‘Learning above and beyond’ means digging deeper for Creston

A new year at Creston Elementary School means trying new things.

Creston Elementary School principal Julie Plant said this year they are introducing ‘learning above and beyond’ lab classes which gives students more time and attention during one day of the school week to engage in a writer’s workshop, science and STEM education and yoga. While students interact with their subjects on a deeper level, faculty and administration can more accurately gauge the the needs of the students.

“It’s twofold, it’s to bring content to kids that we don’t always have built into our schedule,” Plant said. “So like the writer’s workshop, and being able to look into, ‘What does that grade level need? Do we need more opportunities to practice creative writing? Do we need more opportunities to work on the structure and organization? Is it my younger students who need more opportunities just to get pencils in their hands because a lot of stuff is technology driven.”

Plant added yoga allows children to manage their emotions and behaviors.

“The yoga fits with our programs for teaching children how to self-regulate, so we have someone who will teach yoga and they will get to go to that once a month,” Plant said

Creston Middle School teacher Ryan Kissell, is coming over to the science and STEM program, Plant said. Otherwise there are no new hires for this lab. Science and STEM are paired to give students a comprehensive understanding of how the two subjects coalesce at an early age.

“The STEM, so science, technology, engineering and math, opportunities for that, to explore how science and math kind of all coincide. So it will be envisioning projects, construction, more hands-on things for kids to do,” Plant said.

Gauging the students’ interest in their subjects allow staff to allow each of them to develop a full understanding.

“...And then our last one is, we’re calling it project-based learning, so it could be the staff member who’s over that will work with the grade level to see is there high interest in a particular topic or could we extend the math some way?” Plant said “Could we extend the ELA content in a way that’s hands-on? So my hope is to be offering learning that is engaging and that kids don’t often get a chance to do at the elementary level because we’re just so heavy in our reading and math.”

Students and faculty each get to focus on their priorities which gives administration ample time to see where they are in meeting academic standards.

“It is also creating time during the day for my teachers to have once a week, a time of day for them to get together and collaborate and really focus on the ELA and the math standards that we have and our science standards,” Plant said. “So what it did in our schedule is children will go to our specials (library, art, music, PE) but up against that, they will have another 30 minute class, so they will have 40-minute library, art, music, PE, and then library—let’s say—is paired with yoga, so the children are actually getting 70 minutes, one day a week, of extended content.”

‘Learning above and beyond’ doesn’t extend the normal school day, but instead restructures to accommodate the needs of teachers as well as students.

“We just get creative and if they had, for example, first grade, the teacher’s collaboration day is on Tuesday, and so on Tuesday they run a different schedule where the children will have that 70 minutes just on Tuesdays,” Plant said. “That gets that team together, we don’t schedule anything else during that time so teachers can get together and work together.”

Plant said the pandemic forced them to improvise and quickly find what did and didn’t work.

“Last year we learned a lot through thinking outside of the box with COVID and how we were going to deliver instruction to kids and still really stay true to what research says about teachers who collaborate better and create stronger teams have better outcomes for kids when it comes to learning,” she said. “So knowing through trial-and-error with COVID, one of the things we tried to do was a double special, so they had library and then they had PE, let’s say, back-to-back and knowing that’s just four staff members, and that was a lot to have that quick turnaround.”

Plant said it was successful because it allowed faculty and staff to meet however, in her words, “I wasn’t using everybody that I could have used for kids.”

‘Learning above and beyond’ was a product of this experiment that found the 70 minutes of time from double specials valuable.

“So that’s kind of where the idea came from is, looking at, ‘Okay, we have these four classes that kids rotate through, how else could we use who we have, whether it’s interventionists, whether it’s my success staff, the counseling and the social workers, how can we better use them to really interact with kids and be with kids with the content and give our teachers time around the table during the school day,” she said.

However, Plant stressed that since they are building on improvisation, its still a continuing experiment.

“We’re going to try it, I’m sure we’ll learn some things as we go, but that’s one great thing about the elementary school is, they’re flexible and we try new things and try to make it better,” she said.

Creston school year starts Monday.