Examples: Students in Union City make intense use of
technology to research and present their findings. They take
"virtual" field trips by way of the Internet. One group of math
students has even created a Web site to teach younger students
pre-algebra and geometry. And the district is trying to find the
funds to outfit every student with a laptop or handheld, which
would make Union City's kids the most wired in the country.
Teacher Sakoutis' home was wired by the school system so that she
can communicate with students after hours. On many evenings, her
charges are online with finished assignments and questions. "Kids
need to see this is so much a part of their everyday life,"
Sakoutis says. "Like opening the refrigerator."
Meanwhile in some of
Chicago's poorest Southside schools, a
partnership with the
University of Chicago has equipped teachers
not to teach technology, but to teach using technology. The Chicago
Public Schools-University of Chicago Internet Project not only
works with teachers to develop an online library of research
materials, but also created a set of Web-based lessons and projects
using the art, artifacts, and research of Chicago's renowned Art
Institute and Field Museum of Natural History. Students and
teachers have access at any time to the museums' resources, without
going outside the classroom for a field trip.
And at New Technology High School in
Napa,
California, where almost
half the students come from communities outside Napa, students
present projects throughout the year to show what they've learned -
everything from Web sites with original graphics to PowerPoint
presentations with original
digital photography and text. Deadlines
for projects are sometimes deceptively far away, forcing students
to develop time-management skills.
INDEPENDENCE
Why: Businesses want workers who can manage their time and
who have the self-motivation and creative ability to solve problems
on their own. Students accustomed to reading and regurgitating
don't develop these independent thinking skills.
Examples: Each High Tech High student is part of an
independent study group, a different one each school term. The only
assignment is a long-term project that must be complete at term's
end. "If you're responsible and manage your time, it's great; it
just depends on how motivated you are," says Adrian Gardner, a
sophomore at the
San Diego charter school. "You aren't able to
procrastinate."
Meanwhile, at the Metropolitan Regional Career and Technical
Center, or the MET, a state charter school in
Providence, Rhode
Island, each student's curriculum is entirely independent of the
other students. Students, one-quarter of whom are drawn from towns
and rural areas across the state, formulate a learning plan at the
beginning of each quarter, in conference with their parents and
counselors, to make sure they are proceeding toward specific
learning goals. They're able to pursue their own interests through
independent projects, with the help of mentors in their chosen
fields, and then display their new-found knowledge through written
reports and presentations.