Eagle Rock’s Place in Place-based Education

When “place-based education” was coined back in the early 1990s by Laurie Lane-Zucker of The Orion Society and Dr. John Elder of Middlebury College, ground had already been broken for our campus here in Estes Park, Colo.

And when author and American educator David Sobel — credited with developing the philosophy of place-based education — wrote Place-Based Education: Connecting Classrooms and Communities in 2004, we here at Eagle Rock School and Professional Development Center, were 10-plus years into our use of place-based education as a pedagogy used in the progressive effort to reengage youth in their own education.

It’s no wonder then that a number of recent publications have cited our unique school and professional development center with regard to the advancement of place-based education.

Understanding Place-based Education

In the simplest of terms, the idea of place-based education revolves around connecting learning to a student’s surroundings. In the case of our school, that notion encompasses our classrooms, meeting halls, living quarters, and thousands upon thousands of acres that surround our campus, snuggled up to the Rocky Mountain National Park.

The challenge for our instructional specialists is to turn the surrounding towns, parks, buildings and history into myriad lessons of learning, building and nourishing pride in the communities in which our students find themselves. It is a directive that asks our student body to focus on real issues within the places where they learn, travel through, and live.

At its core, place-based learning connects students to Continue reading…

Job Opening Announced: Language & Literacy Instructional Specialist

If you have experience as a high school English teacher and are enthusiastic about expanding a progressive high school’s language and literacy offerings and devising curriculum that is relevant — and interesting — to a diverse student body, we’d like to hear from you. That’s because we’re currently conducting a nationwide search for a Language & Literacy Instructional Specialist with experience in CES Common Principles, Big Picture Learning, Expeditionary Learning or similar schools of thought within the progressive approach to education.

Formal qualifications include a bachelor’s degree in English, Language Arts, Literacy, or a related field, with a master’s degree preferred. Candidates should also have teaching experience in a variety of course designs and program models; be culturally competent; possess strong organizational and leadership skills; and have extensive experience designing multi-cultural curriculum and working with diverse adolescents.

In short, we’re seeking well-rounded candidates who have experience or knowledge of interdisciplinary curriculum design, experiential education, project-based learning, literacy across the curriculum, and the Understanding by Design framework for curriculum design, assessment, and teaching.

Specifically, we are looking for an enthusiastic educator to join our instructional team to create and deliver innovative curriculum, lead an instructional focus on literacy, and create empowering and creative opportunities for students who have expressly chosen — some for the first time — to be engaged in their own education, to explore and learn more about themselves as learners, both in the classroom and out in the real world.

We want our new Language & Literacy Instructional Specialist to be able to develop, implement, and oversee the Eagle Rock School English curriculum, and expand the school’s current program, tailoring it to engage our students in literacy opportunities outside of class time.

And, speaking of our student body, candidates for this position must be willing to Continue reading…

COVID-19 Information and Resources for Educators

Here at Eagle Rock School and Professional Development Center, the health and wellbeing of our students and staff is one of our primary focuses. With that in mind, like many other educational organizations across the nation, we’ve been closely monitoring the most recent information and guidance related to the spread of COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease-2019).

In response to rapidly evolving COVID-19 circumstances — and in consultation with state and national agencies — we have placed restrictions on our own students’ and staff members’ travel plans, as well as visitor restrictions to our Estes Park, Colo. campus.

We’ve also increased our diligence around our own campus in the areas of cleaning and sanitizing, and we’ve mounted a campaign to encourage healthier habits.

With all of this in mind, our own students returned to their homes earlier this week, each armed with a plan in place for supporting remote learning beginning Monday, March 23. In this way, our students can stay on track with their academic progress while at home. We anticipate starting our summer trimester as previously planned — on May 11.

If you and your educational organization are searching for guidance like we were, we recommend the following 10 resources, all of which are available now online: Continue reading…

Tracking Explore Week Through Discovery, Creating, and Playing

Three times each year, our student population looks forward to unique and challenging course offerings within the context of Explore Week — a period of time providing a respite of sorts from classroom participation, enabling our students to learn and experience from a variety of less traditional offerings.

This time around, students picked one track from a selection of three for their Explore Week activities, which took place the week of Feb. 24. The idea was to provide students with some excitement, experience, spark, and fun by doing things they aren’t able to do on campus.

Students selected one track and stuck with that track for the duration of the week. Their choices included a discover track, a create track, and a play track. And while you may think the majority of students choose the play track, it turns out, students who are committed to engaging themselves in their education can be trusted to find value in whatever they choose to engage in.

In this post, we describe the activities in which students participated, starting with the discover track: Continue reading…