How do the next generation of leaders gain the skills to lead?

Our dynamic 21st Century learning environment incorporates classroom learning with experiential learning. This process is combination of Brain-Based Learning and Transformational Learning environments as tools to enhance our SWLSB academic and social and emotional learning environments that have positive effect on the school and school community. We are preparing students for success in life, relationships, and in their post-secondary world.

Every student has a place in our initiatives from home school, WOTP, regular stream, athletic and artistic streams, and enriched.

BRAIN-BASED LEARNING - At its core, brain-based learning revolves around the idea that education should be tailored to align with the brain’s natural processes of acquiring, processing, and retaining information. It recognizes that every brain is unique, and learning experiences should cater to individual differences in cognition, attention, and memory. Unlike traditional one-size-fits-all approaches, it emphasizes personalized instruction, multisensory engagement, and real-world application of knowledge. 

TRANSFORMATIONAL LEARNING - Transformational learning is an adult learning theory that gives a framework to “... Explains the learning process of constructing and appropriating new and revised interpretations of the meaning of an experience in the world” (Taylor, 2008, p. 5).

EXPERIENTAL LEARNING - EL is a successful teaching method facilitating active learning through providing real-world experiences in which learners interact and critically evaluate course material and become involved with a topic being taught (Boggu and Sundarsingh, 2019). Based on the teaching theory of Socrates, this model relies on research-based strategies which allow learners to apply their classroom knowledge to real-life situations to foster active learning, which consequently brings about a better retrieval (Bradberry and De Maio, 2019). 

What We Do

We give students the ability to excel in school and the tools to navigate adulthood independently by developing the core skills to succeed in life. Skills like grit, determination, realistic goal setting, calculated risk taking, and time management.

Student leaders set out on a new trajectory that transforms the way that they think, act and engage by fostering deep personal growth and taking responsibility for the world around them using 21st Century knowledge and applied skill-sets.

Leadership programs are varied and unique at each SWLSB school. Ascend Leadership provides a link to enhance the progression of learning for each program by supporting the teacher and staff member.

ASL is an opportunity for young people to grow as leaders progressively from elementary to junior high, to senior school, and return as alumni mentors. 

ASL supports training to lead teams that plan, prepare, and execute initiatives that are evaluated.

ASL supports an environment that fosters critical thinking skills, active communication, nurture creativity, and meaningful collaboration. 

Students set objectives and evaluate outcomes as they construct life-long habits that nurture success academically, socially, and personally. Each leader is actively involved in measuring their success as they grow.

ASL provides support to establish a foundation connecting classroom knowledge with real world experiences that make learning, make sense. 

Meaningful student leadership is transformative for young people as we move students from the role of spectator, to a participant, and into a stakeholder.  

The Opportunity & Challenge

Student leadership is challenging as we require that young people take calculated risks, work on authentic relationships, explore beyond their comfort zones, and develop a core value system that is true to themselves and honest with each other.

There are three fundamentals to the educational process that ASL focuses on: 

Impart Knowledge: Apply the knowledge and tools learned in the classroom to real world experiences.

Inspire Passion: Do the things that interest you, that you care about and apply your efforts to serve a need. This is the path to purpose as your capacity for influence and abilities grow.

Effective transfer of responsibility from adult to emerging adult: Students become stakeholders who share varying degrees of responsibility for outcomes on teams as a key component for the transformation of learning. 

Why does student leadership matter to the next generation of students and leaders? 

The evidence is clear that student efficacy, levers for success, and expression of competencies must meet the increasing demands of the postsecondary world and complex work environments. Measures of success are rapidly moving beyond literature and math to a more broad understanding of the dimensions of learning and agency of the student as they are able to express with fluidity the 4Cs of the 21st Century educational model in practical, daily life.*

We also know that students feel the most healthy emotionally and engaged when their school environment is relevant to their life goals.* 

Student leadership provides the tools and foundation for an evaluated and progressive learning process that is transformational as it enhances the student and teacher exchange throughout their elementary and secondary educational experience.

*reference material

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