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Skyview School: A Lab School for Learning
Prescott College’s partnership with the Skyview Charter School offers our students a tremendous amount of hands-on experience in the educational field. Working with Skyview, Prescott College students:
- Work directly with students and master teachers from the start of their program.
- Assist classroom teachers while immersed in a real, active school setting
- Design and implement learning centers and authentic lessons
- Observe the flow of the classroom dynamics and classroom management
- Tutor individual children
About Skyview
Imagine walking into a spacious, colorful classroom where excited elementary and middle school students are engaged at interactive learning centers. In a large and open space, students are involved in a movement exercise that depicts the behavior of a variety of rain forest animals. In a corner, students are making jewelry to demonstrate their understanding of cultural traditions of a rain forest tribe. In another corner, students are building a rain forest dwelling. Another group listens to a guest speaker describe the lifestyles of indigenous cultures. The role of the teachers and other adults in the classroom is to guide, inspire, challenge, structure, and assist students in taking responsibility for their learning. Imagine working in that school as a part of college coursework.
Prescott College students do all this through our innovative educational partnership with Skyview Charter School. Skyview School is a publicly funded K-8 charter school, which originated under Arizona Charter School legislation. As a public school, it is accountable to meet the State of Arizona’s Academic Standards, yet its mission is to accomplish this using very non-traditional methods.
Prescott College students who have an interest in Teacher Certification, Environmental Education, Experiential Education or Adventure Education gain invaluable experience working directly with the Skyview School faculty. This partnership enhances the Education program at Prescott College and provides hands-on training for future teachers.
Skyview School is a complex and innovative school and functions most effectively with many volunteers in the classrooms. Many of Skyview School’s most creative activities have been the result of collaboration between Prescott College students and Skyview School faculty. As one Skyview School teacher said, "We would not be able to implement the variety of exciting curricula without the help of the college students!"
Skyview School is based upon Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences. Multiple Intelligences Theory proposes that students learn about the world in at least eight different modalities. In each classroom, students discover their "intelligences" through lesson plans that address Body-Kinesthetic, Musical, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, Visual-Spatial, Naturalist, as well as Verbal-Linguistic and Logical-Mathematical intelligences. In practice, students are learning within all these intelligences and the curriculum is designed to allow students to experience the material in a variety of ways. Finally, Skyview School believes in a system of developmental grouping, which merges students into multi-age classrooms. This approach allows students to learn at appropriate developmental levels, rather than at arbitrary grade levels. Skyview School also implements Integrated Thematic and Project-Based Instruction, curriculum strategies that use topics or concepts to teach traditional subjects.
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