Saline 2000

For those of you that have been around a while, you will remember “Saline 2000.” For those who are newer, or can’t seem to recall that far back…. I’ll explain.

In the early 1990’s Saline was experiencing significant growth which provided the impetuous to look at the basic tenets of our instructional process.  This review led to the development of the “Saline 2000” vision.  Frankly, this vision is the foundation that our instructional process has been built upon.  The vision centered on 12 Key Elements of Instruction…

Basic Skills
Authentic Assessment
Outcomes Based Education
Integrated Interdisciplinary Curriculum
Multiple Intelligence
Heterogeneous Grouping
Higher Order Thinking
Student Centered Instruction
Reality Based Education
Cooperative Learning
Service Learning
Collaborative Teaching

I have linked some of the elements above to blog posts about those areas.  In many ways, we are still focused on these instructional practices.  Reading this blog or our website in general you will notice that 21st Century Skills look quite like what the leaders in Saline were talking about 20 years ago.

The question is how do we build on this strong foundation while faced with the need for deep reductions and restructuring?  This challenge must be met with the collective resolve to look beyond the immediate conflicts and at long term decisions.