Mosaica Education International School (MEIS) Model

Mosaica Education International School
A World of Ideas that Makes a World of Difference
Purpose

The Mosaica Education International School (MEIS) model subscribes to the philosophy that rigorous college-prep courses will allow students to be well-equipped for today’s competitive and changing world. At MEIS, students acquire the academic skills and confidence that are necessary to succeed in further studies and well beyond in the 21st-century workplace.

MEIS features an innovative curriculum, a high degree of connectivity and personalized attention, intensive teacher training and constructivist, student-centered learning. MEIS utilizes and integrates technology to enable teachers to custom-tailor academic programs to students’ unique skills and interests. The integrated high-tech/humanities approach encourages all students to realize their full potential, and to benefit from a world-class curriculum with effective teaching strategies woven seamlessly into rich, relevant content.

Mosaica encourages families to commit to the long-term K – 12 International Model. Students coming in at the high school level will do so with a strong academic and extra-curricular background in K-8, solid student achievement scores, as reflected by standardized and placement tests, and a firm commitment to rigorous, college preparatory study.

The Mosaica Education K – 12 Model aligns with the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme (K – 5), Middle Years Programme (6 -10) and culminates in the IB Diploma Programme (11 - 12.) MEIS provides strong support to students applying to U.S. colleges and universities with SAT exam preparation, Advanced Placement (“AP”) course work and college placement assistance.

Individualized Support

At MEIS, personalized attention not only fosters a learning environment, but also emphasizes that each student has the ability to achieve excellence. Every student’s talents, challenges, and needs will be addressed. Personalized Student Achievement Plans are an integral tool in helping students to meet their academic goals successfully. Guidance counseling will support students in discovering the different opportunities for which they can strive. Particularly as students proceed to the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme in Grades 11 and 12, they will receive expert guidance and coaching in their course work and AP examination(s) selections. Even those students who are on the path to becoming the first college graduate in their family will understand how to select coursework strategically and to craft admissions and scholarship applications that showcase their unique talents and convey their case compellingly. College Placement will not only help students find the right match for their academic and personal interests, but will also assist them thoroughly and systematically with the application process. MEIS students will also receive expert assistance with locating scholarship and financial aid funding sources. As active participants in the MEIS learning community, students will cultivate the skills, the love of learning, and the confidence they need to succeed in high school, college, and beyond.

Vision: Pillars and Portals of the Academic Program

MEIS features an engaging college preparatory model. At the center of the curriculum is an academic core that provides students with a strong foundation in language arts, math, science, social studies, history, and foreign languages. This broad education maximizes student options for careers and future studies in the arts and sciences, while also providing opportunities for intensive study and AP coursework in selected areas of related interest. The academic program balances its emphasis on both the arts and the sciences, providing students with world-class opportunities to explore and develop their talents in both areas.

MEIS has a technology infrastructure that supports the overall educational model. In-class computers provide seamless, integral support for student learning in Language Arts and in Paragon. Exemplary educational software serve as multimedia support in conjunction with websites in virtually every lesson plan, as well as PowerPoint presentations for digital images and “how to demonstrations” of hands-on activities in the lessons.

In addition to the integrated use of technology as an effective tool for learning, MEIS will also offer quality online coursework with rigor, relevance and expert instruction.

A state-of-the-art computer lab is in place for computer science courses. Additionally, a formal technology instruction program leads students in their mastery of office applications (e.g. Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher, etc.), web page design, graphic design and photography and videography, along with the conversions of the latter to digital platforms.

MEIS features classes in Theater and the Visual Arts. In the Information Age, visual literacy, design, and communication skills are as necessary as computer skills, literacy, and numeracy. Twenty-five years ago students had to manipulate words (and typewriters) to write high school term papers. Pictures did not enter into the equation. Now students are expected to cover that same material in multi-media presentations using video, graphics, animation, and sound bytes. Students today may know how to manipulate software to create a multimedia presentation, but for true mastery they must also know how to design it aesthetically to get their point across.

At the same time, face-to-face communication will always remain important. Although increasingly, our communication occurs via a keyboard and a DSL line, the most vital form of communication occurs face to face. Theater teaches not only communication and collaboration skills useful in any field of endeavor, but it also helps us to understand our own humanity.

In addition, specialized study of the respective histories and philosophies of the arts and sciences will help students to discover, explore, and enjoy the many connections and commonalities between these fields of human endeavor such as, creativity, curiosity, intuition, self-expression, perception, use of the senses, analytical and critical thinking, decision-making, and the development of representational structures.

Paragon at MEIS

What is truly unique about Mosaica Education, Inc. and its K – 12 Model is the Paragon Curriculum. Paragon is an integrated curriculum that, while focused on the humanities and social sciences, goes beyond any one discipline or field of endeavor. It is an inquiry-based exploration of great ideas, great people, and popular worldview perspectives of historical events. Paragon’s content richness and critical thinking rigor also foster emotional intelligence and character development with its focus on heroes in history and in its orientation toward collaborative learning and personal connection journaling. MEIS will build upon Paragon’s exemplary cultural literacy foundation with a high school focus on great ideas and critical thinking. Through Paragon, MEIS will provide students with a quality liberal arts education that provides them with the tools to question themselves and their world, and that teaches them to think critically, to articulate their ideas verbally and in writing, and to work proficiently with technology. It is an education that will provide students with the knowledge and skills necessary to choose any direction in life— from the performing arts to science and technology to communication and language mastery.

Paragon: A Model of Excellence

Paragon, meaning “model of excellence,” serves as Mosaica’s tangible contribution to education reform. The inspiration behind Paragon’s design derives from the core coursework in the first two years of study at the world’s finest liberal arts colleges and universities. This elite, humanities-based, general education serves as the ideal foundation before declaring a major and specializing in a given field. Paragon’s sophisticated study of U.S. and world history and culture reflect a degree of cultural literacy to which most educated Americans continue to aspire throughout adulthood. Cultural Literacy is the content knowledge or intellectual capital required by every educated American in order to gain full access to participation in (and contribution to) mainstream culture in our country and in the world at large. With the increasingly global nature of our world economy and culture, Paragon is closing the achievement gap, and is preparing students for the 21st century in an unprecedented manner.

Making History with Paragon

Paragon teaches rich content through hands-on study that addresses student’s multiple intelligences and individual learning styles. Through this engaging curriculum, students gain historical information, and come to understand the expansive potential open to them if they can identify with early clarity their individual strengths and sense of purpose.

Rather than teach history in bits and pieces in arbitrary sequence, Paragon’s fully integrated, chronological approach demonstrates to students how one idea builds on and evolves into another. The curriculum illustrates how sweeping cycles repeat and leads students to understand the evolutions of world cultures. In Paragon, students study history across continents, and gain a profound understanding of the manner in which many ideas develop at the same time in independent cultures unaware of the other’s breakthroughs. Through this, students develop a larger picture of history and the associated interrelationships. Rather than memorize names, dates, and events in isolation, students recall the sequential circumstances surrounding these events and remember more readily both factual information and conceptual relevance.

Paragon Curriculum is practical because it is meaningful. Students learn connected networks of knowledge, skills, beliefs, and attitudes that they will find useful both in and outside of school. The significance and meaningfulness of the content is emphasized both in how it is presented to students, how it is developed through activities, and how it is authentically assessed. Step-by-step daily lesson plans are organized around essential questions—questions that have captivated thinkers for millennia and that will continue to fascinate students, thereby connecting them with the content more profoundly, more personally, and more purposefully.

Paragon Curriculum K – 5

The Paragon K – 5 program is also renowned for its community-building qualities. The entire K – 5 student body embarks each year on a chronological journey through the history of great ideas and great people in time and place. All six grade layers are engaged in study of the same historical era, while visiting different parts of the globe and entertaining age-appropriate essential questions and inquiry-based lessons. Paragon is truly unique because it replaces the traditional history and social studies curriculum, contributes to education reform, balances cultural literacy content with hands-on learning and fulfills state and national history, social studies, and geography standards.

Paragon Humanities – Grades 6-10

The spiral design of the acclaimed Paragon Curriculum in K – 5 continues to build depth through multiple layers in Paragon Humanities, Grades 6 – 10. As with the K – 5 Paragon Curriculum, the middle school continuation of the program actively employs effective teaching strategies in every lesson and replaces the traditional Social Studies, History and Geography curricula. To engage all learners and to render sophisticated and esoteric content both relevant and accessible, middle school teachers in a Mosaica-model charter school use graphic organizers to lay out information in categories and in relation to other ideas. They establish relevance for students by activating prior knowledge and by drawing them into the new content skillfully through Socratic questioning. In the true spirit of constructivism, Mosaica middle school students literally construct their own textbooks in Paragon Humanities with their elaborate Interactive Paragon Binders. Moreover, teachers cultivate invaluable Emotional Intelligence in middle school students through collaborative group work, personal connection journaling, role-play, and the study of heroes in history in Paragon Humanities. By examining closely the timeless attributes that allow ordinary people to take on and succeed with extraordinary challenges throughout history and across cultural boundaries, students come to appreciate the legacy that precedes them and to aspire to their own unique contributions to the world.

The Mosaica Education Model in Grades 6 – 10 aligns with the International Baccalaureate (IB) Middle Years Programme. While the program builds depth through multiple layers with vertical articulation from one grade layer to the next, the model can also operate as a stand-alone High School program featuring the IB Diploma Programme in Grades 11 and 12.

Paragon Seminars – Grades 11 & 12

Grades 11 and 12 will feature Paragon Seminars at the heart of its Diploma Programme. As Paragon moves from an exploration of historical time and place, to an exploration of the modern world and self in Grades 11 and 12, this series of question-based seminars focused on ethical issues will continue and bring to academic fruition what has been established in the Primary and Middle Years Programme in Paragon, in alignment with the IB. It will engage students in the hands-on study of great ideas and generate connections across the curriculum, encompassing the disciplines of social science, history, drama, music, art, geography, literature, philosophy, ethics, economics and scientific innovation. Essentially, a focus on ethics, integrates the arts and sciences within each individual student.

The focus on “self and world” which is at the heart of the study of ethics links the high school curriculum to what we have already created with Paragon in several ways. It continues the question-based focus on self and world; it continues to foster connections between disciplines, and it continues to look at great people and great ideas as models and exemplars. The focus on “self and world” will also serve the adolescent community of MEIS students in a compelling and relevant manner. Focusing on the study of ethics in high school, allows students to understand how their study of world history in primary and middle school has prepared them to make decisions, to question, and to lead. Finally, a recurring focus on ethics will strengthen the function of MEIS as a community pillar and as a force for educational reform. Moreover, the focus on self and world featured in U.S. and world history in Grades 9 and 10 will be taken to a level of practical application in Grades 11 and 12. Students will learn through their study of history and ethics to think globally and to act locally. This will prepare them for the IB Extended Essay and Theory of Knowledge (TOK) course, and will culminate in a senior-year Creativity, Action, Service (CAS) project, all hallmarks of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme.

By studying the history of great ideas in world culture through Paragon K – 12, and in reflecting upon prospective advancements and contributions that they might make with their unique strengths and passions through their work with the International Baccalaureate, Mosaica Education International School students prepare purposefully to become the conscious architects of tomorrow.