Each aspect of Summit Learning is designed to develop core outcomes that contribute to well-being and prepare students to lead a fulfilled life. Those outcomes are as follows:

• Cognitive Skills: students need universal skills for real-world tasks.

Math Concepts: students need conceptual understanding, procedural fluency, and application skills.

• Habits of Success: students need social-emotional skills and mindsets that support academic and non-academic pursuits.

• Content Knowledge: students need to know how to learn and apply new knowledge.

As educators, we love it when former students reach out and tell us how they’re doing years later. (Or, maybe you appreciate it when a parent gives you an update on how your former fifth graders are doing in high school.) When this happens, it’s worth noting that we aren’t curious if students can recall the Pythagorean theorem or provide the definition of pathos, logos, and ethos. Instead, we want to know who our students are now: “What do you do now? What is your life like? Are you happy?”

Although we probably don’t say “Tell me about your well-being”, that is precisely the reason we ask these questions. We want to understand their well-being across a variety of categories: health, social-emotional, identity, career, finances, and citizenship. And that’s because we want students to achieve well-being not just this school year but twenty years from now as well.

Summit Learning is designed to explicitly teach skills that lead toward short- and long-term well-being. That’s what those outcomes above are all about. This approach expands the definition of success beyond academics to include the social, emotional, and cognitive development of students.

In the Summit Learning program, teachers work daily to develop students’ skills, mindsets, and habits. We want students to learn how to flex a growth mindset and exhibit perseverance. We also want them to master essential knowledge and develop crucial skills that will lead to success in college, career, and citizenship. And since life presents obstacles regularly, we want them to learn how to accept set-backs, reflect, and approach each challenge better prepared to succeed.

The Summit Learning outcomes are designed to teach the skills ⁠students need in order to  self-direct⁠ and overcome obstacles. Using research and practitioner-based tools, we know this approach helps students in the short term to overcome academic challenges, connect to the school community, and navigate adolescence. In the long term, students are better prepared to succeed in the complexity of adulthood and use their agency to anticipate and handle life’s inevitable setbacks.

So, years from now, when our students reach out and check in, we can look back knowing that we ensured that they were fully prepared.

• Summit Learning is designed to develop core outcomes that contribute to well-being and prepare students to lead a fulfilled life.
• Cognitive Skills / Math Concepts
• Habits of Success
• Content Knowledge

• Summit Learning is designed to explicitly teach skills that lead toward short- and long-term well-being. 

• Students develop skills, mindsets, and habits that support their social, emotional, and cognitive development.