As an EL Education School, Fox Creek finds value in inviting experts into our learning to make it applicable and offer real work. This is an important Core Practice of EL Education.
From the EL Education Website::
Core Practice #7: Incorporating Fieldwork, Experts, and Service Learning
Selecting and Engaging with Experts
- Teachers bring experts from the community into the classroom to collaborate with students on projects, teach them skills from their field, and critique their work using professional standards.
- Teachers reach out to experts who represent multiple perspectives and backgrounds and can expand students’ understanding of the knowledge and skills they are seeking to acquire. Experts may be professionals from a particular discipline or community members with firsthand knowledge of the topic being studied.
- Teachers prepare experts to work collaboratively with students on projects and/or products. For example, experts may help students critique their work against professional standards.
- Teachers prepare students to greet experts with courtesy, respect, and background knowledge, with the desire that experts are surprised and delighted by the students’ depth of knowledge and preparation.
We loved inviting HRCA Backcountry experts in to talk about the parts of trees and how they help trees thrive in our Colorado environment.
