Build Week 6: From Chaos to Constitution

Build Weeks at Long-View are a chance to span and expand our academic blocks; they typically focus on one, rich challenge, involve experts from the larger community, and call for higher levels of reasoning and discourse. Our second Build Week of the year concluded last week and was again a huge success. Ultimately, the children followed in the path of countries around the world by writing a constitution, and they did their work by using a new and pretty amazing platform called Constitute, which provides resources and analysis for constitutional drafters in new democracies....

The Setting: Keecklah Island
Population: 3,856

Poetry Slam Creates Opportunity For Growth

Slam! Jaws dropped to the floor as Long-View poets took the mic, spouting repetitions, alliteration, and onomatopoeia. Delivering wisdom on topics ranging from anger to siblings to politics, Grey Band poets stunned the audience and judges of Long-View’s first poetry slam with their deep reflections, carefully-selected words, and well-honed performances. The slam took place this week at Caffe Medici’s performance space, and the inaugural event was a great success....

literacyLisa ZapalacFebruary 7, 2018Long-View Micro Schoolwriting, poetry, poetry slam, communication, performance

What Our Girls Deserve

Recently, we were reflecting on the progress of one of our students, a girl who is 8-years-old. We began thinking about several other girls at Long-View, and how much each one had transformed during her time at the school. This led us to think back on how each presented as she arrived. For a handful, this was a few months back, and for others was a year or more ago. Each girl had changed in her own way and transformed into an active, vocal, and passionate learner within our classrooms. Each has strong intellectual engagement, tenacity, and an inner strength that raises us all up.

The thing is, if these girls weren’t at Long-View, you’d probably see them meeting requirements and getting by, but the most you’d have to say about each is “she’s fine.” However, “She’s fine” is the problem for so many girls in elementary and middle schools....

GeneralLisa ZapalacJanuary 14, 2018Long-View Micro Schoolgirls

Science by Design

Science at Long-View is a dynamic endeavor. Red and Turquoise bands began the year with a study of sound and light waves, and our young scientists could be found with tuning forks, ropes, and flashlights in hand as they created different kinds of waves and observed their motion. In group discussions, learners shared their observations, and debated and iterated their conclusions. Once they understood the fundamentals of waves, the learners designed and executed their own experiments in response to the question, "What happens to sound waves as they move away from their source?" As they designed, carried out, and presented their investigations, these young scientists worked to build skills like procedural design, data analysis, clear writing, mental and physical modeling, and graphing, which will continue to shape their work as they progress through Long-View's science program and beyond....

Build Week 5: Data Science Clandestine Op

Build Weeks are a part of the rhythm of the yearly calendar at Long-View, opening our schedule up to allow us to dive into special activities and challenges. Build Weeks help us grow intellectually, help us make connections between disciplines, give us a chance to break the “routine” of school life, and give us an opportunity to try new things.

Build Week #5 involved an undercover op led by senior CIA agents but executed by Long-View junior CIA agents. We first found out that our math teacher, Mr. Moore, who is (suspiciously) a very private person, actually had a prior career within the CIA. Because of his prior relationship and due to a particularly pressing problem his ex-colleagues were tackling, a CIA unit based in Austin reached out to Agent Ames (aka Mr. Moore) to engage the Long-View students in an effort to leverage their stellar computer science skills....

Build WeekLisa ZapalacOctober 29, 2017Long-View Micro School CIA, coding, python, pandas, data science, pythagorean theorem

Reflections from Park Time by Elizabeth Bayer Morgan

“Turtle,” yelled Esme as she stood with her toes nearly touching the water of Shoal Creek. Avi was standing next to her and held a long stick he was using to point to a rock near him. He yelled, “Right here -- a turtle! Come see!” Greta scampered down the limestone rocks she was sitting on, and William quickly put his sandwich to rest on his bento box as he hopped into the creek bed. The four children stood eagerly watching from a respectful distance as the turtle plopped into the water from his sunning rock. As I watched this scene unfold and the sun shone on us, I realized what a gift these children, and I, have....

Lisa ZapalacOctober 14, 2017park, nature, Last Child in the Woods, Creating Innovators, playtime

Starting the Year Off Strong in Literacy Block

Reading and writing units at Long-View are often intertwined, supporting learners as they develop deep understanding of a particular genre across both domains. For the first two months of the year, learners in Red and Turquoise Bands have working on stretching their understanding of the genre of realistic fiction.

Called “Interpreting Characters,” the reading unit was focused heavily on understanding the central part of a story, the characters. Learners developed ways of thinking about characters and story in order to theorize about their readings…

Working on a Dissertation Structures Grey Band's Literacy Block

Our Grey Band is prototyping the next level of the Long-View program this year as we stretch into the middle school grades and iterate from a school for 2nd-5th graders to our ultimate vision of a school for 2nd-8th graders. The vision for the middle grades band, which this year is called Grey Band but also is referred to as “The Loft” because of their location upstairs in the adjacent building, is one of a great deal of independence. We want to see the kids standing on the shoulders of the work they’ve done with us in years prior, able to generate their own ideas, drive their own learning, and produce thoughtful and novel work…

literacyLisa ZapalacSeptember 13, 2017Long-View Micro Schooldissertation, grey band, loft

A Workshop on Game Theory Introduces Us to Mathematical Modeling

With just a few days of the school year under our belts, we had a guest stop by Long-View and take us through a workshop on a very high level topic: Game Theory.

Dr. James Spindler is a professor at UT in both the business school and law school and holds both a JD and a PhD in Economics. He came to teach us about economics and more specifically, game theory, which is the study of mathematical models of conflict and cooperation and is used in economics, as well as other disciplines....

GeneralLisa ZapalacAugust 30, 2017Long-View Micro Schoolgame theory, mathematics, Dr. Spindler, UT

Metacognitive Coaching in Math Classrooms

Having been fortunate to observe a variety of math classrooms, especially within the independent school sector, we’ve come to learn a number of things, which we will write about across several blog posts. Today we are focused on the lack of metacognitive instruction and coaching within many math classrooms.

Metacognition research has assisted educators in changing the way we view learning. We know high achieving students usually apply metacognitive processes in their learning and problem solving. And students who apply metacognitive processes tend to be higher achievers. Recent studies have shown that even young children can apply metacognitive processes when the tasks fit their interests and capabilities. And any age-related development may likely be due to lack of appropriate exposure in school....

mathLisa ZapalacJuly 30, 2017Long-View Micro Schoolmathematics, metacognition, growth mindset

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