METODOLOGY
The methodology of Colegio Internacional Ausiàs March is one of its primary distinguishing elements. Compared to the traditional educational model, with a clearly logocentric character (all that matters is the acquisition of knowledge), the School, keeping its focus on the obvious importance this acquisition of knowledge has for its students, also sets as essential objectives that they are capable of “learning to learn” during their stay, with the idea that “what you learn” is just as important as “how you learn it,” given that “how you learn” gives them abilities and skills as important as the concepts they are learning. As an unavoidable objective, the School also places great importance on the teaching of values, and on the idea of a comprehensive educational project that surpasses the mere process of instruction.
At the methodological level, and being consistent with its liberal spirit and with the objectives established in the previous paragraph, it stands for a personalised teaching system that places special attention on the learning processes and evolution. Thus, active methods are especially applied by understanding that real knowledge is a process of self-education in which one ends up being the principal craftsman of oneself. Children learn best when they do it first-hand – experimenting, observing, reflecting – through a self-activity process based fundamentally on reasoning as a learning acquisition element, and not just by memory as it is done traditionally. The idea is not to use the acquisition of knowledge as a starting point, but rather to arrive at it as a destination, as between this starting point and the acquisition of knowledge there exists a series of processes and proceedings that are as important for the students as the acquisition of knowledge itself. That determines the usage of all the methodological elements the teacher has available (textbook, laboratories, notes, digital blackboards, computers, etc.) in such a way that the student learns to work with all of them and can choose that which best suits their own learning style.
All of this leads to a much more active methodology, which is therefore more motivating than traditional systems.