Curriculum. MICDS will offer a curriculum that challenges students at every level. The School has implemented a comprehensive review program (the “Curriculum Review”) utilizing internal and external resources and benchmarking to ensure that all of its course offerings across every discipline are challenging, comprehensive, developmentally appropriate, and seamless. Each of the School’s major discipline areas has completed the Curriculum Review as of 2005. During the next three years the School will ensure that each discipline has implemented the recommendations arising from the first Curriculum Review. The Curriculum Review itself will be evaluated and refined, drawing from the School’s work during the ISACS accreditation process in identifying the cornerstones of the MICDS educational program. Commencing in the Fall of 2006, the School will embark upon a new seven year cycle designed to take each discipline and each course offering to the next, higher level of excellence. Among many other initiatives, the Curriculum Review will address opportunities for service learning (see Community of Learners), as well as academically-related extracurricular activities (see Extracurricular Programs).
In connection with this process, the School will embark upon an institution-wide effort to build a better understanding of the learning process itself – how cognition occurs, how it differs from student to student, and how learning processes change as students mature – with a view to incorporating these insights into every course offering within the curriculum. To do so, the School will draw upon outside sources of expertise as well as existing resources, including its staff of learning specialists in all three divisions. Its findings will be distilled and then both integrated into the Curriculum Review process and used to build a better awareness among the faculty of learning processes and how different instructional methods impact those learning processes.
Pursuit of Passion. MICDS students are blessed with a wealth of choices in designing a course of study and in pursuing athletic and extracurricular activities. Within this rich spectrum, each individual student will be encouraged to find those programs which excite his/her passion for learning and the opportunity to achieve excellence. Moreover, MICDS will continue to extend its goals for a student’s education beyond a purely intellectual preparation to a concern for his or her emotional development. The School will work to develop individuals who value the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. It will endeavor at every level to nurture intellectual curiosity, encourage passion and applaud the boldness of independent thinkers to take risks. And the School will celebrate individual accomplishments that publicly demonstrate the pursuit of passion.
An integral step in this process over the next three years is for the School to examine the multiple ways in which students become truly and deeply engaged in their work, and how faculty, parents and peers interact to stimulate the passion of MICDS students. This examination is intended to take place concurrently with, and to complement, the School’s review of learning processes and teaching methods discussed above. The School will use its findings to refine the curriculum, the advisory program and its faculty development programs, for the purpose of further cultivating life-long passion and pursuit of learning among its students.
Individualized Approach and Enhanced Advisory System. Since everyone brings with him or her a unique set of strengths and weaknesses, aptitudes, abilities and concerns, the School will strive to know every student personally and will foster a climate in which differences are affirmatively valued. Individual attention to the strengths and needs of every student will be a hallmark of an MICDS education. The School will work proactively with individual students to guide them toward avenues for success and to resolve problems before they become overwhelming. To this end, and pursuant to the Strategic Plan of 2000 – 2005, the School has hired learning specialists, and it has implemented a comprehensive advisory program beginning in the Middle School.
The School considers a thoughtful, comprehensive and influential advisory program to be an essential addition to its academic programs. In order to further strengthen this important feature of MICDS, over the next three years the School will evaluate the present structure of the advisory system and the progress that has been made towards the goals established for it, and will implement any changes as recommended for improving the program’s effectiveness.
Measurement. The concept of measurement is a necessary component of any academic institution, as a way to gauge accomplishment and provide vital feedback as to both individual needs and overall effectiveness of the curriculum. Standardized tests, in particular, are an integral part of secondary education. They are the most important criteria for admission at many of the most selective colleges and universities.
Recognizing that the measure of MICDS’ success is how far each student has progressed during school, relative to that student’s personal starting-point, the School will study and implement additional measurements that track individual progress rather than simply end-product. Over the next three years, the School will study the appropriateness of additional assessment at periodic intervals such as 4th, 8th and 12th grades, as well as the competencies to be measured. Finally, consistent with the School’s broader mission of preparing its students for life beyond secondary education, a plan will also be developed for surveying alumni to gauge both academic preparation as well as life contribution.
