leadership
We guide each learner toward developing their individual talents in ways that enable them to function as leaders in a wide range of contexts and issues.
Curriculum
Imagine Schools - Nau Charter School is utilizing the Imagine Schools Curriculum, a comprehensive K-8 standards-based instructional program that is built upon national standards, often exceeding them in ways that enrich the learning process. Our Curriculum Guide is aligned with state academic standards in order to provide our educators with seamless and appropriate expectations. Funds from this grant would be used to support the implementation of the Imagine Schools Curriculum in conjunction with the Sunshine State Standards.
Imagine Schools’ Curriculum
The Imagine Schools Curriculum will be used as a guide when planning instruction and assessment. Our curriculum’s essential components follow:
§ Core Curriculum
The Imagine Schools Core Curriculum describes a central set of competencies and knowledge bases essential to effective teaching and learning. The Core Curriculum section of our guide provides the standards as well as the content (what the children are to know) and the applications (what the children are to be able to do) that represent mastery of the standard. Learning these standards is the heart of Imagine Schools’ classroom experience.
The four academic subjects of reading and language arts, mathematics, social studies and science are divided into strands that organize them into essential information and skills needed by all students. Permeating the strands of each subject are unifying concepts that provide links between the content that is introduced and taught in each strand, enriching the delivery of the standards-based curriculum.
§ Financial Literacy
We believe financial literacy can be achieved through the teaching of personal financial management skills and the basic principles involved with earning, spending, saving, borrowing and investing. Integrating financial literacy throughout the curriculum enhances the students’ knowledge in all content areas.
§ Enrichments
Surrounding and supporting the core curriculum are a variety of enriching experiences that broaden horizons, allow exploration of new experiences, and deepen preparation for becoming a life-long learner. The enrichments included at Imagine Schools - Nau Charter School are Physical Education, Health and Safety, Technology Literacy and Media/Information Literacy as well as Performing and Visual Arts, which are integrated into the classroom curriculum.
§ Character Education
Character Education is an approach to learning, living and engaging core values into one’s everyday life. Our Character Education Curriculum prepares students to come face to face with the realities of life, equipped and capable of making ethically sound decisions and responsible choices in a world of challenge, opportunity, and change.
§ Accommodating the Diverse Learner
Students at Imagine Schools - Nau Charter School have diverse learning needs and may require accommodations or modifications to the curriculum to make learning gains. Accommodations are provided according to students’ needs that address learning style, multiple intelligences, and cultural and economic diversity. The goal is to create an atmosphere of achievement in which all students can flourish. There is often a gap of understanding between educators and the children they serve. Our curriculum and staff development provides a bridge of understanding between each individual child and the educators who serve them.
§ Planning and Preparation
Effective teaching and productive learning requires thoughtful planning. Learning Environment, Instruction Plans, Research-Based Methodologies and Classroom Management are essential parts of the Imagine Schools instructional process. A section in our curriculum guide provides tools for various aspects of professional planning that make teaching and learning effective in a standards-based classroom.
§ Assessment Tools
We believe that assessment is a process to guide teaching and learning. Through accurate and ongoing assessment of student learning, teachers evaluate the impact of their teaching activities and make adjustments needed to ensure success. Our assessment program is driven by data which gives the teacher feedback to identify progress made, determines current needs and guides future decisions about teaching and learning.
This high quality, academic approach engages students in a rigorous standards-based curriculum essential to student achievement and success. The curriculum and delivery of instruction allows for flexibility, yet maintains high and appropriate expectations for all. Our program grows in clarity and form as Imagine Schools’ Family share their performance each year at our national conference. Evidence of solid research is shared by Imagine Schools’ Corporate assessment team as they scrutinize program results and compare the effectiveness of our program with the local school district, state and nation. Our program has proven it can reach students in this population as evidenced by the success of our Imagine Schools with similar populations in various Florida counties. Our ultimate goal is that students should enjoy the moment, and learn for a lifetime.
Instruction
§ Imagine Schools’ Instructional Methodologies
§ Authentic and challenging materials and activities
§ Learner centered results
§ Critical thinking and creative problem solving
§ Learning styles linked to teaching styles
§ Multiple intelligences used to determine multi-sensory activities
§ Technology as a learning tool
§ A hands-on, minds-on approach to learning
§ Personal and global perspectives
§ Reflection and exchange of ideas
§ Interdisciplinary thematic units
§ Portfolio assessment
§ Project-based learning in cooperative groups
§ Instructional Delivery Method
We, at Imagine Schools - Nau Charter School, believe a new teaching model is necessary for the new millennium. To actively engage students in their learning we will implement the Project CHILD (Changing How Instruction for Learning is Delivered) delivery method in grade K-5 and the Project TEAM (Technology Enhancing Achievement in Middle School) in grade 6-8. Funds from this grant will be used to support this instructional delivery system to enhance our standards based curriculum. This includes the purchase of instructional materials from Project CHILD and TEAM and other curriculum items. Teachers receive cross-grade teacher planning guides containing lessons and activities aligned with standards, including specific skill software correlations. Classrooms also will be equipped with a management system that contains three elements for engaged time-on-task: Student Passports, Station Task Cards, and Daily Station Assignment Boards.
§ Elementary Method:
Project CHILD transforms traditional self-contained teaching by using an innovative triangulated approach. In Project CHILD, three subject-focused expert teachers form cross-grade clusters (K-2, 3-5) to facilitate standards-based skill articulation and in-depth diversified learning. The primary (K-2) and intermediate (3-5) clusters contain a reading, mathematics and language arts specialist. Students rotate through the three cluster classrooms for instruction in each basic subject and then return to the classroom that serves as their home base for instruction in science and social studies. After a brief whole-group teacher-directed lesson, students work at the stations to practice and apply the lesson content using a variety of learning modes.
Each classroom has at least six learning stations to facilitate diversified learning in at least three modes – technology, hands-on and written, examples are: computer stations, teacher stations, textbook stations, challenge stations, exploration stations, construction stations, reading and listening stations, word study stations, and writing stations.
§ Middle School Method:
There are three precepts underlying TEAMS (Technology Enhancing Achievement in Middle School.
§ Interdisciplinary instructional teams consisting of two or more teachers who share a common group of students, a particular area of the school building, and a common planning time during which they work together in planning their instructional activities is the first key precept.
§ Active learning is the second key precept underlying the TEAMS approach. Active learning strategies require students to engage in “hands-on” cooperative learning activities. These activities are designed to challenge students to construct knowledge for themselves and create novel solutions to problems.
§ Frequent use of technology as an instructional tool is the third precept underlying the TEAMS approach. We live in the technology age and use this mode of learning to reach students as well as provide them with the tools to be successful lifelong learners in a global technological society.
The TEAMS curriculum is comprised of four nine-week thematic units. In each unit the subject areas of science, mathematics, social studies, and language arts are tied together around one of four themes related to the concerns and needs of middle school students. For example, at the sixth grade level, the four unit themes are Transitions, Caring, Identities, and Conflict Resolution. During each TEAMS unit, students work through several instructional “rotations”. Each rotation starts with one or two whole group activities, followed by a set of four to six small group activities, followed by a whole group activity designed to bring closure to the rotation. TEAMS materials provide detailed suggestions for each of these activities.
There are at least four learning stations set up for each rotation that are similar to the elementary school model. For example, a language arts rotation designed to help students identify the main ideas in a passage includes the following station activities, each of which is designed to be undertaken by several pairs of students working together on the task:
§ a technology station where students use a piece of software that puts them in the role of newspaper reporters identifying the main ideas in, and writing headlines for, given newspaper stories;
§ an exploration station where students create telegrams that summarize key ideas that they must transmit to other students;
§ a second exploration station where students participate in a game in which they must identify whether given sentence strips describe a main idea or provide supporting details; and
§ a text station where students read text passages from their science and geography texts and identify the main idea in each passage.
Since 1988, CHILD has been implemented in thousands of classrooms in hundreds of schools. Annual evaluations and research reports have consistently documented that CHILD students have higher test scores, fewer discipline problems, and strong parent satisfaction. The U.S. Department of Education, the SERVE regional center and the Georgia Department of Education Innovation Program have validated CHILD as an effective program. The Institute for School Innovation (ISI) and independent agencies such as Florida TaxWatch have documented the success of students in Project CHILD programs when compared to their peers. [1] The research further demonstrates Project CHILD’s impact on third grade retentions in Florida, confirming that fewer Project CHILD students were retained than non-CHILD students. Furthermore, there were significantly less retentions for students participating in Project CHILD prior to third grade.[2],[3]
[1]Florida TaxWatch’s Comparative Evaluation of Project CHILD: Phase IV. Research Report, Florida TaxWatch Center for Educational Performance & Accountability, Tallahassee, FL, March 2005.
[2]CHILD Program Reduces Student retention and Could Save Tens of Millions of Dollars. Briefings. Florida TaxWatch Center for Educational performance & Accountability, Tallahassee, FL, September 2004.
[3]An Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Project CHILD on Third Grade Retentions in Florida. EPPT Management, Tallahassee, FL, December 2005.