MicroSociety

Msi delivers on-site and virtual professional development to public and private schools (prek-8), out-of-school time programs and youth development systems as well ass off-site technical support and coaching. To ensure services remain current, msi's training faculty meets continually to review best practices, lessons learned, breakthroughs in educational research, and to update curriculum and training materials. The resulting teacher-training model provides both national and regional consultant support that aligns with educational advances and efforts of the research and development ("r&d") work of msi.

Msi is currently developing two digital tools: 1) Microsociety 2.0, a customizable web portal that utilizes google technologies and a digital financial system created by custom software that our schools will be able to use to take their microsocieties online, and 2) the microeconomy game, a 3d online game that teaches math and advances career readiness. In 2022, we piloted Microsociety 2.0 in two schools.

A Microsociety school puts learning theory into practice. It connects real-world experiences with basic curriculum and aligns to the common core standards. Students apply what they learn in the classroom to real life, and teachers and principals make learning relevant so students want to be in school and succeed there. With student achievement as its guide, msi performs ongoing monitoring of its professional development impact and model implementation. To ensure high quality, successful programming, the activities of r&e are as follows: third party evaluation as part of the Microsociety 2.0 digital initiative, the organization retained two third party evaluators to assess student engagement and motivation, entrepreneurial skills, academic achievement, career readiness, and sense of belonging along. Star analysis and site certification msi uses star assessments and Microsociety sites are required to complete the star evaluation annually in order to remain certified as a Microsociety school. Both fidelity to structure and fidelity to processes are measured using an observer rating scale and allow the observer to make notes about actual student activity observed.

Curriculum & instructions to support its professional services, msi regularly updates its library of curriculum and routinely adds new components to meet the needs of students and educators in an ever-changing educational landscape. All curriculum and instructional resources align with standards and connect both to the increasingly complex real world of the Microsociety learning environment. Msi has been developing a new "heart" curriculum designed to instill respect, kindness, and fairness in our microsocieties and build cultures of belonging at school. It is also undertaking a major effort to update longstanding curricula on banking and many other topics, at once modernizing content and preparing lessons for digital delivery.