January 2019 - Eagle Rock Blog

Instructors Tackle Tools for Competency-based Learning and Equity

Each year, our school’s Instructional Team selects an annual focus for improving our educational practices. Past focus areas have included student-centered coaching, classroom culture, and common assessments. This year, we are focusing on competency-based learning and equity.

Competency-based learning can go by other names in educational literature, including proficiency-based learning and mastery learning. Competency-based learning is one tool we use at Eagle Rock toward the achievement of our ultimate goal for students: equitable attainment of high standards of learning. We drew from a variety of sources to define what competency-based learning and equity mean to us and honed in on our definitions: Continue reading…

The Role of Power Standards in this Trimester’s Class Offerings

It’s the beginning of our 77th trimester here at Eagle Rock School and Professional Development Center and our students are already well entrenched in furthering their education with meaningful classes — many promoting strong leadership and good citizenry in the world they will soon inherit. A rundown of those classes is offered below, but first, we’d like to give you some insight into how we plan for and assess educational progress here at Eagle Rock School.

At Eagle Rock, we’ve long maintained an “Individual Learning Plan” for our students, as well as “Power Standards” that assess student progress within this plan. All of this is organized around what we call our “5 Expectations,” which include:

Creating Healthy Life Choices
Effective Communication
Leadership for Justice
Engaged Global Citizen
Expanding Knowledge Base

The Individual Learning Plan (ILP for short) is a means of assessing each student’s progress in completing their graduation requirements. The plan is divvied up among three sections, which include: Continue reading…

Winter-Spring 2019 Briefing from the Professional Development Center

As Eagle Rock School’s staff members and students immerse themselves into the school’s 77th trimester, our non-stop Professional Development Center (PDC) continues its work in helping high schools across the country develop programs and protocols aimed at re-engaging youth in their own education.

For decades, our dedicated Professional Development Center team has signed on to collaborate with progressive and innovative educators around the United States in order to enhance educational strategies and design. To achieve the objectives and goals these educational organizations have developed for themselves, our facilitation builds on the assets they already possess (we refer to it as asset-based facilitation).

Please see the schedule below to see what’s on our facilitation agenda for now through the middle of April (and use the information presented at the end of this briefing to get in touch with us about your organization’s upcoming professional development-related needs):

JANUARY 2019

Jan. 21 – 23

Princeton Program for Teacher Preparation, Estes Park, Colo.: Dan Condon, Eagle Rock Associate Director of Professional Development, along with Doen Lee, our 2018/2019 Fellow in Professional Development, are hosting Ally Markovich from the Princeton Program for Teacher Preparation here on the Eagle Rock campus. In this visit, Ally will have many opportunities to observe Continue reading…

House Parents Describe Their Eagle Rock Student Housing Experiences

At first glance, the job of being a house parent for a group of six teen-aged boys and an equal number of teen-aged girls could be a tall order. And as challenging as it is to properly support a dozen students on a daily and nightly basis, imagine a house full of young adults when it comes to being engaged in their own education and living community.

Three of our six house parents recently wrapped up their first trimester in this critical on-campus role. And, not unexpectedly, our administrators again proved to be really good at selecting the best staff members to serve as house parents. We’re also experts at preparing and supporting those house honchos for what the job entails, but some things — as you’ll read below — can only be learned while performing the job itself.

That being said, no one can describe the house parent experience as well as these fresh adult leaders. We’ve asked the three newbies to reflect on what those experiences meant to them personally. But first, a little background on our on-campus Living Village, which is made up of six houses — each designed to accommodate up to 12 students in two separate sleeping areas. Continue reading…

Cultivating Democracy in High Schools Across Illinois

As you may have read in the Press Release section of the Eagle Rock website, our Professional Development Center is deeply engaged in supporting education renewal work in Illinois. Specially, we’re working in collaboration with the Robert R. McCormick Foundation to further the organization’s Democracy Schools program in select high schools across the Prairie state.

The Democracy Schools program is based on the premise that a healthy democracy requires the informed and active participation of all its citizens. Together, Eagle Rock and the McCormick Foundation are supporting a growing network of Illinois high schools committed to educating and empowering students to nurture and sustain democracy. Through high-quality civic learning experiences, students develop the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that facilitate informed participation in democratic institutions and communities.

Research has shown that these experiences also promote civic equality, build 21st century competencies, improve school climate, and reduce high school drop-out rates.

Instructional Rounds: The Mechanism for Improvement

Digging a little deeper, the Robert R. McCormick Foundation has engaged our Professional Development Center to provide a key mechanism for improvement in Continue reading…