The Galileo School for Gifted Learning in Sanford, Florida, a charter school guided by the work of such prominent researchers as "flow" founder Mihaly Csikszentmihaly, PhD, and educational psychologist Joseph Renzulli, PhD, has won APA's 2015 Golden Psi Award. APA's Board of Educational Affairs (BEA) presents the $1,000 prize annually to a school that uses psychological science to promote academic achievement and social-emotional learning.
The Galileo School, founded by educational psychologist Michele Gregoire Gill, PhD, accepts any K–8 student, regardless of ability, through a lottery system. The 300-student school has a student-centered "voices and choices" curriculum that provides tailored opportunities for students to learn about what they are most interested in.
"Our unofficial tagline is ‘Nurturing the gifts of every child,'" says Gill, an associate professor in the School of Teaching, Learning and Leadership at the University of Central Florida. "The heart of the school is finding where kids' passions lie."
While the school's standard curriculum includes math, science and reading classes similar to the public school model, Galileo goes a step further by offering students "creative productivity workshops" on such topics as health, the environment and digital storytelling. These student-chosen courses push students' creativity and expand their interest in their required classes, says Tammy Hughes, PhD, a school psychologist who chairs the BEA Golden Psi selection committee.
"By offering a robotics elective, for example, the children are more motivated to learn math skills in class that can be applied to making the robots move," says Hughes.
The school also strongly emphasizes the need for teachers to structure each student's work so that it is neither too easy nor too difficult, and for teachers to be kind so that all students feel safe and encouraged, says Gill. "Kindness guides our hearts, and we will not renew the contracts of teachers if they are unkind, even if they are otherwise good teachers," she says.
Instructors also tap the expertise of educational psychology graduate students and professors through a professional development partnership with the University of Central Florida.
Gill, whose two sons attend Galileo, had the idea for the school when her oldest son started kindergarten. As a psychologist, she noticed that most public schools weren't using the best education research she studied in graduate school. So, Gill drummed up support from parents, politicians and fellow academics to create a school that would embrace quality educational research to guide teaching and learning. She opened Galileo in 2011.
Galileo's own research also guides the curriculum, says Gill. At the end of every school year, the board surveys students, teachers and parents on what works and what doesn't and uses that feedback to refine the next year's curriculum.
"Any school could do what we do" to foster students' passion for education, says Gill. "I would love to see more schools where children are given voices and choices in their learning."