User:PrincipalKVA

PrincipalKVA is the username of Derek MacDonald, Ph.D., the Principal of King's View Academy (KVA) in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. KVA is a small, private, university preparatory school with an enrollment of less than 30 students from grades 7 to 12. Derek holds a Ph.D. in Adult Education from the University of Georgia. His background includes public, private, and university education/teaching. Derek is the creator of the current model of Education/Learning at KVA. This model is based on Self-Directed Learning principles, self-pacing, flexibility, the reduction or elimination of sources of anxiety for students, and an assessment model that only gives credit for mastery of curricular outcomes (and does not remove credit where credit has been evidenced). At KVA all students are given the Curricular Outcome documents for each of their courses, which outline exactly what knowledge is desired. Students can opt for any assessment, as long as the teacher is able to observe and evaluate the evidence of the extent of mastery of the outcome(s). At KVA teachers' primary goal is to support individual learning, and the extent of a teacher's content expertise (who is an expert in the specific content that he/she teaches) is more important to students (in a self-directed learning environment) as a resource than that teacher's Education Degree and Teaching License. Derek calls his teachers at KVA "Content Experts." He believes that a student who is an effective self-directed learner is capable of learning any of the content. An effective self-directed learner can discover and accept expectations, set long and short-term goals, maintain and track academic progress toward those goals, effectively use resources available (including human, online and print resources), is part of the decision-making around his/her assessment, can motivate him/herself, and is an effective learner. Derek can be reached by email at principal@mykva.ca