technologY

While many schools have STEM labs, Good Shepherd went in a totally different direction with the creation of SPARQ (Solving Problems, Asking RealWorld Questions) - a unique learning space where students at all grade levels use the latest advances in technology to enhance projects or create and gain new skills from leap motion, 3D modeling and printing, robotics, coding and circuitry, to rapid prototyping and film making.

Child by child, we harness technology to customize effective teaching for a multitude of learning styles. Hundreds of grade-level applications are supported by our educational technologists who know how to use them to enhance learning. They give our teachers a framework through which each child can engage in individualized and self-directed ways.

Our Classroom of the Earth (COE) program is outdoor education in a class of its own. It’s the original. It’s groundbreaking. The wilderness gets wilder as our students get older. Nature hikes in pre-K through first grade give way to a ten-day hiking/camping adventure in the Colorado Rocky Mountains in eighth grade. During their time at Good Shepherd, students will cumulatively hike over 50 miles, travel over 5,000 miles, canoe 10 miles, and raft 11 miles. You’ll be amazed at the places your children will go!

COE teaches our students that the world extends way beyond the “walls” of our everyday lives. Students not only learn about themselves, but about how their individual efforts impact the success of their peers. This is truly real world education, and nobody does it better than we do.

Our Spanish curriculum is creative, ambitious, and designed to go way beyond merely learning to speak the language. Because students start Spanish in pre-K, our Spanish curriculum is designed to dig deeper into cultural backgrounds, advanced sentence structure, and real world stories. Native speakers from South America visit our classes to tell all about their language and their lives. Due to our students’ comprehensive preparation, they are both conversationally proficient and culturally knowledgeable. Most of our graduates are placed in second-year Spanish or beyond in their first year of high school. A summer immersion program in Costa Rica is available for older students.

What happens at the crossroads of creative expression, academic freedom, and ample time? In a word, art, the way it’s done at Good Shepherd. We give generously to the arts here, with art and music classes alternating every day, starting in first grade. Creativity is free to blossom, and being creative becomes a habit without ever being mundane.

Orff Schulwerk is a process of teaching music that has been around for over one hundred years. It is beautiful in its simplicity. Based on things all children like to do - like clap, dance, sing, and keep a beat - music is made without constraint or convention. The Orff process is proven to make music relevant to children at all grade levels in a personal way, which can fuel their creativity as they grow and develop as artists.

Visual art class is held twice a week, every week of every year, at Good Shepherd. Beginning in lower school, students study painting, drawing, and sculpture. They learn principles of line, shape, form, color, texture, contrast, pattern, rhythm, and space. By middle school, we explore broader subjects, including two-and threedimensional design and printmaking.