District officials on Thursday got to experience firsthand the innovative learning taking place on the Owensboro Innovation Academy campus, donning virtual reality headsets that allow for immersive lessons. But OIA leaders noted their mission goes well beyond the technology.
Mark Moore and Beth Benjamin — directors of the Owensboro Innovation middle and high schools, respectively — discussed how their staff are overcoming challenges and educating the whole child during an Owensboro Public Schools Board of education luncheon.
“We knew that this year there were going to be deficits, there were going to be gaps,” Moore said. “But until you start the year, you don’t know the severity of those. You kind of have this best-case scenario and worst-case scenario, and coming back it was closer to the worst-case scenario. We had significant academic, behavioral, and social gaps.
Through meetings, Moore said OIA staff narrowed their focus down to two aspects: improving the work ethic and working together. He said this year they are utilizing smaller groups and also strengthening the one-on-one work with interventionists.
Moore added that OIA has put together data for their students that is a comprehensive academic picture including scores, classroom performance, teacher input, and parent input.
“That can help drive our decision on who needs what and when,” he said. “That’s been great being able to do that.”
Moore said the mental health team is also implementing a similar process for tracking students using surveys, teacher observations, and parent input to get an emotional picture of a student and how those students can be helped.
Beyond the classroom, Moore said he’s been glad to see the return of extracurricular activities this year.
“One of the things I’m most proud of is seeing our culture get back to kids wanting to come to school and wanting to participate,” he said. “On any given day we could have over 100 students, almost a third of our student body, staying after school. Being in something that you like to do with others adds to the culture.”
Board members then get to wear the VR goggles recently added to the middle school social studies classroom. The goggles come with immersive lessons and allow students to see a wide range of historic sites and events in world history — such as Stonehenge, pyramids, the Great Wall of China, a World War I bunker, and the D-Day invasion.
Benjamin said while there is an overall education curriculum for the building, OIA strives to develop a daily lesson plan unique to each student based on their desired career path.
“When we started OIA, it was important that we gave personalized scheduling to every single student regardless of who they were, what middle school they went to, what their family had done in the past, what level of college,” Benjamin said. “I wanted to make sure that every kid that walked through OIA had a goal and that someone was helping them achieve it.”
