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Text: %22Phillips Brooks School Curriculum Guide: Technology%22 over an image of 4 students working together using iPads and more

Curriculum Guide: Technology

The PBS Approach

At PBS, we align our use of technology with overall school values and pedagogical approach as a way to enhance instruction. We see the use of technology as tools in the toolbox, rather than the toolbox itself. This means that we intentionally avoid use of technology in our Early Learning Center, feeling that the skills students need to acquire can be best achieved through other methods and approaches. Beginning in Kindergarten, we gradually and intentionally begin to use technology as an instructional tool. All the while, we try to equip students with the skills they need to achieve digital wellbeing.

In a world where the evolution of technology is fast-paced, we equip our students with mindsets and skillsets that inspire them as critical and resourceful problem-solvers. The primary purpose of incorporating technology tools in our classrooms is to explore, express, present, and publish our thinking in ways that engage with our local and global communities. Our students step away from solely consuming technology and instead become active creators and collaborators.

Through projects, practice, research, and creation, PBS provides opportunities for students to their grow their knowledge and skill with using technology to be active and productive learners. Students are also exposed to foundational technological ideas like coding and programming throughout the curriculum.

Values

Empowered Learner

Students leverage technology to take an active role in choosing, achieving, and demonstrating competency in their learning goals, informed by the learning sciences.

Digital Wellbeing

Students recognize the rights, responsibilities, and opportunities of living, learning, and working in an interconnected digital world, and they actl in ways that are safe, legal, and ethical.

Savvy Searcher

Students critically curate a variety of resources using digital tools to construct knowledge, produce creative artifacts, and make meaningful learning experiences for themselves and others.

Innovative Designer

Students use a variety of technologies within a design process to identify and solve problems by creating new practical or imaginative solutions.

Computational Thinker

Students develop and employ strategies for understanding and solving problems in ways that leverage the power of technological methods to develop and test solutions.

Creative Communicator

Students communicate clearly and express themselves creatively for a variety of purposes using the platforms, tools, styles, formats, and digital media appropriate to their goals.

Global Collaborator

Students use digital tools to broaden their perspectives and enrich their learning by collaborating with others and working effectively in teams locally and globally.

Key Concepts and Emphasis

From the PBS Blog…