Curriculum Map

What is Expeditionary Learning at the Methow Valley Community School?

Expeditionary Learning is a teaching model that emphasizes high academic and character achievement through experiential learning, character growth, and teamwork. Professional development provides teachers with powerful instructional practices to teach subjects through a challenging set of connected, real-world projects called learning expeditions. This professional development supports teachers’ instructional practices and helps provide guidance to deepen student and teacher learning for personal and professional rejuvenation.

In the Classroom

Teaching practices and learning expeditions are at the core of Expeditionary Learning (this is the product). Students spend much of their time engaged in learning expeditions, which are in-depth studies of a single topic or theme such as water, the civil war, etc…Teachers collaborate to design learning expeditions that align with the developmental and academic needs of their particular classroom and tie to current state and school learning standards. Expeditions embody 10 design principals that the teacher continually incorporates into the classroom and expedition. These principals include:

1) Self Discovery
3) Responsibility for learning
5) Success and Failure
7) Diversity and Inclusively
9) Solitude and Reflection

Professional development helps provide teachers with the tools to incorporate these design principals on a daily basis.

MVCS Crews are multi-age, multi-developmental clusters of students who remain with their Crew Leader for two years. Expeditions and curriculum are designed around compelling issues that result in authentic final projects to benefit the community. Core content areas are met for each Crew, over the course of a two-year rotation.

1st

Sciences:
Environmental Studies
Nutrition & Hygiene

Social Studies:
Family and Community
Geography