Claim 3
Brighten Academy students engage in deeper learning to empower and challenge themselves.
Learning that Lasts
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Instruction of simple concepts is merely a means to an end to developing students’ ability to think deeper and to utilize their knowledge and skills in a variety of authentic contexts. Students are the thinkers and doers, as they collaborate and engage in work that matters. Deeper instruction supports students to master academic content through work that is challenging, engaging, and empowering. Our focus on student-engaged, deeper learning guides our students towards learning that lasts.
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Students benefit from meaningful lessons, performance tasks, case studies, and projects (Core Practices 10, 6, and 8), ensuring that each student has a foundation in mastery of simple concepts. Students can then build, through scaffolded learning (Core Practice 19), higher order thinking and deeper learning. Students engage in specific feedback and reflection protocols, with guided questioning to support them in deeper thinking about the topic of study or in judging the authenticity, complexity, and quality of their own work. Students reference rubrics that are built to provide them with a clear understanding of what simple and complex skills are being assessed, as well as what is expected to ensure habits of scholarship standards are met. In the picture to the left, students are collaborating in structured group work with specific roles and responsibilities.
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Increasing Complexity
Over the past three years, our staff has diligently worked to increase the complexity of learning activities. In our first year as an EL Education school, students created culminating projects such as bookmarks, and also made books for the school’s library. Certainly this was a starting place, but after evaluation by our leadership team and analysis of our Implementation Review scores, we recognized the need to increase our ability to plan for and support students in an Expedition. We are proud to share how much we have grown as a school in depth of learning, as demonstrated in one way through our EL Expeditions. Students analyze and synthesize information from multiple sources and from varying perspectives, and utilize this depth of learning to create meaningful projects that have broad impact not only in our school, but in our local communities, and across the world! Students who are empowered and challenged with deeper learning create quality work, as seen in these representative samples.
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After listening to books about needs of plants, students deepened their learning with observations of plants. They synthesized their findings and determined if their plants would be able to thrive. Students continued the progression of learning through higher-order questioning that lead to the creation of an instructional booklet for plant care. |
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In these samples, middle school math students are held to high levels of deeper learning and written analysis to show mastery of standards within their grade, and Accelerated Math students demonstrate this across grade levels. Middle school students can qualify to enroll in Accelerated Math, in which they can learn units from the next grade level in a self-paced format. Across all grade levels, formative and summative assessments include rigorous questions used to show synthesis of math concepts, as well as connections to the real world.
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click to enlarge images
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Students observed and recorded information about the birth and growth of frogs, butterflies, chickens, and plants. A local nature park agreed to post QR codes created by Brighten Academy students, for their visitors to learn more about the animals. Students then extended their research and learning to build a more complete picture of the animals native to Georgia. Our community was thrilled to see Brighten Academy students featured in, and enhancing, the museum exhibit with this professional format. |
Deepening Content Knowledge
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Embracing Core Practice 31, teachers and leaders communicate student achievement in a manner that aligns with state expectations and supports all stakeholders. While decreasing the percent of students in Level II over the course of our EL partnership, we have increased the percent of students who are achieving in ELA and Math at college- and career-readiness levels. Deeper learning through EL Core Practices 9 and 12 has strengthened student content knowledge. |
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Students who receive academic intervention receive appropriate scaffolding to support their analysis of complex ideas and synthesis, in deeper learning at their level. Teachers engage, empower, and challenge students at all levels of reading, writing, and problem solving, to reach individual goals towards mastery of grade level standards. |
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The Georgia Milestones Assessment System (GMAS) describes Level III learners as students who "are prepared for the next grade level or course and are on track for college and career readiness." The GMAS End-of-Grade Achievement Level Descriptors give further insight towards the deep levels of content knowledge needed to attain a Level III. To the right are the descriptors for Social Studies and Science at the 5th grade level, and the full set of Achievement Level Descriptors by subject in grades 3-8 can be found through the link below.
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Applying What We Learn
Day-to-day performance tasks also reflect a commitment to integrating curriculum in meaningful ways and requiring students to research, evaluate, justify, substantiate, compare and contrast, defend, synthesize, and a host of other higher order thinking skills. Our students stay busy creating beautiful masterpieces after studying history, art forms, and symbolism of a culture. They defend dropping the atomic bomb after analyzing the testimony of a survivor of Hiroshima, a multitude of historians with dissenting opinions, and reading informational text from the Truman Library. Our students do scientific experiments to determine the best product performance and value and synthesize all of this data into a consumer report to recommend the best brand paper towel to buy for your money. Our students grapple with tough issues like bullying, friendship, and discrimination and create tools such as the Tableaux of Intolerance that can be used by our counseling department to battle these issues. Our students are hard at work THINKING and APPLYING their deeper learning, as seen in the representative samples that follow.
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Students synthesize math concepts with this geometry monster that each created, using attributes of shapes they had learned about. A deep understanding of the shape properties is needed for mastery of this task, to connect stated rules to a visual application and story for each. |
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In a study of World War II, students listened to survivor testimony, read opinions from several authors and historians of the era, and read evidence from the Truman Library. From this body of evidence representing both positive and negative opinions and data about dropping the bomb, students deepened their understanding across both sides of the controversy. They continued towards mastery of this rigorous and highly relevant standard as they analyzed, chose a side, and wrote an editorial citing credible evidence to convince others of their position.
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In the image to the right, students work collaboratively together to synthesize ideas, create rubrics, and demonstrate high levels of problem solving. Students regularly set individual goals as well as group norms. The consistent use of these processes and protocols deepen students' understanding of the progression of learning, promote high levels of engagement, and strengthen their commitment to work that matters. |
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Connections classes are also held to high expectations of synthesis, quality work, and depth of knowledge. In this sample from Middle School Art, students explored many concepts across multiple disciplines such as writing, mathematics, and visual art. The students were asked to create an abstract expressionist portrait of an animal that reflected their unique personality or had significance in their lives. This incorporated the skills of drawing, painting, and printmaking to create an abstract expressionist artwork with radial balance. While enlarging the image, students demonstrated mastery of proportional reasoning. Student reflections on their animal of choice showed deep introspection beyond what one would expect from a typical middle school student.
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Looking Back...
At Brighten we have always worked towards mastery of the standards with an integrated curriculum. Our focus was more on acquiring a set of skills that could transfer to higher levels of thinking or the next grade level. In reflection, we noticed that we often lacked the student engagement and excitement for the content, which we now know comes from students taking ownership, feeling empowered, and challenging themselves with the task at hand.
Looking Forward...
Taking a closer look at the critical thinking and depth of learning needed to truly master the standards has opened our eyes to what our students are capable of producing. We envision our students learning with a purpose, becoming agents of change, and tackling real-world problems. "Getting smart to do good," will become a familiar phrase at Brighten Academy, as students engage in deeper learning to empower and challenge themselves.
