A laboratory school or demonstration school is an elementary or secondary school operated in association with a university, college, or other teacher education institution and used for the training of future teachers, educational experimentation, educational research, and professional development. [1] [2]
Many laboratory schools follow a model[ citation needed ] of experiential education based on the original Laboratory School run by John Dewey at the University of Chicago. [3] Many laboratory schools still operate in the United States and around the globe. They are known by many names: laboratory schools, demonstration schools, campus schools, model schools, university-affiliated schools, child development schools, etc., and most have a connection to a college or university. Each university-affiliated school has a unique relationship with a college or university and a different grade configuration. Some lab schools are only for preschool or kindergarten children, some are preschool through fifth or sixth grade, and some continue through high school.
Khan Lab School in Silicon Valley is one of the few laboratory schools not affiliated with a college or university. It is affiliated with Khan Academy, a non-profit educational organization. [4] The school's experimentation with abolishing grade levels was featured on Voice of America in 2016. [5]
Laboratory school classrooms may be observed by university professors to assess the student-teacher, but this is conducted without the students or student-teachers aware of the observation. The observers want to avoid creating a distraction or disrupting classroom activities. Before the miniaturization of electronic camera viewing systems, laboratory schools often included elaborate direct-view observation systems with special observation decks above classrooms or observation rooms alongside the classrooms. One-way mirrors and speaker/intercom systems allowed a professor to silently observe the classroom, but without being seen by the students or the student-teacher.
A modern laboratory school is able to use a standard-design school as a laboratory school. The standard rooms are outfitted with CCTV cameras hidden inside black plastic domes on the ceiling. Complex lens optics and multiple cameras allow a single stationary dome to view 360 degrees, with no mechanical noises or moving parts. High-speed Internet connections allow for a professor at a college to remotely view and interact with student-teachers in a distant laboratory school. [6]
In either case, students or student-teachers know that observation may occur, but they do not know when such observation takes place.
School | Associated Institution | Location | Description |
---|---|---|---|
Mayfield West Demonstration School | Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia | Primary school | |
Mount Keira Demonstration School | Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia | Primary school | |
North Sydney Demonstration School | University of Sydney | Waverton, New South Wales, Australia | Primary school |
School | Associated Institution | Location | Description |
---|---|---|---|
Institute of Child Study | University of Toronto | Toronto, Canada | An independent nursery to Grade 6 day school |
University of Toronto Schools | University of Toronto | Toronto, Canada | An independent co-educational day school |
School | Associated Institution | Location | Description |
---|---|---|---|
Jordanhill School | Glasgow, Scotland | An independent state co-educational day school | |
Lab School Paris | Paris, France | First laboratory school in France, opened in 2017, for students aged 8–12, bilingual (French-English), associated to the Lab School Network. | |
Laborschule Bielefeld | Bielefeld, Germany | ||
Tampere University Teacher Training School | Tampere University Faculty of Education and Culture | Finland | The Teacher Training School trains future teachers in a very structured way. Administratively, the school is part of the Tampere University Faculty of Education and Culture. In all other respects, the school enjoys great independence. |
Progressive education, or educational progressivism, is a pedagogical movement that began in the late 19th century and has persisted in various forms to the present. In Europe, progressive education took the form of the New Education Movement. The term progressive was engaged to distinguish this education from the traditional curricula of the 19th century, which was rooted in classical preparation for the early-industrial university and strongly differentiated by social class. By contrast, progressive education finds its roots in modern, post-industrial experience. Most progressive education programs have these qualities in common:
John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the first half of the twentieth century.
Experiential education is a philosophy of education that describes the process that occurs between a teacher and student that infuses direct experience with the learning environment and content. The term is not interchangeable with experiential learning; however experiential learning is a sub-field and operates under the methodologies of experiential education. The Association for Experiential Education regards experiential education as "a philosophy that informs many methodologies in which educators purposefully engage with learners in direct experience and focused reflection in order to increase knowledge, develop skills, clarify values, and develop people's capacity to contribute to their communities". Experiential education is the term for the philosophy and educational progressivism is the movement which it informed. The Journal of Experiential Education publishes peer-reviewed empirical and theoretical academic research within the field.
The Pan American Christian Academy, or PACA, is a Protestant American school in São Paulo, Brazil. Since 1960, the school provides an American-style of education that is based on a Christian foundation. PACA has served the local and international community of São Paulo, Brazil by offering a college preparatory education. The school has a preschool program, an elementary school, middle school and high school. The optional dual curriculum prepares students to enter American and Brazilian colleges and universities. Approximately 95% of each year's graduates enroll in colleges and universities in the United States and in Brazil.
The University of Chicago Laboratory Schools is a private, co-educational, day Pre-school and K-12 school in Chicago, Illinois. It is affiliated with the University of Chicago. Almost half of the students have a parent who is on the faculty or staff of the university.
Constance Kamii was a Swiss-Japanese-American mathematics education scholar and psychologist. She was a professor in the Early Childhood Education Program Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Alabama in Birmingham, Alabama.
Kasetsart University Laboratory School, Center for Educational Research and Development, informally known as Satit Kaset, is a well-known laboratory school in Bangkok, Thailand, operated under the auspices of Kasetsart University's Faculty of Education. The school is located in Bang Khen campus of the university.
St. Mark's Episcopal School is a private primary and secondary school located in the Cambridge Place development and in West University Place, Texas, in Greater Houston. St. Mark's serves preschool through Grade 8. The school is located just four miles from the Texas Medical Center and minutes south of the Galleria. St. Mark's is a part of the Episcopal Diocese of Texas and is accredited by the Independent Schools Association of the Southwest and the Southwest Association of Episcopal Schools. The current headmaster of the school is Garhett Wagers.
The Avery Coonley School (ACS), commonly called Avery Coonley, is an independent, coeducational day school serving academically gifted students in preschool through eighth grade (approximately ages 3 to 14), and is located in Downers Grove, DuPage County, Illinois. The school was founded in 1906 to promote the progressive educational theories developed by John Dewey and other turn-of-the-20th-century philosophers, and was a nationally recognized model for progressive education well into the 1940s. From 1943 to 1965, Avery Coonley was part of the National College of Education (now National Louis University), serving as a living laboratory for teacher training and educational research. In the 1960s, ACS became a regional research center and a leadership hub for independent schools, and began to focus on the education of the gifted.
TheAffiliated High School of Peking University is a public high school in Beijing, China, offering 7th–12th grade education. It is regarded as one of the most prestigious high schools in China. In a 2016 ranking of Chinese high schools that send students to study in American universities, BDFZ ranked high in mainland China in terms of the number of students entering top American universities.
Boston University Wheelock College of Education & Human Development is the school of education within Boston University. It is located on the University's Charles River Campus in Boston, Massachusetts in the former Lahey Clinic building. BU Wheelock has more than 31,000 alumni, 32 full-time faculty and both undergraduate and graduate students. Boston University School of Education was ranked 34th in the nation in 2018 by U.S. News & World Report in their rankings of graduate schools of education. The School of Education is a member institution of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE).
The Fanny Edel Falk Laboratory School, or simply the Falk School, is a private kindergarten through eighth grade laboratory school of the University of Pittsburgh. It is located on the University of Pittsburgh's upper campus on Allequippa St.
La Consolacion College Bacolod, also referred to by its acronym LCCB or simply LCC, is a private, Catholic, co-educational basic and higher education institution administered by the Augustinian Sisters of Our Lady of Consolation (ASOLC) in Bacolod, Negros Occidental, Philippines.
Education in the Bahamas is compulsory between the ages of 5 and 16. As of 2003, the school attendance rate was 92% and the literacy rate was 95.5%. The government fully operates 158 of the 210 primary and secondary schools in The Bahamas. The other 55 schools are privately operated. Enrollment for state primary and secondary schools is 50,332, with more than 16,000 students attending private schools. Some public schools lack basic educational materials and are overcrowded. The Bahamas Union of Teachers (BUT) were the ones who acted to create some reform for their weakening education systems. The island has an Education Act that was revised in 1996 and is under control of the Prime Minister. As of 1996, the Education Act states that education is free for children between the ages of 5 and 16. The University of the Bahamas, established in Nassau in 1974, provides programs leading to bachelors and associate degrees. Several non-Bahamian colleges also offer higher education programs in The Bahamas. Generally, the academic year in The Bahamas goes from late August or early September to late May or early June for primary and secondary schools and late April/early May for college.
Salman "Sal" Amin Khan is an American educator and the founder of Khan Academy, a free online non-profit educational platform with which he has produced over 6,500 video lessons teaching a wide spectrum of academic subjects, originally focusing on mathematics and science. He is also the founder of Khan Lab School, a private in-person school in Mountain View, California.
Learning by doing is a theory that places heavy emphasis on student engagement and is a hands-on, task-oriented, process to education. The theory refers to the process in which students actively participate in more practical and imaginative ways of learning. This process distinguishes itself from other learning approaches as it provides many pedagogical advantages to more traditional learning styles, such those which privilege inert knowledge. Learning-by-doing is related to other types of learning such as adventure learning, action learning, cooperative learning, experiential learning, peer learning, service-learning, and situated learning.
Yew Chung International School of Silicon Valley is a private Preschool, Elementary and Middle School in the San Francisco Bay Area that provides an international education with an emphasis on Chinese Studies. YCIS is a non-profit 501(c)3 and is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC). The main campus is located at 310 Easy Street, Mountain View, California. The preschool campus is .4 miles away at 199 E. Middlefield Road, also in Mountain View.
The School and Society: Being Three Lectures (1899) was John Dewey's first published work of length on education. A highly influential publication in its own right, it would also lay the foundation for his later work. In the lectures included in the initial publication, Dewey proposes a psychological, social, and political framework for progressive education. Notably, this includes collaborative practical experimentation as the central element of school work. He argues that the progressive approach is both an inevitable product of the Industrial Revolution and a natural fit with the psychology of children. A final chapter details some of the experiments done at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools.
Khan Lab School is an independent school in Mountain View, California, associated with Khan Academy. It is a laboratory school founded by educator Sal Khan.
Southern University Laboratory School is a K-12 laboratory school in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, affiliated with Southern University.