This page provides a sampling of the extensive on- and offline educational resources and thinking that inform the PDS design for learning. PDS is a member of NAIS (National Association of Independent Schools) and NYSAIS New York State Association of Independent Schools) and faculty and administration are active in both organizations. PDS is also a member of NACAC (National Association of College Admission Counselling and ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development), publisher of Educational Leadership and a rich resource for ideas and materials for teaching, learning and professional development. Individual teachers are also members of professional organizations including NCTE (English), NCTM (mathematics) and NSTA (science).
As an independent school in the progressive tradition, PDS stays true to its forward-looking and innovative roots. In the founding years of the 1930s, the work of John Dewey and many pioneer progressive educators, including PDS founding director Elizabeth Gilkeson, was instrumental in setting education in a new direction—one centered on learners, experience and democratic ideals and practice. As we journey further into the 21st century, Dewey's call for education to be meaningful and experiential is as relevant as ever. His emphasis on interdisciplinary themes has particular resonance in our globally interconnected world. To quote Dewey, “School should be less about preparation for life and more about life itself.”
In the last century, education was shaped by an emerging understanding of how we learn. Lev Vygotsky's work emphasised the social nature of the process and Jean Piaget demonstrated how children's cognitive development grows in a predictable sequence of intellectual steps, building understanding from within rather than acquisition from the outside. This theory of learning is referred to as constructivism and has implications for the role of the teacher and how instruction should be organized and scaffolded.
Bloom's taxonomy gave an hierarchical order to cognitive skills from knowledge, comprehension, and application to analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Traditional education tends to emphasize mastery of lower-order objectives but his work suggests the importance of the full range of cognitive skills.
The work of Howard Gardner and Robert Sternberg has enlarged our undertsanding of human intelligence, and Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences suggests definitons that go beyond traditonal measures to include domains such as interpersonal, intrapersonal, spatial, musical and kinesthetic. Cognitive research further suggests that intelligence resides collectively within a social group and not merely within the individual mind.
For students in this century, “know-who” and “know-how” matter as much as “know-what.” Membership in our diverse and globally connected society demands a wide array of intellectual and cultural competencies.
Teachers at PDS are familiar with emerging educational theory and practice.They take from the ever-rushing, widening stream of available information ideas that resonate with our distinctive approach to learning and the needs of our students.
Here is a short list, sometimes annotated, of resources and organizations that inform our thinking. Click on an area below to learn more.