Academics
IB Curriculum Schools Learning Styles
This statement encapsulates one of our major objectives. TS Eliot asked "Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?" A key skill in an age when we are constantly bombarded with information and pseudo-information is the ability to sift the evidence and come to our own conclusions. The Pathways approach to learning encourages the development of this skill, not just because the IB curriculum demands it but because survival can depend upon it.
Student Centred Learning
Pathways methodology concentrates first on the student's aptitudes, then on the skills and knowledge s/he needs to acquire. Traditional education tends to value a limited range of knowledge and skills but more recent research suggests that intelligence is not unitary but multiple. Pathways aims to give students a broader, deeper, richer educational experience by recognizing each student's strongest talents and building on them in order to ensure that all the areas of talent are developed.
Multiple Intelligences Theory: A Learning Tool
The Multiple Intelligences research of Dr. Howard Gardner of Harvard University provides a new insight into student-centered learning. Much of traditional education values a very limited range of abilities, centering on literacy and numeracy. However different individuals have different aptitudes. By using the strongest aptitudes or 'intelligences' as a starting point we can educate more effectively by teaching different students the same topic in different ways according to their particular 'intelligences'.
Linguistic
Developed at Pathways through activities creative writing, literature, foreign language learning, theatre, debating and public speaking.
Linguistic
Logical-Mathematical
Developed at Pathways through science and maths projects and experiments, industrial design, stock-market games and helping to run the student store.
Logical-Mathematical
Musical
Developed at Pathways through playing, directing studying and composing classical and contemporary music.
Musical
Bodily-Kinesthetic
Developed at Pathways through sports and athletics, yoga, modeling, textile-making, contemporary and classical dance.
Bodily-Kinesthetic
Spatial
Developed at Pathways through sculpture, drawing and painting, photography and geography.
Spatial
Naturalist
Developed at Pathways through ecology, gardening, wildlife observation, biological and chemical experiments.
Naturalist
Inter-Personal
Developed at Pathways through group projects, peer teaching and counselling, media work (including student magazines and the Yearbook) and international exchange programmes
Inter-Personal
Project Based Learning
If we Recognise that individual students have different 'intelligences' it is logical to allow them to develop these different talents through individual projects. Well organised Primary classes frequently function like this.
Research suggests that many of us remember:
- 10% of what we read
- 20% of what we hear
- 30% of what we see
- 70% of what we discuss with others
- 80% of what we experience by doing
Learning to Learn
Pathways aims to develop motivated, confident articulate students with the skills necessary for independent study. Observing that teachers are also learning, young people are themselves encouraged to become Life-Long Learners.
Anywhere-Anytime Learning
Because the campus is student-friendly, with universal access to IT and other technological support, students become aware from the outset that learning can and should be 'Anywhere-Anytime'.
