How IDEAcademy currently looks at Eisenhower Middle School (beta version!)

• 6th grade, mixed abilities classes (two different teams)
• Facilitated by campus librarian, with co-teaching and support by classroom teacher and campus ITS (Instructional Technology Specialist)
• Two days a week, in a 9-week rotation during AIM elective ("Academic Individual Motivation"--see Background to IDEA)
  • Rotation Map Template
• Sessions held in the library, the computer lab, and the classroom
• A rotation's curriculum map is based on the school calendar and the team's needs
• So far, the curriculum map is in constant flux:
  • some lessons/activities need more time
  • some we just don't get to before the end of the rotation

Basic Attributes

• Time Maximizer/Simulated Double Block:
  • It does not "take away" precious classtime from teachers
  • Occurs during a required open-ended/designed elective (AIM)
• Buying Library Face Time:
  • Variation on a traditional fixed elementary library schedule 
    • Simulated "library time" taken to the next [middle school] level
• Chance to Go Deep:
  • Provides librarian/media specialist a chance to get deeper into a skill that is problematic for students
• Dress Rehearsal:
  • Chance to practice an approach, and then refine later with a content-based project
• Cookbook: 
  • Chance to try out "activity recipes," get formative feedback (via learners and colleagues) on improving ingredients, process, "mouthfeel" and dish's final "flavors"

Future Hopes & Dreams for IDEAcademy

• Develop into a semester or year-long component of AIM elective
• Develop a PBL-strand, incorporating problem-based learning with service learning connected to the school/local community
• Have collaborators contribute lessons, ideas, and activities to augment basic framework
• Your vision HERE: 

IDEAcademy Could Work in a Variety of Ways...

• Incorporate into your own school's study skills or other "open" elective
• Pull out lessons to use as needed to strengthen a skill/strategy during a project
• Choose different skills as focal points with different library-based projects that make the most sense, as they arise or are revisited
• Incorporate into an "independent study" or independent projects course
• Use in any content-area project that addresses a particular skill moreso than another
• Teach the whole enchilada over time/throughout the year with one teacher's class
• Create your own elective!
• "Parallel Lives"
  • While teaching a skill in IDEAcademy, the skill could be directly applied simultaneously to a concurrent content-based project or lesson occuring in the classroom (like a "Library time" in middle school, based on the traditional elementary library's fixed schedule): 
    • Example: Students learn how to find keywords via IDEAcademy, then apply the skill in social studies for a project later that week
    • Example: Students use IDEAcademy time to work on a skill connected to a content-based project: They brainstorm and find keywords for the Social Studies project, and then when in class, begin researching 
    • Example: Students learn how to take notes in IDEAcademy using an article about Salem witch trials; then in English, students continue discussing Witch of Blackbird Pond in preparation for a short research project that requires note taking.