Community of Learners

Our independent school is very honored to receive the Schools of the Future grant (currently in year 4 of the 5-year cycle) which is dedicated to promoting 21st century skills in Hawaii's independent schools. As part of the grant the 13 receiving schools meet three times a year as a Community of Learners (CoL) to discuss what is working and how to improve. This time, Dale from DP art and Darci from elementary joined me in a day of discussion about backwards designing for more meaningful assessment.

Dale and I were asked to select a discipline and backwards plan a unit based on the mission and values of our school. This picture is what we came up with in terms of formative and summative assessments for a unit he his planning in art.

Honolulu Museum of Art

Our literary magazine class went to the Honolulu Museum of Art Spalding House (previously known as the Contemporary Museum) for "Words off the wall: an evening of art, literature, and entertainment." It was an art opening for their new show which has everything to do with words and the educational programing director partnered with Mixed Innovative Arts to ensure there were plenty of hands on activities for students.

It was such a joy to go to a museum with students and have people come up to them and ask them to write on things. The Friday night field trip gave students lots of ideas to promote the literary magazine; a word wall with push pins went up in our school hallway the next week!