“Rising Higher” with spiritually based character education at Principia includes the following activities:

School

1. Curriculum: Understanding by Design
   Beginning with “big ideas” and “essential questions,” teachers identify what students should understand, know, and be able to do as a result of their academic work. Working “backwards” from there, every element of the School’s curriculum is being examined and revised to ensure that it serves these learning goals as part of a connected sequence of interdisciplinary learning experiences.
    
2. Supporting diverse learning needs: Differentiated Instruction
   Students start at different points and take different paths towards demonstrated understanding.  Recognizing this, teachers must differentiate their instruction so that all students are engaged, challenged, and advancing efficiently toward mastery. Supporting ongoing training for teachers is a priority—this allows for strengthening, developing, and assessing our teachers' abilities and skills in differentiated instruction.
    
3. New and reconfigured learning spaces: Master planning/Middle School program revision and facility renovation
   The first phase of the Middle School renovation—completed in 2010—established new space for the Lower and Middle School library and art room and laid the groundwork for improvements to support instructional, social, and administrative activities. It also established a more cohesive, energizing identity for the Middle School.
    
4. Technology integration:Computers for all students, grades 1–12
   Every Principia sixth–twelfth grade student has a tablet computer to use throughout the school year. Lower School students have computers in their classrooms—one for every two students. Training and support programs for teachers and students ensure that the computers are used to further our efforts to differentiate instruction and that students are taught how to use technology wisely.
    
5. Curriculum: Increase cross-curricular collaboration
   In place of a series of disconnected lessons on disparate subjects, we are integrating instruction and the learning experience across academic disciplines—engaging subject matter from multiple perspectives and fostering a deeper, broader understanding. Initial examples include multi-discipline teaching teams in the Middle School and an Upper School Freshman Year Experience.
    
6. Curriculum: Hands-on experiences for all grades
   Understanding increases as students learn experientially, as they make real-world observations and apply what they’re learning in hands-on exercises. Lesson plans are being reviewed and revised with the goal of going beyond the classroom walls in ways that engage students at the practical level and require their active participation in the learning process. New multi-day educational trips for several grades and a high ropes course for PE are two initial examples.

College

1. Curriculum: New general education requirements, learning themes, and outcomes
   Implementing improved general education requirements and the recently established learning themes is vital to ensuring that Principia graduates are equipped for effective service in today's world. Moving to an outcome-focused curriculum and advancing our assessment practices help ensure success in this effort.
    
2. Recruiting, developing, and retaining outstanding educators: Teaching Excellence Center
   Expanding the recently established Teaching Excellence Center (TEC) means that all faculty will receive support in course design and training in instructional strategies. This will also support the growth of faculty learning communities—faculty groups learning collaboratively to advance their knowledge and teaching skills.
    
3. Supporting diverse learning needs: Student Learning Center
   Evolving the College’s Writing Center into a Student Learning Center will support students as they develop their reading, math, public speaking, and research skills. This will help the College continue to meet the academic needs of a wide variety of incoming students while increasing overall scholarship and academic achievement.
    
4. Recruiting, developing, and retaining outstanding educators: Academic credentials and faculty scholarship
   Our goal is that 75 percent of faculty will have their terminal degree by the end of the 2012–13 academic year. In addition, increased support for faculty attendance at conferences and for presentations, research, and publishing will build faculty scholarship.
    
5. Curriculum: Increase experiential coursework
   Strengthening the academic experience through hands-on, immersive experiences has proven successful with the woolly mammoth project, Sugarbush Management, Education Department blocks, and the solar car. The College will continue to add programs such as the new in-country intensive language training and field research projects in the sciences.
    
6. New and reconfigured learning spaces: Master planning
   The College has developed a master plan that sets forth a vision for the future of the campus and its buildings. Due to imminent maintenance needs, replacement or renovation of the academic core buildings is the first focus in the master plan. The long-term plan identifies concepts for specific campus improvements that could take place over the next 10 to 20 years.