What is Summit Learning? How will Summit Learning benefit my child? Why has Zoneton Middle school decided to switch to Summit Learning versus traditional instruction? These are a few of the many questions lingering in your minds this year as we begin using Summit Learning.
Summit Learning is an online tool that uses online learning, projects, and traditional instruction to develop students' life skills, self-direction, self-confidence, and problem solving skills. Students work on projects and receive traditional instruction during 80% of their school week and then work on their online learning platform during 20% of the school week. This program, with the combination of instructional strategies, allows students to direct their own learning and allows teachers to take on a facilitator role allowing opportunity for mentoring and differentiation for every student. According to research, "Summit Learning schools report promising progress, including gains in test scores, greater student engagement, increased attendance, and better behavior." Although Summit Learning is new to Zoneton Middle School, it is not new all over the world, "Summit Learning is based on more than 100 years of science and research on learning, as well as Summit’s 15 years’ experience graduating all students college ready." Zoneton Middle School and Bullitt County school district greatly believe in the Summit Learning program. The vision of Zoneton Middle School and the Bullitt County school district is: "Developing caring, courteous, trustworthy, responsible, and accountable students who are on their way to being college and career ready." Summit Learning aligns with this vision because it is helping students to develop the skills needed to become college and career ready. These skills include problem-solving, collaboration, and becoming a self-directed/motivated learner. These skills, along with technology skills, are also what aligns Summit Learning to the 21st century school vision. Students are able to develop problem solving skills through the project experiences and high level questioning incorporated within Summit Learning. The projects that students complete are real world based and allow students to utilize their learned skills to solve a problem at hand. Also, the questions asked through assessments assess their problem solving skills and their ability to apply their learning to new types of questions and scenarios. Students are developing their collaboration skills through projects as well. The Summit Learning projects have many opportunities for students to collaborate and work with one another. Since the teacher's role is to facilitate, students must develop strong collaboration skills to work with one another, manage their time, and organize their work time to accomplish the given task on time. Also, through the one-on-one mentoring time students are able to collaborate with teachers more than ever. During this mentoring time students will receive one-on-one instruction, individualized differentiation, and goal setting advice. Students are working towards becoming self-directed/motivated learners because they must determine how to manage their time for both projects and online learning time. Also, students will determine which tools and resources they learn best from during their online learning time allowing them to direct their own learning. Students will learn based on their needs and what works best for them creating an individualized education. Students will develop technological skills with this program by becoming better navigators and users of online resources. Students will be given the opportunity to use online tools that they see best fit to complete projects allowing for students to learn about a wide array of creation programs. Also, students will become advanced in utilizing and navigating online resources. Online resources are essential for student learning during their online learning time and students will be able to determine which type of online resources work best for them. As you can see there are many benefits for students when using Summit Learning. Yes, starting a new education program can be intimidating, but our students have truly embraced this change. As a teacher I have seen so many amazing things from students since begin the use of this program. Students are truly embracing their learning! They get excited when they pass a concept assessment. They look forward to and ask for their mentoring time with their teacher. As a teacher, I have never seen students take so much ownership for their learning and it is wonderful. Students are going above and beyond and want to put in the extra time outside of class to get ahead on concept assessments and projects. Students are truly motivated to do well. I have been so amazed at how much students have been able to accomplish through the use of Summit Learning. I am seeing so many wonderful skills emerging within each student that will serve them as fantastic tools to have both at college and in their future career. There are many benefits to using Summit Learning and I cannot wait for it to be noticed through test scores and students' future success. Like starting anything new, it is very intimidating and scary to shift from what you are used to. However, hopefully as you become more familiar with the program you will see how great it is! For Additional Resources Visit The Websites Below: www.summitlearning.org/ www.kmsd.edu/Page/2547
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