Essential Practices

Acceleration & mastery Bands

A particularly powerful component of the “Mastery Bands” section of the day is what we call Acceleration. 

Grounded in innovative, personalized techniques, students learn fundamental skills and content mastery in 50-minute Mastery Bands. The Mastery Bands are focused on the development of specific skills and knowledge, like math and languages. The bands are supported by Acceleration periods, during which students can work to move faster than the pace of their current grade level or receive any additional support they need.

Together with their advisors, students decide in which area or areas they need to be working on a daily or weekly basis. The flexibility that this period provides is another important aspect of personalization. A learner might use it to move ahead in math in order to prepare for a particular STEM project he or she hopes to engage in. Other learners can have time built into the day so that they don’t fall behind. Faster learners might use this time to complete additional work, purely out of enjoyment for the subject. A learner could also use this time to work ahead and free up time to work on a Studios project they are passionate about. A Chinese language learner who wants to develop deeper reading skills than are otherwise part of the program may use this time for specialized work. The possibilities are remarkably broad.

 Advising

The role of the advisor is to be the point person for communication between family and school. This could mean informing parents about their child’s life at school so that they can continue to engage with those topics as opportunities arise. Or, it may be about problems that one side or the other might need to be aware of, like the death of a pet or hurt feelings on the playground.

The other, and fundamentally much more important role of the advisor, is nurturing the innate human desires to explore and learn. They actively help students learn to navigate in complex learning environments—from the physical context of early-age learning classrooms to the more abstract environments constructed by, for example, the team of teachers in their humanities block. Whittle teachers are not primarily information conduits. They are learning environment designers and guides. They design, coach, and observe in these educational spaces—be they physical or intellectual—and students, in turn, learn by exploring them.

This is probably clearest when we think of early learning space, where the physical environment is set up in ways that lead kids to explore and follow their interests. In Early Learning (ELC) and Lower School (LS), the role of advisor is filled by the homeroom teacher. The homeroom teacher helps students learn about quantities, materials, language, and relationships by guiding the learners in the physical – the whole-child perspective is vital to this role. Because of the nature of the ELC schedule, the role of advisor is much more integrated into the flow of the day than it is in Middle School (MS) and Upper School (US).

If the goal in ELC and LS is to encourage the natural “explorer spirit” of learning, our goal in MS and US is to make sure we don’t extinguish it. Our methods take advantage of the things that learners are attracted to, and use those interests to hook them into learning more and more.

A distinctive component of advisory in Upper School is the way we approach the college process. Beginning in the first year of US, students and their families will receive thorough grounding in the nature of tertiary education. Learners and families will be guided through the complexities of university structures, including disciplines learners might not yet even know about, undergraduate and graduate education in different countries, and the nature and purpose of a liberal arts education. They will learn about the approaches that work best for different colleges and universities, specific areas of expertise that line up with learners’ interests and goals, how to make good use of visits to campuses, and more. We want the transition to university to be more about “the logical next step for me,” rather than “how I did in the status lottery.”

EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING (X-DaYs)

While the core practice of experiential learning is foundational to the entire Whittle School & Studios approach, X-Days frame this idea concretely. 

X-Days get students to engage with the environment beyond the classroom, teaching them the real-world applications of their education. 

Regularly, one day is set aside as an X-Day. Programmed by the faculty, the Expedition Day (X-Day) is reserved for work that cannot be contained in the regular schedule or even within the walls of the school. X-Days alternate between an “inward” day, which focuses on personal growth and the school community, including time spent on Center of Excellence projects, and an “outward” day, which sends students out into the city on fieldwork in our City Core Program.  

Personalized Learning

We know that there are far better ways to organize learning experiences than sitting in a chair and listening for extended periods, and that is what our teachers will be especially skilled at designing. One of the ways we seek to distinguish Whittle is that our teachers at all levels will develop their syllabi and lesson plans based on this knowledge.

Throughout each term, two or three projects will serve to periodically integrate the learning that takes place in each block. There are two clear reasons for this approach. One is that the problems of the world rarely, if ever, present themselves within the scope of a single discipline.

For teachers, this will mean several things. First, they will have to be comfortable not knowing everything about a given topic. In that sense, they will be modeling learning behavior for their students as they integrate material that is new to them into their lesson plans. Second, it will mean that planning is a team effort among faculty members. Disciplinary siloing will not be an option as projects are being planned. Third, the planning will be more complex, because there will still be times when, say, math and chemistry topics need to be covered in a particular order.

Portfolios

All Whittle Students will graduate with a sophisticated portfolio of their own work. This will include rigorous and impressive projects that demonstrate knowledge and creativity. They will have true expertise in at least one area of study and will show a deep dive into experiences that show their scholarship as well as their growth as resilient and empathetic individuals. This holistic approach is welcomed by top universities from around the world. 

A portfolio might include demonstrations of extended essays, awards for excellence, interdisciplinary projects, creative work, world language, personal growth, notable strengths, and book lists. 

Students will have input, in consultation with their advisor, in the curation of their portfolio. The portfolio will also include, of course, a summary transcript, crafted in a style that is conducive to the college admissions process plus whatever data is needed for the students target universities.  

Project-Based Learning

We call the longer class periods (approximately 70 minutes) blocks, and we use these as learning spaces to do integrative work. We organize this learning by means of project-based learning in STEM, humanities, arts, and physical education. These involve less linear competencies, which typically take more time to develop and may overlap. We’ll still use “competencies” (knowledge, skills, and dispositions) to describe the domains of learning, but this learning cannot typically be done within such a strict mastery-based framework. Projects, once again, are the organizational construct that allows us to integrate learning and look at issues in a coherent fashion across disciplines.

Our project-based learning (PBL) program is structured to confront major global challenges, meaning that the skills and interests that our learners develop will align with the needs of the world. Over the course of their Whittle education, students will spend a lot of time working on the world’s major problems, and their growing competencies will be reflected by increased ownership and interest in the very areas that need leadership the most.