The Germination Domain is where the seeds of literacy, love of learning, and self-regulation sprout into the air of the world. This domain is the “paradise” of developing skills and literacy within an interdisciplinary perspective through integrated learning projects, developing “world knowledge” while emphasizing freedom of choice and the realization of self-learning exploration. This domain also emphasizes the social involvement of students, from an attitude of Agency – contribution to the community.
GERMINATION AGE CHARACTERISTICS
THE DEVELOPMENT CHALLANGE
WHAT DO WE GERMINATE IN STUDENTS?
- Love of learning – alone and together: These are essential components in the ability to create the conditions for the development of lifelong Learners.
- The ability to apply knowledge across disciplines and context areas: The project-based Learning (PBL) approach, which has accompanied the school for the past decade, nurtures the multidisciplinary way of thinking and its practical applications. This fosters the ability to be curious, explore and discover while combining multidisciplinary views and projecting into different fields of life application.
- Trusting their personal capabilities: A sense of ability develops from the accumulation of each student’s successful experiences in meeting different challenges, and from the strengthening of the foundations in their personal uniqueness that contributed to that success.
- Group code of honor: The germination domain promotes the development of the code of honor from the personal dimension, towards forming a social agreement – both within the school and in their social involvement outside it.
HOW IS IT CONDUCTED IN PRACTICE?
Here are some elements applied within the Germination Domain:
Empowering tutoring: Due to the uniqueness of this age range and the need for the closer accompaniment of each student in their early years of adolescence, personal accompaniment to students is implicated. For this purpose, we intensified the counselor hours and pedagogical apprenticeship hours of tutors of the 5th and 6th grades. In seventh and eighth grades, where new students also join, a tutor is assigned to each half of the class (about 17 students), in a way that will create better conditions for the development of each student, as an individual and as part of a social group.
A PBL and self-learning curriculum: The agenda is structured in a way that allows for integrated learning projects, the development of self-learning skills, and social activism.
A five-day learning week: In order to increase the mentoring ratio, in a way that will allow for more situations of individual and group accompaniment and learning in small groups within the system hours, – a five-day learning week is applied. This allows the allocation of more teaching hours for pedagogical initiation.
Personal Learning strip: a daily period of 75 minutes (4 days a week) is dedicated for each student to study independently under the guidance and mentoring of the educational staff. The purpose of these processes is to cultivate self-regulatory learning skills, which will also form fundamental components of lifelong learning.
Agency for Social activism: Once a week the Germination Domain agenda applies a period of work in multi-age groups on various social projects, as part of fostering involvement and value impact.
Multi-age in personal learning and social activism: These processes are carried out in multi-age groups that will aid mentoring and mutual help, and the growth of leadership among older students. This also enables differential learning, where each student can progress at their own pace and path.
WE LEARN: The learning ecology for individual learning processes allows each student a variety of learning situations while breaking through classroom boundaries and other use of indoor and outdoor spaces.
Formative assessment: formative assessment and self-assessment are the main tools for cultivating curiosity and love of learning, as well as regulation and self-responsibility. These pedagogical instruments are widely used in the world’s leading education systems.
GERMINATION LEARNING FRAMEWORKS:
