Insight Colearning at a glance

At Insight, we put students front and center. We provide a place for students to belong and authentic opportunities for student leadership. We offer interesting and compelling courses taught by expert teachers. We make it safe to take academic risks, and we recognize and celebrate growth. At Insight, students plot out and pursue an educational journey that’s meaningful and tailored to their goals. Students graduate from Insight ready to tackle complex problems because they already have.

The Insight Story

Insight Colearning Center is a non-profit, learner-centered school founded in 2018. Using a lean start-up approach, a small group of experienced educators, students, and caregivers committed to building a school that would respond to the needs of its students and community. Together, we developed an evidence-based model that emphasizes learning for understanding and lifts the ceiling on what is possible for curious and engaged students. Our vision is for students to leave Insight competent, confident, and connected with their communities. To date, we have served over 50 students, and we celebrated our third graduating class in May 2022. We have done all of this while offering sliding scale tuition and meeting the financial need of every student and family that has wanted to attend. We are committed to learning from and sharing with other educators in our community and beyond who share a common vision for a holistic, mastery-based education that emphasizes process over product and inspires and prepares our teens for lifelong learning.

Insight Students

At Insight, we believe teens are highly capable. When given agency and space to experiment paired with high quality instruction, mentorship, and a place to belong, teens are able to leverage the opportunity of formal schooling to enhance their intellectual and social development, discover their true passions, and build their capacity for independent living in a complex world. Insight students often enter with an innate curiosity, a variety of strong interests, and a keen awareness of the issues of our time. But, due to the scope, pace, and reward systems of traditional schooling, they’ve often had to pursue their interests and commitments outside of school. At Insight, teens find an intellectual home-- courses that go deep and emphasize interdisciplinary connections, teachers and peers who challenge and extend them, and an assessment system that recognizes growth and provides actionable feedback towards mastery-- and an institution that helps frame and support their work on the things they care about.

Insight Faculty

Insight’s faculty and administrators are lifelong learners who are committed to cultivating a learning community. As instructors, they design seminar-style and experiential courses that invite students to explore well-specified subject matter while learning and honing the skills of their discipline. Our instructors are not only experts in their field, but also experts in the art and science of teaching. Scientists teach science. Historians teach history. This means that they are able to pose questions and guide students in constructing new knowledge that is rooted in the theories, principles, and frameworks of the subject. As a result, students learn when and how to apply their knowledge and how to make sense of their mistakes. Even if they don’t become a historian, they learn to think like one, which pays off far beyond high school. 

Insight Curriculum

Insight’s curriculum prioritizes what’s often called “deep learning,” or learning for understanding. When students learn for understanding, instead of just memorizing for a test, they are able to transfer their knowledge and continue building on it over time. They are able to apply their learning flexibly outside of the classroom in real-world situations. We offer courses in all of the core disciplines: Cultural Studies, Social Studies, Mathematics, Natural Sciences, World Languages, and Health and Physical Education, and Insight graduates meet all core requirements of the UNC system. Our courses are connected through an interdisciplinary theme each year. Within the courses, students work towards mastery of course objectives and receive ongoing feedback to help them meet those objectives. Through their coursework, students have the opportunity to pursue independent scholarship, working their way up from the Conduct phase to Focus to Insight.