School-Examples

= = 1. **High Tech High in San Diego**, CA. Students participate in a project called the Blood Project--interdisciplinary, science, art, technology, social issues, service-learning, etc. The Blood Project represents a great example of the 21st Century Classroom--collaboration, interdisciplinary, etc. Take a look at the video. =media type="custom" key="2897635"=

Here is a more general description of the overall program at High Tech High School in San Diego, CA. media type="custom" key="3136682"

Project-based Learning

2. Raindrops to Rivers // "Kentucky is rich in water resources with nearly 90,000 miles of rivers and streams and 637,000 acres of wetlands. We all have an impact on the quality of our water. Runoff from fields, lawns, and pavement carries oil, chemicals, agricultural waste, and other hazardous materials from our watersheds to our rivers. Kentucky’s watersheds eventually drain into the Mississippi River, so the runoff from Kentucky watersheds has the potential to impact water quality in the Gulf of Mexico."

This Professional Development Resource uses authentic video of Kentucky classrooms to showcase high quality instruction on watersheds and nonpoint source pollution. Also included are links to Kentucky Core Content and Program of Studies, lesson materials, and additional resources. // This is an interesting curriculum model (PBS sponsored) that takes on an important theme to teach students in a variety of different domains. Some things need work from my perspective, but all-in-all it is a very strong program and model--scaffolded for ES through HS.

[|Raindrops to Rivers]

3. Carneige Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center "The Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) at Carnegie Mellon University offers a two-year Masters of Entertainment Technology degree, jointly conferred by Carnegie Mellon University's College of Fine Arts and School of Computer Science. Carnegie Mellon is relatively unique among U.S. Universities in being able to offer this kind of degree, as we have both top-quality fine arts and top-quality technology programs. The high concept behind both the Center and the Masters program is to have technologists and fine artists work together on projects that produce artifacts that are intended to entertain, inform, inspire, or otherwise affect an audience/guest/player/participant. Because the larger challenge we face in authoring in new media is bringing together different disciplines, our degree program is driven by trying to do this most effectively."

The Winds of Orbis project at CMU-ETC is a collaboration between computer technology, art, dance graduate students. "Step into the shoes of an onscreen hero and battle ferocious enemies, avoid obstacles, climb amongst the floating islands in the sky and rediscover the power of your ancestors. The world is at your feet... can you save it?"

[|Winds of Orbis] [|CMU-ETC School-Homepage]

Video Gallery of projects from CMU-ETC--take a look at the Ben Franklin interview video, an interesting marriage between technology, history, and human relations.

[|ETC Gallery of Student Video Projects]

4. High Tech High School in San Diego, CA. This project is in an 11th grade biology class that is collaborating with a wildlife management group in Africa to design DNA fingerprinting on tissue from animals as a way to identify them--used to help with the poaching problem in Africa.

[|DNA Fingerprinting in HTH Collaborative Project]

5. The Zoo School, or the School of Environmental Studies in Eagan, MN, is devoted to linking the study of the environment to a liberal arts program. Their focus is on pedagogy that is interdisciplinary, hands-on, and integrated into the real world of the students. Their curriculum is project-based and applied through service to the community. The architecture of the school was designed with the idea of personalized learning. They believe students come in as "students" and leave as "learners." They do projects with the local parks association and have a unique relationship with the Minneapolis Zoo (they are on their campus). There is a link to a video and article in Edutopia.

[|Zoo School in Eagan, MN]

6. This link will take you to an article and video on San Fernando Education Technology Team. The school, through the work of a teacher, has become a leader in the application of multimedia technology integrated into the classroom experience. Their programs are interdisciplinary, project-based, service oriented, collaborative and student-centered. It is an interesting model to see and envision how it might work in a different school culture. The teacher talks about rubrics, planning, production, presentation, and assessment. Very interesting endeavor.

[|Loud and Clear: Students Find Their Voices Through Multimedia]

When you link directly to the school's homepage, go to ICAN, and there you will see nine pages of videos and multimedia projects produced by students at SFETT. The reference to the video, SnowFight III, is on page 4 of ICAN.

[|Link directly to the school]

7. This link is about San Francisco School for the Arts. They have a program that has partnered with businesses in the community that link the dayto-day learning in the classroom with real world business--internships. The video talks about the traditional lecture-based classroom compared to the design challenges of SFSA programs that try and apply the knowledge from the classroom. They also talk about the idea that in their program a C grade is not acceptable because students are working on real problems that require high level effort and work--because it is integrated into the real world there is a desire to "do their best." Quote from the article, "These high school juniors and seniors, halfway through the yearlong design program cosponsored by the Architectural Foundation of San Francisco (AFSF) and the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD), had just presented their proposal to create a series of historically themed tiles for the city's newly redesigned Pier 14, a project they had been brainstorming for more than a month."

[|Immersing Students in Civic Education]

8. Martin Luther King Middle School in CA has a 6th grade project that involves the edible garden--an outdoor classroom that allows teachers and students to integrate the different disciplines in authentic ways. The garden classroom is used as a vehicle for integrated, student-centered, project-based learning. It seems to be the type of classroom environment that could be replicated at any school within the context of more traditional teaching. They learn cooperation, collaboration, and community. They learn about composting, gardening, mathematics. This vehicle allows for differentiated-learning and teaching. The origin of the program is also interesting. Great model!!!

[|The Edible Schoolyard: Seed-to-Table Learning]

9. I love this example from a middle school in Oregon. "Students construct their own knowledge." I love this example for a 21st century school because it draws on interdisciplinary learning, connected-learning, bridging to the outside world, video, collaboration, etc. Check out the video of King Middle School's project-based learning. It fulfills most of the skills outlined in the 21st Century Skills Partnership. //A Product of Learning: Representing Their Work Through Tech is the title of the article and video//.

[|King Middle School]

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