BRAPAAS6 is the class name given to the sixth grade APAAS class at Brywood Elementary in the Irvine Unified School District. APAAS, Alternative Placement for Academically Advanced Students, is a program created by the school district to serve students whose learning needs would be difficult to meet in a traditional classroom with a GATE cluster. For more information about GATE and APAAS in the district, visit IUSD GATE.
Our classroom is one of constant activity. We are currently a Bring Your Own Device class infusing technology across the curriculum. We believe in learning through application and action. To that end, many of our units are cross-curricular projects designed to solve a problem, answer an essential question, or apply knowledge in adult workplace situations. Each class has a website of its own used to showcase student work. At this time, only work without student images is displayed on the site to protect the privacy of the students.
We believe in teamwork and collaboration with individual accountability. While many of our projects are completed, at least in part, with others, each student is held accountable for his or her own work habits and work product. Why? Because while we accept and embrace the idea that we need to work together to draw from each other's strengths and support each other's weaknesses, we believe each of us is responsible for our own learning and content mastery. Learning is not a passive event. It takes work and effort on the part of each individual learner, as well as the combined effort of the team.