Imagine one student and one teacher in a science lab, working with a professional research microscope, analyzing and debating images from that microscope that are projected onto an interactive whiteboard. They make notes on the image on the whiteboard, labeling cells and charting interactions, then at the end of the lesson, save the images to continue at the next meeting.
What’s amazing isn’t the level of personalized, hands-on learning. What’s amazing is that all students are not taught this way.
Academic life at Andover is designed to promote depth in thinking, a free exchange of ideas, and highly individualized, one-on-one, live interaction with faculty.
At Andover, academics is more than the structure of cells and the dates of wars. Fundamentally, academics entails maximizing each student’s potential to understand, innovate, and succeed.
- All academic courses are taught one-on-one.
- Each course consists of a minimum of 17 one-on-one sessions, which address each student’s specific content and problem-solving needs.
- Each course also requires 3 – 5 hours of preparation per session, which may include video lectures, related reading, and customized assessments to determine content retention. Assessments are forwarded to teachers prior to the next session and are reviewed during each meeting.
- Academic courses accord with the College Board’s standards; at the conclusion of the course, students are prepared to take either the SAT IIs (Level I courses) or AP exams (Level II courses).
- Students are assigned to study and project groups, in which they work collaboratively with their peers.
- Full-time students take 5 courses per semester.
With the right tools, every student can move beyond average and achieve something amazing. Andover systematically employs the most innovative neuro-education concepts. Teachers are trained and required to employ active and engaging pedagogy, and the school’s structure is designed to complement the concepts of neuroplasticity and multiple intelligences. Such concepts have limited effect when grafted onto a traditional school but are powerful tools when built into a school from the very beginning.
Andover has reinvented schools!