Personalized Education at

Middle School Thomas Jefferson

Middle School is a formative stage of education, where students develop different abilities for life, such as problem solving, decision making, leadership skills and team work among others. Middle School education focuses on promoting and preserving values, as well as developing the necessary skills for life, in order to become positive, multicultural leaders, with a clear vision of the future, as well as happy and successful human beings.
Middle School programs have been designed based on the competencies they need to acquire in order to be prepared for the future, including the use of state of the art technology, multiple intelligences theory and the diverse learning styles of our students, all these aimed to developing a holistic student, who will be able to succeed in a highly competitive, globalized world.
The different academic programs, both in English and Spanish, promote team work and the developing of leadership skills. Our students learn by experiencing through different activities that involve the topic seen in class in a more active, interdisciplinary way, participating in different activities such as videoconferencing ,interactive laboratory sessions through the use of an electronic board, student-focused presentations, and even generating their very own learning strategies, by creating video games, web quests, blogs, videos ,etc.
In the classroom, our Middle School teachers use technology a very important tool to create attractive, interactive lessons, using different teaching techniques such as the use of Mental Maps, webs and other graphic organizers, peer coaching, cooperative teams, cultural visits to local and virtual museums etc, in order to make student learning more meaningful, and to promote critical thinking and active learning.
The inclusion of presentations, debate, round tables and videoconferencing, help students in developing public speaking skills, enhancing their self-esteem, and promoting the use of all the intelligences, turning weaknesses into areas of opportunity and growth.
Our students are exposed to the Harvard Business School Publishing materials form 7th grade on, developing leadership and other necessary skills for leadership during the first two years of Middle School, and actually working with such material during 9th grade.
Daily activities are also planned to use all the learning styles in order to help students achieve a balanced development on the different areas.
All these activities are constantly monitored by the academic coordinators and the psychology department.
The personalized education in Middle School is reached through the previous knowledge of the students from Elementary School monitoring, as well as social and psychological evaluations that provide the necessary individual and social knowledge during a relevant stage of out students’ lives, as well as their development in emotional and cognitive areas, learning styles, and their level of integration within their groups.
Assessment is not only done through regular testing, but also project based. All the subject areas in Middle School use projects as a very important way to assess the progress of our students through out the school year, providing teachers with a clear vision of the real progress and the actual learning process of students.
Middle School, considering that the success and happiness of our students reside on their family and their family relationships, keeps a close contact and constant communication with parents through personalized parent-teacher conferences thorough out the school year, psychology appointments for parents and students, close monitoring and meetings with the Director of our section, and School for Parents.
The Tutoring program in progress also provides with
a very close look at our individual students and their group and individual needs.
In the quest of promoting creativity in both students and faculty, Middle School organizes different activities such as the cultural space every year, where academic contents are approached in a more creative way. Also different yearly campaigns are held through out the year through different media, promoting ecological, cultural, health and even language awareness within our school community, being the students the coordinators, creators and designers of such campaigns. Teachers act as guides during these different creative processes.
The “Jefferson Times” Middle School newspaper, also a clear example of creativity, use of technology and student leadership, is fully operated by students, who act as reporters, designers and editors of this monthly publication, devoting after-class time to this very successful project.
In Middle School the most important mission is to develop happy and successful leaders of the future, who are multicultural and bilingual, with academic excellence, creative and independent, with strong values and self-esteem, and with a clear vision of the future, as well as a high sense of patriotism, but able to become citizens of the World.