West Junior High

Community Connections

NEH Interim Performance Report

http://busboy.sped.ukans.edu/~wjhs/connections/index.htm

The purpose of the NEH planning grant was to plan for and initiate improvement in teaching and learning of the humanities curriculum through professional collaboration, teacher training, student leadership and the seamless integration of instructional technologies into the curriculum. The theme woven throughout this project is the notion of "Community" and making "Connections" locally and beyond. The larger vision for the implementation phase is to generate a building-wide exemplary pedagogical model for student-centered, project-based learning and showcase it to a global audience (Appendix I).

(Click on: Community Connections, Interim Report)

In January, the group assembled at Watkins Museum with Steve Jansen, director of the museum and Steve White, social studies education professor at the University of Kansas. In attendance were two of Steve White’s students, social studies education majors at the University of Kansas assigned to the NEH project for the spring semester of 1999. The challenge was to develop a web presence that would showcase local and state history, support the notion of "Community Connections" and provide a dynamic site that could be used and expanded by a wide range of students over the next several years.

The vision building process was repeated and a model for the museum piece began to emerge (Appendix IV). The outcome includes two web-based strands. The first would showcase the history of Lawrence. The second strand would allow students to create an Internet "time capsule" recording first-hand accounts of events as they occur (Appendix V).

The initial three projects include the history of entertainment in Lawrence, immigration to Kansas and unsolved community mysteries. Museum resources are currently being digitized in these areas. The mystery project is posted on the web and has been used in seventh grade English classes (Appendix VI).

We are currently in discussions with the Lawrence Journal-World as it would like to assist in the effort to digitize documents at our local museums.

One particularly memorable posting was on February 14th. An English teacher posted a sample of the kind of writing she received from students asked to interview an older person about past dating customs. Her class had been studying Romeo and Juliet and dating practices during Elizabethan England. Tying this into the Lawrence community, kids were asked to do oral histories with some of our retired citizens to find out about dating practices in Lawrence. This was a heartwarming story and a terrific example of the constructivist student-centered learning that we are reaching for in this grant (Appendix VII).

The project will culminate in May with a curriculum evaluated and revised, both horizontally and vertically. This will ensure that outcomes are clearly defined, aligned with local and state standards, and that responsibilities for attaining them are understood by all stakeholders. This project, when completed, will be then posted on our Community Connections webpage, easily accessible to staff as well as parents and other community members (Appendix VII).

Developed by our partners at SCR*TEC, TrackStar is a web-based tool designed to help teachers organize web sites and assignments around a specific topic. TrackStar is organized into three frames that allow teachers to show a list of web-sites in the left vertical frame. As the student clicks through the sites, displayed in the large center frame, a short corresponding assignment is given in the frames along the top. West teachers have developed sixteen tracks to date that support our curriculum (Appendix IX).

Two BLISS (Building Level Instructional Skills Study) groups made up of six teachers each meet six half days during a semester. BLISS I is in its second year. The focus is on technology and cooperative learning and uses a Cognitive Coaching Model. The first year coaching was done with a partner, and now as a group during the second year. One teacher teaches a demonstration lesson to her class with the other five members observing. Then the BLISS group convenes in the conference room to discuss the observation. This model facilitates discussion and problem solving for ways to ensure success of all students (Appendix X).

BLISS II is our "Techie" BLISS team. This group also meets for six half days during the semester. Demonstrations of hardware and software are given by teachers and by some of our "student experts." BLISS members are given time for practice with feedback discussion of appropriate use in the curriculum. These teachers are forming partnerships with our Generation Why students to work on lesson design (Appendix XI).

One goal of the NEH planning grant was to help teachers improve the level at which students address humanities curriculum material by drastically reducing the time needed to determine the relevance of the source and the value of the substance of information. We were fortunate to be included as a pilot site for Xcize software. Xcize software developer, Forrest S. Higgs, Brosis Innovations, Inc, flew to Lawrence on January 15, 1999 , to install the software and train teachers in its use. In addition, Xcize is being used at several K-12 schools in California and a computer lab at California State University at Monterey.

Technical staff are working to integrate this new software into our current hardware configuration. Upon implementation of the grant we will integrate this research tool into sudent strategies for on-line research. This innovative software will place this project on the cutting edge of on-line research processes.

The following information about Xcize was provided courtesy of Forrest Higgs: Xcize can be used very well in conjunction with a web browser and conventional search engines to get to and analyze text lifted from web sites. Ordinarily, a student either has to painfully read through information on the web or print it out. Xcize automatically turns captured material from the web into richly interlinked dynamic hypertext. The tool is especially useful for someone who is having to acquire information from sources which only mention the topic of interest in a very tangential manner. Xcize's dynamic hyperlinking and text mapping get the user to the parts of the document of interest very quickly and efficiently. As well, the parts of interest can be clipped and pasted right into documents the user is developing on his/her word processor of choice directly from Xcize displays. Xcize can be used with any electronic document, whether it is on the web, accessible by one or another word processors or on CD ROMS in text format (XII).

As NEH teachers evaluate software for their classrooms, critiques are posted in the Collaboratorium

The following technology training has been offered since obtaining the NEH grant:

• Basic computer usage
• Dial-up and ethernet connectivity
• Hyperstudio
• PowerPoint
• Inspiration
• Scanning
• Digital camera
• Internet searching
• Using Internet in the classroom
• TrackStar

• Computer Programming Club
• Library/Tech Aids
• Web Team — Directed Studies Class
• Technology experts assigned to cooperative learning team
• Students teach classes during staff development and evening community classes
• What’s Up West — student produced weekly news show
• Generation Why class

After notification that the NEH grant had been awarded to West Junior High, the school board approved (9/98) the following purchases:

• Ten G3 laptop computers, one scanner, and one digital camera for grant participants at West Junior High
• One G3 desktop computer and scanner to be housed at Watkins Museum

To the delight of NEH participants, ten computers arrived at West Junior High on October first. Mike Eltschinger, computer coodinator, demonstrated basic features of the G3s. Much initial energy was invested in learning basic computer operations, establishing dial-up home connectivity, and learning to switch to the ethernet at school.

Although wiring in the main building was completed in August, nine classrooms in the portables were not wired until February, 1999. This affected classroom access for six of eight grant teachers. However, connectivity was facilitated through home dial-up connections, and teachers could bring laptops into the building to connect to the district network. This facilitated participation in on-line collaboration discussions. Now that the portables are wired, teachers will be able to participate with their classes in on-line collaborative projects.

A computer technician was added to the West staff (8/97) for hardware and software training and troubleshooting. Timely district level network support has improved greatly, but is still not funded to an optimal level. See Planning Grant Proposal: Workplan/Timetable. (Appendix XIII)

On Friday, August 14, 1998, the Lawrence Journal World announced that NEH had awarded West Junior High with a New Millennium planning grant. An article summarizing the ensuing efforts by West stakeholders to integrate technology into the curriculum will be published in the May, 1999, issue of the Bulletin, a publication of the National Association of Secondary School Principals.

The Connections project was also referenced in the Winter, 1999, issue of History News which reprinted a speech given by William R. Ferris at the American Association for State and Local Historians (Appendix XIV).

What we have learned is that the transition to a knowledge-based society is a laborious, baby-step process, especially in educational institutions traditionally impervious to change. The emerging rewards from this systemic change are occurring in minute increments, but in retrospect are truly revolutionizing the teaching and learning process. As our principal observed, it has been like "pulling people through a knot-hole." Suddenly the "ahas!" are errupting like popcorn in a microwave. The asynchronous collaborative professional growth component has been critical in providing the support essential to the change process. Technology is being assimilated as an invisible tool for enhancing student-centered, project-based learning.