Personalized Learning & Extended Learning Opportunities

“The opportunity presented by the Rowland Fellowship provides the means and opportunity to closely examine not only my own school’s placement on the continuum of amelioration, but that of other more and less experienced schools to ascertain the correct path for us. Further, it strengthens our students understanding of their success, creates opportunities for them to contribute and grow in new and transformational ways.”

The personalization of learning at Vergennes Union High School begins with Morning Meeting, our advisory system. The system grows a community of learners partnered with an academic mentor – their advisor. This partnership, forged with parents and guidance counselors, assists them in identifying what success means for them, how they will go about achieving it and what kind of success they engage in long-term. The assessment of this system and our partnered callback system remain key pieces that aim to create an equitable opportunity for each student in our school.

Extended Learning Opportunities meet the needs of our increasingly diverse student body by offering learning experiences not only outside the building, but outside two traditional constraints of the school – setting and time. These endeavors will offer students insights into the community, opportunity to engage in a desired subject of study and a partnering endeavor rich with meaning. These guided experiences will facilitate collaboration with the school, a community resource team and the community itself creating a sustainable learning community.

The programming at Vergennes Union High School continues to look critically at how best our students can succeed. We identified a need for a more comprehensive advisory system that permits a continuum of opportunities to link with an adult in the building that will guide them throughout their four years of high school. The goals of the program support the students understanding of assorted curricular and extra-curricular opportunities, provide educational support, align our PBiS-VT programming and provide an adult in the building and sustainable peer group with whom the students move through the school. Likewise, we aim to differentiate and support our students in non-traditional ways in a formal setting: Callback. This block of time in the middle of our day permits students and teachers to meet either individually or in small groups for re-teaching and re-learning of concepts not mastered in the regular classroom. We recognize that in our block system that opportunities need to exist for students so as to allow them myriad and different pathways to success. Also, we are changing the paradigm of our summer programming in hopes of extending the school year for some students. We know that learning for some students in the summer is a challenge, so we will offer them extended learning opportunities. These will allow students to connect internships, work experience and non-current course offerings as part of their portfolio of academic success that moves toward a performance based graduation plan.