Craft Category: Artifacts

Village High School in Colorado allows students to select their mentor teacher through a voting process. Each student fills out a Google Form and ranks their first, second, and third choices, and then school leaders match each student with their preferred mentor teacher as best as they can.

This podcast episode, named “When Student-Teacher Relationships are Prioritized, Learners Thrive,” dives into the story of a student at Map Academy, and how his relationship with a mentor teacher helped him re-engage with school and avoid dropping out.

Listen to more interesting podcast episodes from Map Academy at Education Disruption.

At Map Academy, the Anchor program provides each student a 1:1 relationship with an adult adviser, an opportunity to build community with peers, and a designated block of time each day to set academic goals and monitor student progress.

Students at Taos Academy generate a list of check-in questions and activities, such as “What book character are you feeling like and why?” or “Share a dance move that shows how you are feeling,” to gauge students’ current states. Students then sign up to run the daily check-ins each week.