Today I saw the marriage of formative assessment, research supported instructional methods, and character education.

Hyde Schools have a common language we use to understand and discuss our self discovery process, our parenting principles, and the Hyde philosophy.  Yet, the words and terms can become a bit cumbersome and resist rolling of your tongue with ease unless one develops a working knowledge of and practice with the language of character education.

When they arrive, the seniors face the challenge of knowing the terms of the language and the terms’ meaning as well as the added challenge of trying to teach the common language to the rest of the student body.  Teaching a concept creates deeper learning for both teacher and student.  However, a deepening of understanding depends on first having some basis of knowledge to begin with.

So, before teaching begins, the seniors must be sure they know the concepts.  Enter formative assessment.  Yesterday the senior faculty administered a little quiz.  Seniors were asked to define and use the common language of Hyde’s character education (as it appears on the ‘One Pager’).  Of course, the quiz highlighted gaps and holes in their knowledge.  No worries though, the quiz was not summative and damning, but instead it allowed the senior mentor faculty to develop a morning’s lesson around the holes.  Enter the research based instructional method JIGSAW.

This morning the seniors divided themselves into three expert groups to ‘enjoy’ some explicit instruction in our self discovery process, our parenting principles, or the Hyde philosophy.  After the direct teaching, the seniors created triads of experts and taught each other the core concepts and the common language that defines them.

You see, the students can tell you all the ethics, and they can recite the schedule.  While those elements of rigor define the seniors’ daily lives, the concepts of Hyde (hopefully) frame the seniors’ understanding of themselves, their experience here, and the world beyond the gates.  Ethics can change, and schedules will vary, but a process of self discovery and a foundation in the words and principles will hopefully stay with them for life.

Four months from now, the seniors could (and likely should) take the same formative assessment they took today.  They could see if they have developed a deeper understanding of important concepts or if their knowledge is static.  They, and the school, would have a tool for holding each other accountable for learning what we say is important.  In fact, the idea that they were ‘tested’ on their knowledge reinforces its importance.

Really, in the end, it is their experiences here, and not the terms themselves, that are important.  But we have assured ourselves and the seniors that they have (or are gaining) a common language with which they can define their actions and reflections.