Philadelphia is a city of neighborhoods. South Philadelphia has a mainly immigrant, working-class population, while North Philadelphia and areas west of University Park are rough and somewhat rundown. Some of the best older suburbs lie along the old Pennsylvania Railroad âMain Lineâ running to the west.
We use a different approach to the instruction which does not place a premium on time in class. We base our unit. of instruction on mastery of school subjects rather than on the time spent on them. In mastery learning, students. must demonstrate the knowledge of the subject to be learned before credit is given. We believe that mastery. learning provides the greatest opportunity for the students who are out of step with their coursework to catch up, or in many cases, to accelerate their high school program.
Explicit teaching is not just merely giving students clear directions or even stating the learning goals at the beginning of a lesson â it is a way of thinking about and acting out teaching and learning in a principled way throughout the lesson (from assessment through to planning, implementation and review).