The way that students have been taught has been linear for many years. The most common method is to introduce the topic, present the lecture, have a discussion or “question and answer” session, give an assignment, and finally an exam. This has worked for some students, but it is a very strict skeleton and it […]
Anna, a senior at Coon Rapids Learning Center, loves drawing cartoons. She also loves a good joke. Anna put these interests to good use while designing an informational poster on Buckthorn, an invasive plant species, for an environmental class. Her instructor thought the poster was quite effective: it was an original drawing, humorous, and addressed […]
March 30th, 2004: Students from RiverBend Academy headed towards Minnesota’s State Capitol with the standard trip slips in hand for a special day of awareness for suicide prevention and mental health accessibility. Buses left many of Mankato’s surrounding high schools at 7 a.m. to join other schools from all over Minnesota. RBA students were excited […]
Editors’ note: This article was written by Naomi at Schoolcraft Learning Community, a K-8 charter school in Bemidji, MN in their fourth year of operation. To see what other crews are doing, you can visit the website www.schoolcraft.org. Melanie’s crew is learning about the Rainforest. Rainforests can be in Australia, Central and South America, and […]
5th grade band is a lot of fun. I play trombone along with Anthony, Tony, and Nicholas. We all like 5th grade band because we finally get to slide our notes. I love to play trombone because it has loud, deep sounds, and is just plain fun to play. Every trombonist agrees with that. Some […]
How much is a million dollars? Well, all the 5th graders at our school [Nerstrand Elementary] had to spend $1,000,000 for a project. Almost all of the 5th graders said that it is hard to spend that much money, but very fun to try. For my million-dollar project I chose to start up a homeless […]
Voyageurs Expeditionary High School (VEHS), a new charter high school in Bemidji, opened this previous fall, is taking part in a renaissance of extended learning programs. One component that is helping fulfill this mission is the use of a Talented and Gifted (TAG) program. This academic extension provides students with focused interests and talents a […]
Star Tracks, at this juncture, is an incentive program and is used in motivating students to perform well on select behavioral competencies. The behavioral competencies used in Star Tracks came from the Secretaries Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills. These behaviors are foundational for an effective worker to have, and the Minnesota Business Academy is encouraging […]
Students at Coon Rapids Learning Center (CRLC), an alternative high school, are spearheading a service learning campaign to benefit the Sarapiqui Conservation Learning Center (SCLC) in Costa Rica, which is located in one of the country’s poorest regions. This endeavor is being called Project Sarapiqui: From Students For Students and it will benefit students in […]
Two teachers from my school recently went to Costa Rica. While they were there they visited one of the poorest regions of the country, Sarapiqui. They found a Conservation Learning Center, which is an open and free secondary school, similar to our school, the Coon Rapids Learning Center. There are high schools in Costa Rica […]