Focused Learning, an instructional management plan designed to move the responsibility of learning to the student, was introduced to two groups of core teachers. There are key elements common to all lessons with a common vocabulary for addressing the learning process. To strengthen vocabulary skills, Word Within a Word will be expanded to the eighth grade. Word Within a Word , the study of vocabulary by breaking down words an learning the parts or stems of each, was implemented at the eighth grade level. The philosophy is that this can then be transferred to other words with the same stems.
Vocabulary building continues to be a basic component of the language arts program.
Art Exploration provided students an overview of the art program and was especially helpful for those students who were not yet knowledgeable about art. Art I continued for those who were more serious about their art study and had prior art experience. This class will prepare students to work on meaningful science projects and research. Through the Scientific Research class, students had hands-on experience locating original research both with the Internet and printed materials from the school library. A unit on statistics and analysis of supported compilation of the information and evaluation of its meaning.