Pledge for Educational Excellence
As a school with a gifted and talented student population and a vast diversity of learning styles, the young women and men of SITHS shall be actively engaged on a daily basis in all their instructional classes. Using a wide variety of grade appropriate educational experiences, lessons will be designed and implemented by teachers to challenge the critical thinking abilities and deepest levels of understanding of all our students.
This instructional model for optimum student engagement will hence be known as the SITHS Engagement Model. Academic time allotted to each of its three components (Direct Instruction by Teacher, Independent Student Work / Conferencing / Clustering, and Sharing Out) will be determined by the subject class teacher. To further uphold the internal integrity of this site specific instructional design is the SITHS Scholastic Honesty Code.
To achieve the goal of educational excellence, an understanding among teachers, students, parents, and administrators must be strived for as to how basic instruction will take place in each subject area classroom.
The development of subject pacing calendars and the integration of high-level, content subject-related materials and enrichment, to be addressed daily will be the responsibility of the subject class teacher with the supervision of department AP's.
The teacher's developmental lessons will be designed for greater understanding and supported by critical thinking activities that promote heightened student engagement. Each of the lesson's three basic components will be tied together by a series of essential teacher questions and a variety of effective best teaching practices.
Effective best teaching practices to be selected and employed by the teacher are intended to heighten the level of student understanding of content materials while at the same time make students more responsible for their own learning. They include, but are not limited to, the following practices:
| Lecturing with analysis and modeling |
Writing and/or reading |
| Whole or small group discussions |
Debates |
| Teacher/student dialogue |
Real-world connections |
| Problem and homework review |
Graphic Organizers |
| Questioning techniques |
Sharing out |
| Arrow of Recitation |
Final summaries |
| Explicit and legible diagrams |
Relevant notes and facts |
| Technology / Use of the Internet |
Worksheets |
| Hands-on experiences |
Games |
| Independent & group work |
Visual aids |
| Cluster arrangements |
Role playing |
| Challenging lab experiences |
Language Labs |
A combination of instructional best practices may be implemented in one or more of the lessons with three basic components based on teacher discretion. A teacher may wish to begin his/her directed instruction with homework review involving whole or small group discussions followed by lecturing with analysis and modeling of a specific example. During the conferencing component of the lesson, a teacher-student dialogue may give way to small group discussions facilitated by essential questions raised by the instructor. Opportunity for students to share out as a result of their learning may take place throughout the lesson in an organized and systematic way. At no time does a teacher stop teaching during an SITHS Engagement Model lesson.
As a specialized high school, SITHS is exempt from the use of the citywide Workshop Model curriculum. Nevertheless, the school is responsible for implementing the three basic components of the citywide instructional model without sacrificing high-level, content subject-related materials.
Though somewhat simply stated, our schoolwide instructional plan allows for the teaching of high-level, content subject related materials with optimum student engagement on a daily basis.
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School Policies
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