Academics

The Urban Scholars Program

Academics

The purpose of Urban Scholars is to provide talented urban students with the academic skills and the motivation to achieve at the limits of their potential. Our overarching goal is to enable our students to assume positions of leadership and achievement in society. To this end, our academic program is governed by the following core goals:

To a graduating Urban Scholar, critical thinking is a habit of mind that is both creative and analytical.
A graduating Urban Scholar expresses his or her thinking effectively in both written and oral form.
Competency, confidence and resourcefulness in academic settings and beyond are hallmarks of every graduating Urban Scholar.
A graduating Urban Scholar respects human dignity, accepts responsibility for his/her actions and exercises his/her rights and responsibilities as a citizen.

Middle School
Specifically, the Middle School Component of Urban Scholars focuses on developing students’ core science and math skills to prepare them to take advantage of advanced study in those areas in high school, college and beyond.
(Click here for sample middle school courses.)

High School
The High School Component, on the other hand, has development of reading, writing and critical thinking skills at the center of its curriculum.
(Click here for sample high school courses.)

Summer Institute
During the Summer Institute, however, students of all ages are required to take a balance of courses to expand their skill and knowledge base in a wide range of disciplines.

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Sample Middle School Courses

Students make MCAS self-help booklet
The MCAS test is on everyone’s mind, especially the minds of students and educators. So Urban Scholars middle schoolers decided to help their classmates out by creating a booklet, complete with sample questions and solutions and test preparation tips. While researching and writing the booklet, the students strengthened their own understanding of what they needed to master in order to succeed on the eighth grade MCAS math test. The booklets will be distributed to students home schools and to other UMass Boston pre-collegiate programs.

Annual Science Fair
Our academic calendar includes a winter term when middle school students divide up into teams and compete in the annual science fair. Students work with facilitators with expertise in various science fields to come up with research questions, develop hypotheses, design experiments, collect data, analyze results, and present it all in the science fair judged by guest experts. Recent projects have explored the anatomy of cats through dissection, inquired about the properties of light using kaleidoscopes, developed and raced solar cars, and dissected cow eyeballs to learn more about the anatomy and mechanics of vision.

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Sample High School Courses

Critical Thinking!
Within the first two terms of joining Urban Scholars, students are required to take a critical thinking course. The course can take on many forms, but the emphasis is on students developing the ability to look critically at the world around them and hone their skills in asking questions, analyzing information and drawing conclusions.

A recent critical thinking class emphasized understanding the Greek roots of democracy and examining current American government and society in light of such historical knowledge.

Another critical thinking class took a more philosophical approach and focused on the foundations of logic and constructing sound arguments, as well as identifying weak ones.

SAT Prep
Urban Scholars in their junior and senior years focus even more closely on preparation for college by taking an SAT I preparation class during junior year, mixing in at least one university course, and participating in a senior research seminar class which emphasizes integrating reading, research and writing along the model of a college seminar.

Research Classes
A recent senior research seminar focused on exploring “the banality of evil“ by delving into the lives of people who committed atrocities during the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide.

Another recent senior-level course examined the writing and art of people in exile from their native lands, whether due to emigration or forced exile.

Creating our Web Site!
You’re looking at the product of yet another Urban Scholars course. Students, staff and instructors have worked together to develop, produce, design and maintain this web site. Students learned to work with Dreamweaver and Fireworks software, and developed their organization, interviewing, writing and people skills. We hope you think we’ve done some good work.

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with images