New High Schools

Project Driven Curriculum

Jenny Morgan designed this activity to stimulate deep thinking around a topic.  Download project_driven_curriculum_j_morgan_nxpowerlite.ppt

One Laptop per Child

The goal of this group founded by Nicholas Negroponte: To provide children around the world with new opportunities to explore, experiment and express themselves. read more

New 3Rs

From: Gates Foundation

An old expression says that children need to learn the 3Rs: readin’, ‘ritin’, and ‘rithmetic. Today, however, two-thirds of ninth graders will leave high school without the English and math skills to handle college or land a job that can support a family. This statistic has devastating consequences for our young people and for our country.

The good news is we know how to fix our broken high schools. We must base them on a brand new set of 3Rs, identified by education experts as the key ingredients of an effective education:

• Rigor: all students need the chance to succeed at challenging classes, such as algebra, writing, and chemistry
• Relevance: courses and projects must spark student interest and relate clearly to their lives in today’s rapidly changing world
• Relationships: all students need adult mentors who know them, look out for them, and push them to achieve

These new 3Rs are the building blocks for a redesigned system of high schools, one that will truly prepare graduates for college, work, and citizenship.

Rigor, relevance, and relationships aren’t like the individual answers on a multiple choice test: schools can’t just pick the one that fits best. They must choose all of the above. That’s the only way education reform can work.

And it does work. The best high schools in the United States have already put the 3Rs to work with incredible success.

• Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) Schools
  KIPP schools are founded on the principle that all students can achieve when schools set high expectations, demand results, and provide opportunities for students to excel.
• High Tech High Schools
  These unique, rigorous charter schools integrate technology and pre-engineering throughout the curriculum, and strive to increase the number of disadvantaged students who study math and engineering.
• Withrow University High School
  At Cincinnati’s Withrow University High School, students start ninth grade by going to college.
• Denver School of Science and Technology (DSST)
  In today’s world, young people need a strong background in science and technology. DSST, a small, diverse high school, is giving students exactly that.
• Bronx Laboratory School
  In a city whose graduation rate is a dismal 55 percent, Bronx Lab is committed to making sure its students graduate, go on to college, and succeed in life.
  

Getting Serious about Play

It seems Scotland public schools are in for an overhaul according to a recent BBC News article, School lessons to focus on play.

Schools will still use traditional methods when necessary to teach pupils to read, write and count. But the Scottish Executive also wants teachers to use play-based techniques.

Isn’t this a refreshing change?  I wonder how many students in the US will have to fall on the sword of external motivation and come up swinging or apathetic before the balance shifts toward valuing children over scores?  I continue to  be impressed and influenced by the work of Edward Deci and  Richard Ryan on intrinsic motivation.  Read their paper Self-Determination Theory and the Facilitation of Intrinsic Motivation, Social Development, and Well-Being  (downloadable from their Web site).  While there, view what should be mandatory reading for every politician making educational legislation: The High-Stakes Testing Controversy: “Higher Standards” Can Prompt Poorer Education.

Source:  http://www.tommarch.com/ozblog/2006/12/19/getting-serious-about-play/

Less Is More

Schools can demand rigorous intellectual work from students only if they are willing to forgo the goal of superficial content coverage. Successful schools follow the Coalition of Essential Schools’ (1994) guiding principle of “less is more,” carefully choosing what to focus on so that students gain in-depth understanding, rather than simply exposure to large quantities of information. In-depth study does not imply haphazard selection of a few interesting ideas to focus on. Instead, topics are judiciously selected to provide a framework for many related key ideas, so that students come away with an understanding of the core ideas of the academic disciplines they are studying.

At an effective small school, “less is more” applies not only to curricular choices, but also to the entire school program. Small schools simply cannot offer the breadth of choices that their large counterparts can if they want also to personalize instruction. They must make deliberate choices about what is most essential, and do those important things well. Successful small schools also supplement their own core offerings with out-of-school experiences such as community service, internships, and courses at local colleges. These programs, which require partnerships with community-based organizations and other agencies, allow a small school to provide a more well-rounded education and to give students the opportunity to understand the world in which they are growing up.

Source:  http://schoolredesign.net/srn/server.php?idx=225&page=3

Project-Based Learning

One strategy for linking the curriculum to real-world issues is through project-based learning, where students are engaged in challenging tasks that usually involve knowledge and skills from more than one academic discipline. These tasks require students to work independently to solve complex problems, and they culminate in real-world products.

Source:  http://schoolredesign.net/srn/server.php?idx=225&page=3

Authentic Assessment

There is evidence that more authentic assessment and teaching can change student outcomes. For example, in a study of more than 2,000 students in 23 restructured schools, most of them in urban areas, Newmann, Marks, and Gamoran (1995) found much higher levels of achievement on complex performance tasks for students who experienced what these researchers termed “authentic pedagogy” – instruction focused on active learning in real-world contexts calling for higher-order thinking, consideration of alternatives, extended writing, and an audience for student work. A recent analysis of national data found that students in restructured schools where “authentic instruction” was widespread experienced greater achievement gains on conventional tests (Lee, Smith, & Croninger, 1995).

Source:  http://schoolredesign.net/srn/server.php?idx=225

A School Should Offer

A school should offer "a rich and interesting curriculum full of powerful ideas and experiences aimed at inspiring its students with the desire to know more, a curriculum that sustains students' natural drive to make sense of the world and trusts in their capacity to have an impact upon it."
-- Deborah Meier, The Power of Their Ideas

Rigor: What Does It Mean to You?

The Big Picture School is built around three values:  Relationship - Rigor - Relevance.  Rigor seems to be the most ambiguous word there so we went googling for more information about what this word means in this context.  We found an excellent article by Nancy Lundsgaard where she expands the understanding of rigorous learning by sharing examples and asking readers to think of their own experiences of it.  Here's one example:

An Afternoon of Frog Anatomy

I attended Bingham Academy, a missionary school in Ethiopia, up through the seventh grade, and I would use the word “

rigorous” to describe most of my learning there. The teachers had high expectations for us, and we absorbed, on many levels, what they presented to us. Learning at Bingham was as much emotional and physical as it was intellectual.  One afternoon in my sixth grade year, a science teacher went through a frog dissection with me and a friend. It was one of the most exciting afternoons of my life, and I will never forget frog anatomy...ever.  Rigor is, I think, an experience. It stretches your mind, engages your body and soul. At Bingham, every time I thought my mind was full, I found I could make room for something else. Rigor makes you want to get up in the morning and learn something new.

Deborah Turner

Coupeville School Board

Lundsgaard winds up providing three qualities of rigorous learning:

•  Active, either through conversation or hands-on or minds-on activity.  There’s questioning and discovery going on.

•  Deep rather than broad; project- based. The learners are digging into a topic or project.

•  Engaging. Either on his or her own or with the help of a teacher, each learner has made a real connection with the material to be learned. In every case, there’s a sense that the learning was “hard but satisfying.” 

Download rigor_defined.doc

Fixing a Suet Diet

This is a post from John Blue, an innovation consultant with a passion for education.

I have been participating in Viewpoints Research Insititue's (http://www.vpri.org/ ) SqueakFests in Chicago these last several years. While the SqueakFest is focused on a bit of technology (Squeak (http://www.squeakland.org/ )) the majority of the conversation at the event is about the people (teachers, students, parents, etc) and their goal of helping kids create and develop powerful ideas.

At the 2006 SqueakFest (http://interactive.colum.edu/partners/squeakfest/ ), Dr. Seymour Papert was the invited speaker. He shared his thoughts on education as it stands today and what must be done to really change. One interesting story he told that got a good laugh was from an event several years ago when Alan Kay and SeymourPapert were both keynote speakers at a conference on computers and education. Seymour, during his keynote, stated that he hoped that this would be "the last conference on computers and education" because he felt that the focus on the computer was driving behavior in education the wrong way. The comment that hit home (and got the laugh) was "There are no conferences on paper and education.".

Seymour's talked at length about education in the USA and the approach being taken to "fix" the "system". He believed that fixing it is not the approach; through a parable he expressed his thought: The people of a fictional country only ate suet. While suet is edible it is not the best for long term health (lots of fat). So the doctors in this country focused on making things to add to the suet to make it a better food so that the lives and health of the people improved.

A change occurred in the country where connections with the outside world improved and new and better foods could be brought in; greens, fruits, vegetables, meats, etc. The leaders of the country asked the suet doctors to design a diet with the new foods coming in from the outside that would be good for the people. However, the suet doctors did not know anything about the new foods, they only knew suet. So they continued to focus on improving the suet food additives. Seymour equated the education professionals of the USA to the suet doctors; when a new and improved opportunity for a new way to educate children presented itself, the educators continued to focus on improving the current model and system, instead of taking the opportunity to latch on to other methods of education.

Seymour said "It is easy to think something is impossible ... what pushes us to do the impossible? A crisis, panic or pressure." He eluded that the education system in the USA is headed for a crisis but not there yet so the "suet doctors will continue."

http://www.innovationcreation.us/2006/07/innovation-in-education.html