A Small Learning Community (SLC), also referred to as a School-Within-A-School, is a school organizational model that is an increasingly common form of learning environment in American secondary schools to subdivide large school populations into smaller, autonomous groups of students and teachers. SLCs can also be physical learning spaces.
The primary purpose of restructuring secondary schools into SLCs is to create a more personalized learning environment to better meet the needs of students. [1] Each community will often share the same teachers and student members from grade to grade. Teachers in these units usually have common planning time to allow them to develop interdisciplinary projects and keep up with the progress of their shared students.
SLCs can take several forms.
Core courses include:
Electives include:
Other courses:
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School organizational models are methods of structuring the curriculum, functions, and facilities for schools, colleges, and universities. The organizing of teaching and learning has been structured since the first educational institutions were established. With greater specialization and expertise in a particular field of knowledge, and a gathering of like-minded individuals, instructors clustered into specialized groups, schools, and eventually departments within larger institutions. This structure spread rapidly during the 19th and 20th centuries with factory model schools and their "assembly-line" method of standardized curriculum and instructional methods. Beginning with the progressive educational movement in the early-mid 20th century, and again with similar trends in the late 20th and early 21st century, alternative models structured towards deeper learning, higher retention, and 21st century skills developed. The organizational models of schools fall into several main categories, including: departmental, integrative, project-based, academy, small learning communities, and school-within-a-school.