It is with great pleasure that we announce that we are launching into Year 1 of our Personalized Learning initiative. Mt. Carmel is joining eight other schools in the 2016-2017 launch year who were selected to boldly step into a new era of instruction that will better meet the individualized needs of each student in our school. The work that was initiated under the supervision of Mr. Martin Gore will continue on unabated, and most of the Personalized Learning Design Team that crafted this model still remain at MCE and are diligent and dedicated in keeping the momentum of this work going in the 2016-2017 school year.
While some of the practices and pedagogy utilized by our teachers may change, please know that Personalized Learning is less of a revolution as it is an evolution of what we’ve always known to be best practices in education. Personalized Learning is enhancing our already firm foundation of literacy and mathematics development, while also deliberately pulling sciences and social studies into the foundational curriculum through our use of Project Based Learning (PBL) initiatives. PBL work incorporates an essential element that’s been missing for years in education, as it provides our students with relevant, real-world problems, and affords students opportunities to rely on their individual knowledge, skills, and talents to develop novel solutions. This provides the impetus for future learning and social development as students begin to understand their place and greater purpose in our city, state, and world.
As we move forward into our launch year, it is our goal to make PBL a standard practice throughout the school year across all grade levels while continuing to integrate the core foundational knowledge that elementary aged students will need for years beyond our walls. As our years of Personalized Learning continue, we will next seek to make sure that our students have learner profiles that incorporate assessment data along with student-driven goals and dreams. We also will continue to seek authentic and aligned digital learning platforms to afford learning opportunities beyond the teacher’s desk and can actually be utilized at home, as well. Ultimately, we will create a learning environment that will be the leading example of quality Personalized Learning work for our county and for our colleagues across the nation.
