Electives

AVID 6, 7, 8

AVID stands for Advancement Via Individual Determination. The purpose of this program is to provide support so all of our students have access to rigorous classes that challenge them and prepare them for higher education. The AVID elective is a class that supports this mission by providing specialized tutorials and helping students to develop organizational skills.

AVID curriculum is based on WICOR—writing, inquiry, collaboration, organization, and reading. Students will participate in lessons designed to teach these learning strategies. They learn how to apply these strategies in their other classes. Here are some of the activities they will participate in:

• Writing: Cornell focused note taking, learning logs, quick writes, reflections, process writing, peer evaluation
• Inquiry: skilled questioning techniques, Costa’s Levels of Thinking, Socratic Seminars, Tutorials (see below), questions that guide research
• Collaboration: Socratic Seminars, Tutorials, Philosophical Chairs, group activities and projects, peer editing groups
• Organization: Binders and organizational tools, planners, graphic organizers, Tutorials, project planning, SMART Goals
• Reading: Deep reading strategies, note‐taking, graphic organizers, vocabulary building, summarizing, and reciprocal teaching.

Gateway To Technology 6, 7, 8

Gateway to Technology (GTT) is a Project Lead the Way program (PLTW) designed as a pre‐engineering course which addresses the interest and energy of middle school students while incorporating national standards in mathematics, science, and technology (visit www.pltw.org ). It is an activity‐oriented program that shows students how technology is used in engineering to solve everyday problems. During the GTT experience, students will gain the skills they need to develop, produce, and use products and services.

The GTT curriculum provides activities‐based, project‐based, and problem‐based learning, a hands-on approach that is exciting and challenging for the student. The curriculum relates technology to students’ daily lives. It promotes communication and collaboration by emphasizing a teamwork approach in the instructional units. This approach utilizes the strengths of each team member to accomplish the goals of the project while offering students learning challenges at all ability levels.

Students acquire knowledge and skills in engineering problem solving and explore requirements for careers in engineering.