By seizing the opportunity offered by The Disney Company's development of a brand new city in Central Florida, Stetson University could make a difference in the way teachers teach and children learn. It will serve 1,100 on its own adjoining campus next fall. The focus is on how students learn, not just on what is being learned. Students are organized in multi-age classes, called neighborhoods, because they learn at different rates. They get to know each other and their teachers over time.
Teachers always work in teams.
The building's design facilitates the neighborhood concept. It's too soon to know if the Celebration way is best, but Celebration students took seven of the top nine prizes at a recent Osceola County history fair. Five Stetson students, supervised by education professor William Pelaia, are now working with the faculty of Celebration School, learning firsthand the challenges and rewards of implementing an innovative curriculum based on cooperative learning. He sketches a diagram of a traditional school day, divided vertically by class periods and horizontally by subject areas. Then he scratches through all the dividing lines.