Students in Mr. Workenaour’s AP Physics class have just begun working on an assignment that is putting their physics knowledge and engineering skills to the test … and in the spotlight. Students have teamed up with Mr. Robinson, tech theater director, to design and build a Rube Goldberg machine that will launch volcanic boulders onto the stage during this year's winter performance, Spongebob the Musical.
Skills-Based Curriculum
Because tomorrow's jobs don't yet exist.
The Hun School is at the forefront of an educational movement. Educational leaders understand that rote memorization and content acquisition will no longer serve our students and the world they stand to inherit. Content is ubiquitous and roughly 70% of our students are destined for jobs that don’t yet exist. Yet, few schools have managed to pivot and evolve as deftly as Hun has.
At The Hun School, our courses are taught differently. We have changed what and how we teach. Our teachers focus more intently on skill development and student engagement, than they do conferring information. They do this by mapping skill development throughout the curriculum and across grade levels, prioritizing experiential, interdisciplinary learning, and wherever possible giving student agency over their own learning. Therefore, whether a high school student is taking Arabic, Bioethics, Engineering Design, or Multivariable Calculus, they will examine the principles of that course while developing these seven skills: creativity, cultural competency, collaborative problem solving, critical thinking, ethical decision making, effective communication, and leadership skills.
A Creative and Collaborative Process
In Computer Science and Engineering Department Chair Amy Wright's Programming 1 class, students play a game of musical chairs. Given a task to solve, they write a few lines of code, and then get up and move two chairs to the left. Then they write two more lines of code on that person's screen, then move two more chairs to the left and repeat the process. "The kids learn a lot by seeing how different the code they write is, and how differently each of them approaches a problem," Mrs. Wright said. "Sometimes they say, 'That's a really cool solution! I would have never thought of that.' Computer science is a creative and collaborative process.
Learn More about 21st-Century Skills:
- Creativity
- Critical Thinking
- Collaborative Problem Solving
- Cultural Competency
- Ethical Decision Making
- Effective Written and Oral Communication
- Leadership