May 1996 — Features

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The School Design Model at Brewster Academy: Technology Serving Teaching & Learning

DR. ALAN BAIN, Assistant Headmaster, Brewster Academy, Wolfeboro, N.H

  • Development of seven new teaching areas configured to allow teams of seven teachers to work with groups of 50 students.
  • Administrators spend about 50% of their time in the classroom managing the program, giving expert advice and evaluating.
  • The curriculum for all students is differentiated by level and teaching materials within each class.
  • The curriculum integrates best practices in teaching with the content of subject areas taught, resulting in an approach that helps teachers to decide when and how to use different teaching approaches, how to schedule different groups, how to differentiate learner outcomes for students by level of achievement, and how to manage a multi–;level classroom for secondary students.
  • The school conducts its own seven–;week professional development program for teachers that addresses the skills in curricula, teaching, technology and the classroom management necessary to implement the program. This program is followed up with a residency year.
  • All faculty position descriptions are referenced directly and definitively to quality teaching, classroom and student performance. The personnel model is built on recognizing and rewarding mastery of best practices.
  • Teachers work as teams and are involved in an ongoing cycle of feedback, support and evaluation.
  • Technology is infused into the core of all of the activity of the school. All students and faculty carry laptop computers. When teachers meet, they sit at tables that are networked and communicate via the LAN. Students can access a campus–;wide network, the library, their teachers and the Internet right from their desks in classrooms, their dorm rooms and the library. Teachers keep student folders that include learning style profiles, phone logs, reports and student action plans.