The purpose of education is to teach children to think.
Children think using what they know and their current reasoning abilities.
We promote a personalized learning plan that is built for exactly the target learner.
research-validated approach
supporting individual learners
within the context of their own knowledge structure.
personalized student-centered instruction
adolescent learning
student-directed learning and assessment
Prism Learning Curricula provide personalized learning structure for individual learners. Curricula (plural) are groups of curriculum (singular) guidelines that give scaffolding for learning. Our curricula incorporate all local school district guidelines needed for equivalency, include metacognitive assessments, and provide evidence of learning for accountability.
Most curriculum guides are written to give a set of lessons and/or tests that target a set of information designated by grade level and subject content. Our curriculum is restructured to create an architecture of learning experiences that meet the specific interests and abilities of individual learners. We do this with a comprehensive assessment of the student’s current understanding of the content, the learning process, sense of self as a learner, and preferred interests and communication styles.
Our approach is scaffolded toward increasing student ownership of learning activities. Teaching students in a way that leads them to design and assess their own learning increases autonomy and self-confidence in their abilities as learners. Students who learn to assess their own thinking become more aware of what is needed to learn new things.
Prism’s research-based process uses the following definitions of learning, instruction, assessment, curricula, and evaluation.
Learning is a complex interaction of an individual’s current understanding of the world, experiences, and reasoning skills. A person’s existing mental framework, or conceptual schema, determines what and how one can perceive and make sense of their experiences. Therefore, learning experiences are designed to connect to existing knowledge, promote firsthand involvement, provide time and opportunity for cognitive dissonance and resolution (using reasoning skills), and to document learning with an ongoing student-curated portfolio of evidence.
Instruction that is personalized requires a healthy teaching relationship in which it is safe for all to be honest about their understanding. The teacher’s role is to be a co-learner, rather than the expert providing information. This changes the goal from information exchange to co-learning. Often, teachers will guide discussion to help the student make sense of the information, rather than give the answer, building a student’s tolerance for pondering and exploring. This allows the student to recognize the patterns within their own observations and cross-reference their thinking to experts in that field of study.
Assessment is feedback about what worked and didn’t work in a selected learning experience. In a personalized curriculum, the student’s awareness of their own thinking and understanding is key to assessment. A metacognitive approach provides feedback that informs ongoing learning and helps students to direct their own lessons. Further, a portfolio approach to assessment scaffolds students’ evaluation of their success with actual evidence of learning.
Curriculum is precisely constructed to include what students are expected to know and be able to do (standards), the spaces to be utilized for learning, the agenda for learning sessions (lessons), sequencing of lessons, (grouping similar topics and skills together), and evidence of learning.
Evaluation is the process of designating a value for assessment information. Assessment is typically considered formative if it provides feedback for instruction, and summative if it can be compared to other similar information. Given that statistics can be used to misconstrue any comparison, it is vital to intentionally determine what will serve as the basis for any evaluation.