Office of the Students Affairs and Services

JCHS practices, advances, and advocates for a student-centered learning culture. JCHS affirms the ability of students to produce valuable reactions to, reflections and questions on, and understandings and appreciations of topics and issues in the classroom. As such, the JCHS classroom / online is set-up in a manner that will best solicit student input, and the JCHS teacher’s responsibility is to ensure that the students participate in the generation of ideas rather than be passive recipients of ideas. JCHS and its teachers firmly believe that the atmosphere in which learning, and development happen best is an atmosphere where students are co-authors of ideas. The JCHS teachers’ role, therefore, in the classroom/online is to coach and facilitate creation.

The characteristics of a culture of student-centered learning are that it is constructive. Teachers within a culture of student-centered learning provide opportunities for students to construct knowledge and guide students in the creation of new knowledge; they see assessment as an opportunity for learning and formation. It is also relevant and responsive in that it ensures that students are provided activities drawn from authentic and real-life situations that will encourage students to connect learning with real-life situations. Its atmosphere is one that is democratic in its insistence on the recognition and respect of the diversity of opinions and ideas and on its emphasis on an understanding and appreciation of the context upon which these diverse ideas are born. Student-centered learning values and encourages critical thinking and active learning by engaging students to ask essential questions and by synthesizing and contextualizing viewpoints. Students, in this learning environment, reflect and ask questions, seek relevance, and engage in scholarly discourse that leads to inferences, insights, and sound positions.

In JCHS, student-c entered learning is undertaken in a technology-enabled learning environment that promotes digital literacy. It utilizes technology for more relevant and meaningful learning. The JCHS student, in turn, sees technology as a tool for learning and using it responsibly.

The student-centered classroom is interdisciplinary, integrative, and interactive. Its teachers challenge students to interconnect disciplines and relevant issues and to find interconnections and patterns. The objective of student-centered learning is the development of lifelong learners and creative thinkers and the cultivation of attitudes and habits that ensure continuous self-enhancement and knowledge generation. As products of the JCHS student-centered experience, JCHS students are models of competent and active learners and the continuous quest for knowledge-making.