Junior High

Transdisciplinary Learning in Junior High: Preparing Our Students for the 21st Century

At Smartium International School, junior high students tackle problem-solving challenges through a transversal approach that promotes collaborative actions. With formative assessments and an IMPACT learning model, our students develop initiatives that have a positive impact on their community, acquiring the necessary skills to face the challenges of the 21st century.

Assessments at this level are formative, continuous, timely, and automatic, meaning they are conducted constantly based on our students’ daily progress. This approach includes assignments, exercises, projects, and quizzes, rather than relying on monthly or semester exams that require rote memorization. In Junior High, we continue implementing tools that ensure our students acquire essential learning to face 21st-century challenges.

The IMPACT Learning Model and Global Knotion focus on eight transversal themes and follow a problem-solving-oriented thought process. This way, our students develop initiatives that create a positive impact in their community while acquiring the knowledge established in the academic curriculum.

The Knotion IMPACT Learning Model consists of four phases, enabling students to develop the competencies they need:

IDENTIFY

  • Recall prior knowledge.
  • Engage in positive learning experiences by questioning their own reality and context.
  • Understand globally relevant topics both inside and outside the classroom, as well as their physical and emotional needs.
  • Recognize the problems to be addressed.
  • Cultivate awareness of their responsibility as agents of change.

MAPPING

  • Understand the causes and consequences of the problem.
  • Research in time and context using all available information sources.
  • Seek information, synthesize, and process to understand the problem.
  • Investigate and analyze existing proposals that have been implemented to solve the problem.

PROPOSE

  • Collaborate to plan the implementation of their proposal.
  • Design innovative and creative solution prototypes to positively and sustainably impact their environment.
  • Plan methods for implementing their ideas to address issues in collaborative and leadership contexts.

ACT

  • Implement and adapt solutions through actions.
  • Apply solutions that generate real change in the world.
  • Evaluate the results obtained and share the acquired experience.