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In just seven portable classrooms located at the back of Davis Senior High School, the 284 students of Leonardo Da Vinci High School are truly learning outside the box. Equipped with laptops and a whole lot of individualism, Da Vinci High students not only pursue a project-based education, but also become members of a supportive and tight community that most high school students rarely achieve in their three years.
Da Vinci High teaches a standard college preparatory curriculum, but with an innovative approach to how students can learn. Principal Matt Best stresses that the main difference in Da Vinci High is in how students are taught, "We are teaching the same information, but how we teach is the major difference. We are all about putting learning into context."
Students create this context by completing major projects in groups of four or five, based on the areas in which they are studying. Such a project was the sophomore class’ recent WWI museum, for which students transformed each classroom into an exhibit and worked as docents to the open public. "Instead of a test where they were regurgitating the information, students had to put the information into context and really apply it to something," Matt said.
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