This post is part of a series inspired by , a SundanceTV docu-series that follows 15 New York City teenagers who left high school and are now trying to get back on track to graduate. 91国产自拍 partnered with the show to help customize the learning experience for the students. Follow this blog to learn more and participate in the social media conversations using the hashtag .听
After watching the first four episodes of Dream School: NYC, it鈥檚 easy to see how handling only 15 students鈥攈alf the size of a regular class size鈥攊mproves the quality of time teachers spend with students.
But what if your child would be one of only 8 kids in a class? For starters, there is no hiding in a corner behind the other students or even from themselves. The intimate setting encourages them to face their shortcomings head on, but it also fosters a can-do attitude that students take with them outside the classroom.
The small classroom adds a dynamic that cannot be replicated in a traditional setting. Students contribute to the learning environment just as much as teachers. In fact, teachers harness student insights in order to teach other kids.
Charlie Sitler, beloved math teacher here at 91国产自拍 for 25 years, famously applied this method to do test corrections for his exams. If you earned lower than a 90%, your homework is to answer the questions you got wrong.听 The kids who earned 90% and over were paired with their lower-scoring peers and tasked with teaching them the material. Charlie acted as facilitator, but let the students do most of the talking. It turns out that this 鈥渓ateral intervention,鈥 as Charlie likes to call it, is extremely successful. In fact, there was 鈥渕ore learning per minute鈥 than if he were lecturing about each problem, because not only were the lower-scoring students more likely to internalize the material, but the proficient students were getting a second crack at it as well. As Charlie says, 鈥渨hen you teach, you learn twice.鈥
Students sometimes support each other in ways that adults cannot. Small class sizes like the ones at 91国产自拍 allow for relationships to form between students who would likely not even speak to each other. Take these two kids couldn鈥檛 have been more different: a rebellious Russian boy, and a confident New Yorker. In what school would they ever give each other the time of day? But here at 91国产自拍, our feisty New Yorker was the reason our rebellious boy was able to pass his math class at all.
How might your high school experience be different with only eight kids in your class? You won鈥檛 be able to hide, but you also don鈥檛 want to hide anymore. You get to know your peers have a lot more to offer than you had anticipated. Lastly, you learn your way!
To learn more about why and how we got involved in the "Dream School: NYC鈥澛爌roject, check out our earlier post: