Principal's Office

WIHS'  Principles of Learning 

 Principle I: Organize for Effort

•          Hard work replaces aptitude as the determiner of success.

•          Everything is organized for students to work as hard as they need to, for as long as they need to, in order to reach standards.

Principle II: Clear Expectations

•          Students, parents, school and community know and understand the targets at each stage of learning.

•          Students participate in setting goals and evaluating progress.

Principle III: Recognition of Accomplishment

•          Celebrations of work at regular progress points invite families, friends, and teachers to recognize student performance.

Principle IV: Fair and Credible Evaluations

•          The standard is clearly articulated to all students.

•          Assessments are not based on the normal curve, but rather students are evaluated on their progress towards absolute standards.

•          Assessments are connected to and embedded in curriculum and instruction.

Principle V: Academic Rigor in a Thinking Curriculum

•          “Knowledge-based constructivism” – means that students are engaged in thinking about a solid foundation of knowledge.

•          Process and content are linked.

Principle VI: Accountable Talk

•          Student-to-student questioning, probing and conversing appropriate to the discipline uses evidence and accurate knowledge to develop ideas.

Principle VII: Socializing Intelligence

•          Call on students to use intelligent thinking – problem-solving, reasoning and using their ability to make sense of the world.

•          Teach intelligence.

Principle VIII: Learning as Apprenticeship

•          “Guide on the Side,” not “Sage on the Stage” is the apprenticeship model.

•          Students engage in “authentic” work whether in class or in school-to-career arenas such as research laboratories, publishing houses, marketing agencies or television studios.