King's View Academy centers on Individual Student Learning. Although some of our space at our facility resembles a formal classroom, students have the opportunity to work on their choice of academics, at their choice of time, for their choice of duration, using their choice of resources, and do their choice of activity for a break, and then return to their choice of academic after break. Pardon the excessive use of "their choice" - the point is that everything is in terms of student choice.
Side-by-side with academics is a program to support the student's development as an effective, responsible and mature learner, with the ultimate goal of post-secondary academic success.
It is impossible to articulate a complete program that fits every student's needs, unless it is at a high level (like the curriculum documents). At KVA our educational experiences are designed to develop student learning as well as academic competence. Our programs, thus, depend on interaction between content experts and students.
Below are 2 versions of our program.
These two approaches are treated the same, with an obvious difference in content expert-student meetings (in-house they are face-to-face in the same place as well as via email and Google Hangouts/Skype-type interfaces. Our ideal program is a combination of both, in which students are local and attend KVA regularly, but have flexibility available to them in which they can choose to work "from home" or "at the library" based on individual needs.
The pacing for both is set by the student, supported by the content expert. Ideally content experts and students meet often to discuss content, carry out assessment, and discuss effective learning/student strategies and skills. Due to time zone differences and , meetings for On-Line/Distance students tend to be less frequent than those for In-House students.
Check expectations (personal, learning outcomes)
Check goals (personal, academic)
Check progress (Student would have been tracking this through the year) across all courses
Make a plan for the day: work on courses that have a lower rate of progress, or a higher probability of underachievement.
Plan course outcomes to address and guide learning for the day.
Use resources to find instructional/guidance material as needed (Google, Khan Academy, YouTube, print resources available, human resources - fellow students and content experts).
Learn. Practice. Remember. Recall. Self-Assessment. Break.
Assessment: submit work to content expert for review; visit/contact content expert to discuss assessment for work-at-hand (what type of assessment, on what content, addressing what outcomes; and do assessment.
Content expert will report meeting and any newly mastered content as well as any increase in progress grade.