Working on a Dissertation Structures Grey Band's Literacy Block
Our Grey Band is prototyping the next level of the Long-View program this year as we stretch into the middle school grades and iterate from a school for 2nd-5th graders to our ultimate vision of a school for 2nd-8th graders. The vision for the middle grades band, which this year is called Grey Band but also is referred to as “The Loft” because of their location upstairs in the adjacent building, is one of a great deal of independence. We want to see the kids standing on the shoulders of the work they’ve done with us in years prior, able to generate their own ideas, drive their own learning, and produce thoughtful and novel work…
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A Workshop on Game Theory Introduces Us to Mathematical Modeling
With just a few days of the school year under our belts, we had a guest stop by Long-View and take us through a workshop on a very high level topic: Game Theory.
Dr. James Spindler is a professor at UT in both the business school and law school and holds both a JD and a PhD in Economics. He came to teach us about economics and more specifically, game theory, which is the study of mathematical models of conflict and cooperation and is used in economics, as well as other disciplines....
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Metacognitive Coaching in Math Classrooms
Having been fortunate to observe a variety of math classrooms, especially within the independent school sector, we’ve come to learn a number of things, which we will write about across several blog posts. Today we are focused on the lack of metacognitive instruction and coaching within many math classrooms.
Metacognition research has assisted educators in changing the way we view learning. We know high achieving students usually apply metacognitive processes in their learning and problem solving. And students who apply metacognitive processes tend to be higher achievers. Recent studies have shown that even young children can apply metacognitive processes when the tasks fit their interests and capabilities. And any age-related development may likely be due to lack of appropriate exposure in school....
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Long-View + the number lab: Our Business Model
It’s quiet at Long-View with the kids out for summer break, but it is actually a time of intense activity for our teaching team. This is the busiest part of the year for our other business venture, the number lab, which is concentrated on supporting educators and schools working to raise the level of their math instruction. Our work:
focuses on the task of building math instruction so as to privilege advanced conceptual mathematical understanding in order to facilitate reasoning;
focuses on attempts to design innovative classroom practices that bring the practice of knowing mathematics in school closer to what it means to know mathematics within the discipline.
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How Our Micro-School is Talking To Parents -- All Day Long
Take a look at the article published on The National Association of Independent Schools' Website today!
Click here.
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Build Week #4 Makes a Splash
Our fourth Build Week of the 2017-18 school year might have ended up the richest week of learning we’ve ever experienced! As the kids walked in on Monday of this last Build Week, Ms. Bayer was watching the same videos we watched in Science last week – those of Nate Ball on Nova’s “The Secret Life of Scientists and Engineers” series. This MIT-trained mechanical engineer simultaneously names himself a “daredevil” and an engineer, and he has great videos on how these two identities intertwine. Most famously, these qualities worked in tandem to support Nate’s invention of the Atlas Powered Ascender, which helps military personnel get out of precarious situations in the way batman might. Just as Campfire was about to begin, Ms. Bayer got the crazy idea to attempt to contact Nate Ball on Google Hangout. Even thought Nate lives in Boston and wasn’t expecting us, he answered! Nate told us he has heard of Long-View and when he realized it was our last Build Week of the year, he threw out a BIG engineering challenge for us....
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Why School Schedules Don't Work
I’ve never met a parent who didn’t have high expectations for his or her child’s school.
First, we expect that school will prepare our children for whatever the next step is. If they’re in first grade, they’ll end the year ready for second grade, and so on through college, employment, and successful adult life.
We expect schools to provide age-appropriate physical education, plus a grounding in the arts, music, and a foreign language.
We also expect that school will help our children learn how to navigate social situations like cliques or favoritism. We hope that our children’s schools will help them become good people.
And we hope our child will fall in love with learning at school…
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Build Week#3: Cold Case #T8523-15 Solved!
An incredibly high-level and high-energy week just concluded at Long-View: Build Week #3 brought together work on chemistry, argument, forensics, logic, collaboration, and critical thinking, with a hint of mystery mixed in.
Build Weeks are a part of the rhythm of the yearly calendar at Long-View, opening our schedule up to allow us to dive into special activities and challenges. Build Weeks help us grow intellectually, help us make connections between disciplines, give us a chance to break the “routine” of school life, and give us an opportunity to try new things.
Build Week #3 also gave us the chance to meet new people. The week began with crime scene tape surrounding one classroom door and Detective Julie Long of the Austin Police Department showing up with a locked briefcase....
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Watch Your (Mathematics) Language!
If you step into a Long-View mathematics class, you’re apt to hear students reading mathematics expressions using language that seems a little different.
In reading an addition expression such as 41 + 17, for example, you’d hear a Long-View student say “forty-one and seventeen” rather than “forty-one plus seventeen.” While this may seem like a subtle substitution, there is a great deal of deliberate thought underneath this use of language that supports our young mathematicians as they develop strong conceptual understandings that will transfer across all of arithmetic to Algebra. Language is actually one of the most under-utilized models in school mathematics. Not at Long-View....
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What Makes Long-View Different?
With admissions season gearing up, we are interacting daily with many parents carefully thinking about which school will be best for their children, for their family. We find that a great starting point is to get to know what makes a school unique.
Long-View is very purposefully designed differently than other area schools. We aren't trying to check the box of being all things to all families. We aren't trying to impress you with a huge facility or a list of course offerings that trumps the next school. You won't see any worksheets at Long-View and we don't assign homework.
Long-View is a great fit for families who want a rigorous academic program but are seeking a school that thinks differently about learning. We value depth over breadth...
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