At Colby, we strive to create student-centered classrooms with the teacher as the facilitator. In this model about 75% of a teacher's time is spend praising, encouraging initiatives, giving feedback, facilitating student communication, and helping students. About 20% is spent on giving instruction and questioning and less than 5% is spent on discipline.

In contrast, using traditional teacher-centered whole-class instruction methods, teachers spend about 70% of their time disciplining, lecturing, giving instructions, and asking questions. Only 30% of their time is spent praising, encouraging initiatives, giving feedback, facilitating student communication, and helping students. Students are expected to sit passively, refrain from interacting with each other, and to listen to the teacher. It rewards competition, not cooperation, and does not provide for a realistic way to help each student develop his/her own gifts and talents using his/her unique set of intelligences. Given these limitations, it's not surprising that many capable and bright students fail to thrive in traditional classrooms.

Colby classes begin each day in a morning circle where students and teacher discuss the day's plan along with other pertinent topics. Activities that get the brain and body moving in the right direction, called Energizers, are used throughout the day. Lessons are designed to engage many different kinds of intelligences to assure that all students master the material. Students are encouraged to approach problems from their own unique perspectives and to share their ideas and experiences. Throughout a lesson, the teacher may keep the entire class together, move students into their tribes, create new learning groups, or have them work individually. Lessons generally end with a reflective exercise where students internalize what they've learned and then get ready to transition to the next subject. Each day ends with a final class circle where students share what they've discovered, appreciated, and enjoyed about the day.

In a Colby class all students are engaged, participating, and learning!