Craft Category: Strategies

Students only work on three credits at a time, allowing them more time throughout the day to focus on each credit.

In order to truly individualize learning for each of its students, Bronx Arena felt it needed to create its own competencies that align with its instructional approach.

Students can pursue proficiency at three different levels, based on their prior knowledge and academic strengths and weaknesses.

Various daily, weekly, and monthly check-ins to ensure that students are progressing through their credits, hitting their benchmarks, and on track to graduate and reach their long-term goals.

Facilitation plans allow teachers to be proactive, rather than reactive, by identifying possible struggles ahead of time and implementing appropriate interventions to individualize the curriculum to each student’s needs.

Students are grouped based on needs and then pulled out – or teachers pushed in – for focused support and mini-lessons led by a content specialist.

By having input into what they learn each day, how they spend their time, and the content they work on, students are not only able to own their experience but are also empowered to drive their learning.

Students must complete a senior portfolio before graduation, which are designed to demonstrate students’ ability to learn on their own.

Collaborative long-term planning to identify credits students have accomplished and need to accomplish to achieve future goals.

Students gradually gain more autonomy throughout their time at Bronx Arena, with the end goal being that they can completely self-manage their learning by the time they graduate.