What you will need for this course
- Access to a computer
- Paper or digital notebook
- Pen/Pencil as needed
- The desire to know more about how American energy is sourced, transported, and consumed than 98% of your fellow citizens
BENERGY course methodology
How we make it happen for home-schooled, high school level students
We use two primary methods, Think-Pair-Share and Think-Write-Reflect, both common teaching methods that enable students to easily digest, understand, interpret, and share the lessons learned through the Benergy Course material.
Think-Pair-Share is an effective and widely used strategy in high school education adapted by BEN for homeschooling. It provides opportunities for active learning, critical thinking, improved communication, and deeper engagement with the curriculum. This collaborative strategy allows a student to process new information individually, discuss it with a family member or peer in a less intimidating setting, and then share their refined ideas with a wider group.
The Think-Write-Reflect model is a metacognitive strategy that helps students process information and deepen their understanding by moving from individual thought to structured writing and, finally, to a synthesis of their learning. How BEN incorporates it into a lesson plan:
Think: Students individually and silently process a prompt. This is a time for quiet internal processing to organize thoughts before articulating them.
Write: Students write down their ideas in response to the prompt. Writing cements their initial thoughts and can reveal gaps or ambiguities in their thinking.
Reflect: Students analyze their own writing and thinking process. This can be done alone, in pairs, or in small groups to gain new perspectives.
Other teaching methodologies used in the Benergy Course are:
Inquiry-Based Learning (IBL), Project-Based Learning (PBL), and Citizen Science Learning (CSL)
These methodologies are effective for homeschool, high school curricula because they foster deeper engagement through hands-on, real-world experiences, develop critical 21st-century skills like problem-solving and communication, promote student-led learning, and increase knowledge retention compared to passive learning. These methods empower students to become active, confident learners by connecting academic subjects to authentic contexts and providing opportunities for independent discovery and real-world impact.
Testing: The Benergy Course uses Diagnostic, Formative, and Summative assessments throughout
Diagnostic assessments, also known as pre-tests, are tests that assesses prior knowledge. Formative assessments, monitor student learning to test if material is understood.
Summative assessments, evaluates learning and performance at the end of an instructional unit or course.