Campbell Hall Redesigns College Level Courses Based on University Findings

LOS ANGELES, May 7, 2019 (Newswire.com) - ​While the debate continues in educational institutions across the country over whether taking the College Board’s Advanced Placement (AP) courses is advantageous for students, Campbell Hall, a leading K-12 independent school in Los Angeles, is forging its own path by introducing a unique blend of high school course offerings. Campbell Hall continues to provide AP classes that fit with the school’s mission but has eliminated five of the 25 AP classes it had offered because the courses did not align with its inquiry-based approach to teaching and learning. These courses have been replaced with Campbell Hall Advanced Inquiry (CHAI) classes: innovative college-level honors courses that encourage high-level critical thinking and promote more in-depth engagement with the material.

In a 2016 publication entitled Turning the Tide by Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education’s Making Caring Common Project, the writers advocate for reducing excessive achievement pressure on students. The report was endorsed by more than 150 college admissions deans and has gained traction nationwide. As a Leadership School in the Making Caring Common Project, Campbell Hall began to assess its AP offerings to determine which met the school’s mission of providing meaningful, inquiry-driven curricula. After an extensive review process, the school determined that 12 of the AP classes were focused more on rote memorization with a focus on test-driven results that prevented teachers from diverging from a prescribed curriculum and students from delving into the coursework in meaningful ways.

In response, Campbell Hall created the CHAI program, which allows for more discussion and inquiry, and launched its first UC-honors-approved courses in the fall of 2018. New for the 2018-19 school year were CHAI Physics with Calculus Honors; CHAI Art History Honors: Global Approach; CHAI English Language and Composition Honors; CHAI English Literature and Composition Honors; and CHAI Modern World History Honors. Added for the 2019-20 school year: CHAI Chemistry Honors; CHAI Environmental Science Honors; CHAI Technology & Ethics in the Information Age Honors; CHAI Human Geography Honors; and CHAI Critical Race Studies Honors (a course that does not represent the redesign of AP content but instead our own original curriculum). Three remaining courses identified for redesign will debut in the 2020-21 school year.  

Feedback from Campbell Hall students has been overwhelmingly positive. Avalon D., an 11th-grade student who has taken a number of AP courses and is now enrolled in CHAI English Language and Composition, says, “I like the CHAI format more because it allows for more in-depth discussions that tackle the complexity of each reading. Not having to do test prep gives us more time to discuss our reading and ask more questions about the work.”

Jane Emerson, who taught the AP version of the current CHAI English Language course, says, “I love teaching CHAI because the format of the class encourages us to focus on what matters most in an English classroom, which is connecting with the texts we explore in a meaningful way. Rather than doing exam preparation or multiple-choice practice, students are able to take control of the flow of class and guide conversations based on their own reactions to the books we read. CHAI allows for a more student-centered classroom, and we have the time and space for in-depth discussions of complicated texts. I am so excited to be a part of a CHAI curriculum and in its first year I know we are only beginning to discover what we can do.”

Though Campbell Hall has been at the forefront of this movement, the school is not alone in reevaluating the AP model. There is a consortium of LA-area independent schools that has met several times to consider AP redesigns. Additionally, according to an article in The Washington Post, several prominent independent schools in the D.C. area have also begun to phase out and/or eliminate AP classes in favor of a curriculum that is more collaborative. In a joint statement signed by eight D.C. area schools, they write that such courses “will not only better prepare students for college and their professional futures, but also result in more engaging programs for both students and faculty.”

Many colleges and universities see the benefit of such reimagined college-level courses. As Kelly Walter, Associate Vice President and Dean of Admissions, Boston University writes, “Campbell Hall’s new curriculum is exciting, innovative, and rigorous, and will provide students with the experiences and preparation that Boston University values in our admissions process.”

Campbell Hall will continue to refine its curricula based on the needs of the students, sound research, and mission-driven innovation to create a program that is intellectually stimulating and engaging. Encouraging a deeper understanding of subject material feeds students’ natural curiosity and promotes lifelong learning which, in the end, is what education is all about.

Source: Campbell Hall