Odyssey K-8 Program
  • Home

Odyssey's Ten Essentials

1. Team Teaching
  • When teachers collaborate, students receive many benefits.
  • Two or more teachers working together create the opportunity to pool 
    personal and instructional resources.
  • Increases creativity and ability to meet the needs of individual students.
  • Allows students to be in flexible groups and teams for art, math, literature 
    and many components of their day.
  • Teachers flow between groups, too, allowing them to teach to their 
    strengths.

2. Multi-age Classrooms
  • Blended grade levels allow students to progress at their unique 
    developmental rate.
  • Student developmental rates are often very different than their 
    chronological rate.
  • For math, reading and literature, students are placed in groups according to 
    their assessed needs.
  • For all other subjects, students work in mixed-age teams, which include both 
    older and younger students at a variety of academic levels.

3. Cooperative Learning
  • Research shows that cooperation is more effective than competition in 
    improving academic achievement.
  • Provides the opportunity for older students to learn and practice leadership 
    helping younger children who look up to them.
  • Students benefit from:
    • Constructing knowledge together as a team.
    • Contributing at their unique level.
    • Leading in their areas of strength.
    • Receiving assistance in areas where they are less confident.
  • Non-threatening environment supports problem solving, and effective 
    communication and collaboration.

4. Community Support
  • Odyssey welcomes and encourages parent and community involvement in many 
    ways both during and outside of the school day.
  • Teachers, students, and families join together to foster learning, creating 
    a community school.
  • Parents participate in the way each chooses—everyone is needed and valued.
  • This approach creates a strong and engaged learning community.
  • Parents connect to what their children are experiencing.
  • Dedicated community support helps teachers achieve their educational goals.
  • All students feel supported by a group of adults who care about 
    them.

5. Differentiated Instruction
  • To meet all the needs of a diverse student population, The Odyssey Program 
    differentiates instruction.
  • Individual students learn in a wide variety of ways and have different 
    interests.
  • Instructions reaches out to students unique learning styles, interests, 
    readiness, and needs in order to create the best learning environment possible.
  • All learning is designed to use scaffolding activities, engaging students’
    areas of strength (i.e., visual, auditory, kinesthetic) and moving them to 
    mastery of areas of need.

6. Open-Ended Curriculum
  • Our learning format has no bottom or top.
  • Curriculum fosters the development of creative and critical thinking skills 
    in all subject areas.
  • Students at all academic levels experience much growth during the school 
    year.
  • Gifted students are challenged, while those needing to master the basics are 
    supported toward success.
  • Curriculum helps students view learning as an ongoing, life-long process.
  • All students are encouraged to deepen their learning through 
    extensions.

7. Theme-Based Learning
  • The Odyssey Program is based on integrated curriculum and enrichment
  • Centered around historical themes based on Oregon learning benchmarks.
  • Prominent American educator Dr. Mary Beth Klee argues that, "For too many 
    years we have undershot with America’s elementary school children.
  • "They come to us with their fresh minds, their keen curiosity, their 
    enthusiasm for learning, and for far too long we have served up pabulum.
  • "They come to us longing to connect with the broader world, the world they 
    do not know, but hunger to know."
  • In our program, we strive to satisfy this "hunger."

8. Enrichment
  • Hands-on learning activities meet the needs of a wide range of students and 
    appeal to their specific interests.
  • Art, writing, science, language arts, and social studies are integrated into 
    the curriculum for each unit.
  • Singing, dancing, and drama are emphasized in a culmination performance for 
    each unit.
  • Extended field studies culminate learning each year in grades 3-8.

9. Integrated Curriculum
  • Education is more effective when students know why they are learning 
    something, and are offered a context for new information.
  • Studying rivers, mountains, and rock formations becomes much more meaningful 
    when a child also learns how this topography affected Lewis and Clark’s 
    expedition, or the lifestyles of the Northwest Indian tribes.
  • Integrated study at The Odyssey Program mean that subjects will naturally 
    flow together.
  • Students won’t have to stop thinking about science and start thinking about 
    spelling just because a bell has rung.
  • Students might not realize what "subject" they learned on a particular day, 
    but will be able to describe a wealth of knowledge gained and tell a
    fascinating story of why it is important.

10. Interactive Learning
  • In this educational model, no child is a passive learner.
  • During each unit of study, students take on the identities and lifestyles of persons from the theme period.
  • Students wear the clothes, learn the music, collect the artifacts, and engage in interactive simulation activities where learning comes alive.
  • This approach appeals to the imagination of every child.
  • Learning is never isolated and abstract, but always meaningful and exciting.
multi_aged_classrooms.doc
File Size: 27 kb
File Type: doc
Download File

team_teaching.doc
File Size: 52 kb
File Type: doc
Download File

ten_essentials.pdf
File Size: 2077 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.