Oregon Trail Academy

Overview

The MYP is a curriculum framework designed for learners aged 11–16 by the International Baccalaureate. At OTA, the MYP is a three-year program for Grades 6-8.

The MYP curriculum framework comprises eight subject groups, providing a broad and balanced education for early adolescents. Students take the core courses of language and literature, individuals and societies, mathematics, sciences, physical and health education, language acquisition, arts, and design. A unique feature of the program is that it extends the traditional curriculum to include immersion in four themes — approaches to teaching, approaches to learning, global contexts, and concepts. Students also complete a personal project, which is an independent piece of work that may be an essay, an artistic production or another form of expression.

MYP Info Night Video

MYP Projects

MYP projects encourage students to reflect on their learning and the outcomes of their work – key skills that prepare them for success in further study, the workplace and the community.

Students in 8^th grade complete the community project.

These projects provide an important opportunity for students to pursue service learning.

MYP projects are student-centered and age-appropriate, and they enable students to engage in practical explorations through a cycle of inquiry, action, and reflection.

MYP projects involve students in a wide range of activities to extend their knowledge and understanding and to develop their skills and attitudes.

These student-planned learning activities include:

As students become involved in the self-initiated and self-directed learning process, they will find it easier to construct in-depth knowledge on their topic and develop an understanding of themselves as learners.

• deciding what they want to learn about, identifying what they already know, and discovering what they will need to know to complete the project
• creating proposals or criteria for their project, planning their time and materials, and recording developments of the project
• making decisions, developing understandings and solving problems, communicating with their supervisor and others, and creating a product or developing an outcome evaluating the product/outcome and reflecting on their project and their learning.

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  Middle school is a time of great discovery and transition. Students enter our sixth grade at the apex of their childhood years and move up to our tenth grade, deep in adolescence. Oregon Trail Academy is a supportive and trusting learning environment from which our students move into high school with the intrinsic motivation needed to achieve their personal best, and the knowledge, skill, and habits of thinking that support optimal academic success.

  Because we understand that our students’ adult lives are directly influenced by their experiences during these teenage years, our Middle Years Programme is designed to facilitate opportunities that nurture in students a strong desire to persist in challenges and explore new possibilities. The school’s students grow toward academic independence and self-reliance through a carefully orchestrated program that challenges and supports each student individually. Fundamental to our program is fostering in each of our students the confidence that they are capable of continued learning and intellectual growth. Our small school environment and student-centered approach to teaching help our experienced faculty to carefully adapt to teenagers’ broad spectrum of social, emotional, and physical needs.

  Vital to their becoming true global citizens, our learning community is a rich training ground for understanding others. Here, we establish the caring and respectful relationships that foster and develop positive personal characteristics such as honesty, respect, and an appreciation of the differences in one another.  Community service helps reinforce in Oregon Trail Academy students the importance of safeguarding their environment and the world in which they are growing.

  For more information on the MYP programme please click here for the link to the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO) site.

   

  MYP Coordinator: Emily Hafer

  emily.hafer@ortrail.k12.or.us