West Junior High's National Endowment for the Humanities Schools for a New Millennium Implementation Grant evolved from collaborative planning and projects initiated by participants in the NEH Planning Grant. That planning phase leveraged a process for accessing some primary resources electronically which were previously not available within the walls of West Junior High. Our team representing local museums, educational institutions, technology centers, and the print media continues to produce a Web site containing local historical materials. The growing database provides information to the public and serves as the focus of student projects. Access to authentic information, professional collaboration and training, and support for student leadership in the area of technology continually impacts lesson design and instruction quality. As the Community Connections project reaches more students, it increases enthusiasm for humanities studies and enhances academic achievement. Continuation of our efforts helps establish a prototype for best practices in humanities education through the integration of technology into the core academic curriculum.

     The summer transition from second to third year of the implementation grant saw greater efforts to 1) develop the Web site database of community resources, 2) develop teacher Web pages, 3) develop collaborative projects, and 4) increase individual teachers' technology skills. These areas were selected as focus points in the vision-building sessions ending January 2001. The original participants continue to develop projects; to share their experiences and to support colleagues who become engaged in new projects, new collaborative efforts, and new uses of technology. We are now attempting to involve all faculty. Participation in some facet of the grant has risen to approximately 76% of certified staff. (Appendix 1)

    As the new block schedule took effect, Wednesday collaboration time (using an early dismissal schedule) and daily team planning time were preserved and enhanced to facilitate professional collaboration. Collaboration is increasingly integrated into our building culture, and includes a broader range of issues each year. At an August inservice session, we examined state standards documents for reading, writing, math and science, to know what is taught when, what is expected of the students, and to consider how to incorporate, across the curriculum, practice and reinforcement of the skills to be tested. The following were especially significant examples of cross-curricular planning this semester: 1) At least one expository paragraph assignment to be evaluated for ideas, content, and good organization will take place once per quarter in every subject. 2) Each teacher will keep a sample of one student's writing quarterly to monitor whether improvement is made. 3) Reading strategies will be incorporated into every class. Teaching a strategy is assigned to specific classes and reinforcing specific strategies is assigned to others, as organized by the reading task force. (Appendix 2) 4) Each class will incorporate computation problems quarterly in a format similar to the state assessments.

    For the district 9th grade social studies assessment, collaboration reached a new level. The assessment administered in November combined the strengths of the English, and Social Studies teachers and the media center librarian. This is described below as project-based instruction.

    Kathy Mehl, Functional Skills teacher, explored a new way to collaborate with the Foreign Language teachers. She enrolled three of her TMH students into the same section of 7th grade Introduction to Foreign Languages. She also attended that section all semester long, which includes six weeks of French, German, and Spanish. As her students 'traveled to Paris, Berlin, and Mexico City' she 'traveled' with them. With each unit she was able use the cross-curricular connections (maps, flags, capitols, animals, habitats, etc.) in the language curriculum to reinforce the functional skills curriculum. She learned to affirm the use of French, German, and Spanish vocabulary during activities in her classroom.

    The entire faculty participates in a plan to improve student performance during a five-year cycle in the Quality Performance Accreditation process required by the state of Kansas. The plan is monitored by the Continuous Improvement Team and three task forces: Reading, Writing, and Problem-Solving. Each taskforce is holding training or tutoring sessions concerning their chosen strategies. To facilitate school-wide implementation of the strategies this semester, a task force member meets with each department for training and for assigning specific use of strategies to particular curriculum areas.

    Refinements, variations, and improvements were made to units that have already been implemented by grant participants. The most notable redesign took place in Carolyn Derusseau's "Concerned Constituent" assignment, which was integrated into the district social studies assessment. It became a research paper instead of a letter. Keri Austin-Janousek, English teacher, taught how to create and use note cards, how to make a bibliography, to organize, and to use a rough draft. Leigh Geis, librarian, taught research skills, paraphrasing, and how to make an annotated bibliography. Derusseau organized and lead the students through the process, providing directions and a calendar on her Web site. The cooperative effort seemed very successful; it is hoped that the social studies teachers for 7th, 8th, and 9th can start coordinating efforts to teach steps of the research paper, building skills each year. We are eagerly awaiting the assessment results. (Appendix 3)

     The new block schedule will allow the Photo 2 unit, "Historic Places of Lawrence" to be taught twice this year. There has been a new photography teacher each year since Phyllis Farrar became the grant project director. This fall she is collaborating with Karen Mussachio to team-teach the unit, now in its fifth version. The new instructor is challenged to learn skills along with the students in order to produce photos and historical essays ready for publication on the Web site "Community Connections" (http://history.lawrence.com/project/student/historicbuildings.htm). (Appendix 4)

Integration of Information and Communication Technologies

     Technology is integrated into an ever-widening circle of school faculty and support personnel instructional routines. Lesson planning integrates use of computers, a wide variety of word processing, PowerPoint, and other software, on-line catalogues and internet research to such a degree that it will soon be taken for granted across the curriculum. During the summer more teachers completed Web pages. This was an intensive effort, which almost doubled the number of teachers creating and maintaining their own Web pages. They are published on the district server and are all linked on the faculty directory on the new West home page. (http://schools.usd497.org/wjhs/teachers)

    Angela Adams, 8th grade American history teacher and 9th grade social studies teacher new to West last year, dedicated more than 80 hours during June and July to design and construct her Web pages. After getting a start with a Technohawk on design, she collaborated on content with Carolyn Derusseau, taking advantage of Carolyn's experience with the 9th grade curriculum. She redesigned the structure of the curriculum used in her first year of teaching, keeping her most successful projects and adding several that succeed with Carolyn's students. The oral history project in 8th grade shows great promise. She obtained permission to publish an excellent student example on her site. (Appendix 5)

    Karen Cochran, veteran English teacher and teammate to Angela Adams, also created Web pages. A Technohawk student provided the initial construction. Her pages provide many links for the literature in the curriculum. She included a portfolio following Michelle Anderson's prototype published last spring. (Appendix 6)

    Kathy Mehl used pages created for her by a 7th grader last year in Technohawks as a basis for constructing Web pages about the Functional Skills curriculum. Her site, although still under construction, potentially ties together several curriculum areas in projects organized by her students. (Appendix 7)

    The paraprofessional who created Web pages for Burlingham and Parr, teachers of the gifted, left the staff; these two teacher began practicing skills to maintain the pages themselves. In addition, Lynne learned PowerPoint in order to present a session on creative writing at the KGTC Conference this fall. (Appendix 8)

    Michelle Andersen began making plans for 7th graders to create electronic portfolios in English class. She intends for them to start them in 7th grade and continue them through 8th and 9th. (Appendix 9)

    Leigh Geis created a Web page for the Hargadine Media Center, our library. It is a fine collection of resources for both student body and faculty. Her training sessions on research, which students in all core teams have now had, provided orientation to these resources. (Appendix 10)

    Spanish students visit the computer lab to use an abundance of resources organized on Pat Wittry's new Web page. The national standards in foreign language (the "5 C's") provided her organizational theme. She plans to collect community resources related to heritage language speakers as well as photos for an electronic portfolio to use in communicative and cultural activities. (Appendix 11)

    At least three teachers have used free commercial sites for teachers to create Web pages that can easily be maintained and updated from home. These are especially useful for homework calendars and assignments which must be updated often, and where html authoring software is not easily available. Lucinda Crenshaw, Sue Lewis, and Angela Dieker use such pages. (Appendix 12)

    Beth Brubeck, Geography (Appendix 13), Kathy Wagner, Math (Appendix 14) and Brandi Wegner, Communications (Appendix 15), created Web pages as part of summer coursework towards master's degrees at Baker University.

    Teacher in-service training on technology continued regularly, yet informally, every Wednesday afternoon during early release time. Based on a faculty survey of training needs, a specific "Technology Topic" was announced when the schedule allowed, then someone with knowledge of that topic demonstrated it to other teachers. Everyone was encouraged to bring real tasks to the session, so that they could actually apply the skill to work they needed to do. Topics this fall included basic file management, the basics of our E-mail software, and the databases for Reading, Writing, and Math / Problem-solving task forces. These sessions not only increase skills, but contribute to a collaborative atmosphere surrounding technology. (Appendix 16)

    After a two-year hiatus, the Building Level Instructional Skills (BLIS) group format which has been very successful with this staff in the past was re-instituted this fall. A group of eight teachers, lead by Keri Austin-Janousek, periodically gets half-day release time to learn, discuss application, and peer coach a specific strategie. The focus is cooperative learning.

    One grant steering committee member, Michelle Andersen, continues toward a Master's in Educational Technology and Leadership from George Washington University in DC. It is entirely taught online. Her coursework contributes to understanding of grant goals, leadership in a 7th grade core team, and as the sponsor of Technohawks. During the summer she mentored several of the teachers who were creating Web pages.

    As mentioned above, three others have begun work on master's degrees. Brandi Wegner's will have an emphasis in educational technology. She is exploring several ways of introducing computer technology more thoroughly during Communications classes. She is developing a tutorial for teachers for "First Class", our district e-mail program. An introductory Internet scavenger hunt to help students understand strengths and weaknesses of Web resources is another current project.

    Technohawks and Computer Club have merged. Their goal is to establish and maintain content-rich student Web pages. They will target specific teachers with whom to collaborate for content and will divide responsibilities among members of the group, like a newspaper or yearbook staff. Whereas last year's first update was not accomplished until November, this year's group had their start by mid-October. They have four pages up, are updating regularly, and are making progress on additional pages. Files from previous student sites will eventually find a permanent home in the student site at http://schools.usd497.org/wjhs . It is now linked from the school district home page at http://usd497.org . (Appendix 17)

    Students with advanced technology skills continue to provide leadership in such classes as newspaper, yearbook, media, and independent studies or extensions. The newspaper classes, now being taught by new staff member Tracy Baden, are showing great improvement in quality and quantity of writing, as well as visual presentation of the student newspaper. We are discussing the possibility of publishing parts of the newspapers on the student Web site. (Appendix 18)

    Our Lawrence Community Connections site where learners access and contribute information is now fully functional. It is hosted by the Lawrence Journal World server (http://history.lawrence.com). Site design and organization are complete. It contains two sections, one called "Topics" and the other called "Projects."

    Topics contains a database of approximately 350 items, cataloged in 15 categories, and searchable with key words. These items were collected from Watkins Community Museum, Spencer Research Library, or private citizens. Additional items are the result of student projects. Procedures for requesting and finding materials, verifying copyright, digitizing, crediting, editing, and publishing, are being followed. While we continue to locating needed items, much attention over the summer was given to consistency in labeling, improving the quality of information, and improving key words to assist searching the site.

    Projects include "Student ," "Special Interest Collections," "Teacher," and an information section called "About Us." Few changes have occurred in these sections. Maintenance of the site has become a routine requiring a "team" meeting about once every six months, rather than the monthly meetings needed during the development stage.

    As the database on the "Community Connections" Web site has grown, it threatened to be somewhat overwhelming and unmanageable. A review by teachers and students who used it last year helped determine what adjustments were necessary. Some were begun during the summer, but still continue. Slight adjustments were made in the placement of icons on the home page, to help the user better comprehend what can be found on the site. For the home page icons, we are working on using student photos or graphics instead of generic icons obtained off the internet. (Appendix 19)

    The site has gained more community visibility. At least two other Lawrence community sites are linked to "Community Connections" in their history sections. Watkins Community Museum now has a home page, http://www.dchsks.org, with which we hope to be closely integrated. (Appendix 20)

    We have received letters to the Webmaster concerning useful information and missing information. One more section of Eudora "Community Heritage" was published this fall, in direct response to a letter to the Webmaster. See "Fall Leaf." (http://history.lawrence.com/project/community/eudora/fallleaf.htm) (Appendix 21)

    Michelle Andersen, 7th grade English teacher, who is developing the "Heroes and Leaders" unit continued her research over the summer in the archives of Spencer Research Library and Lawrence Journal-World.

    The publication of the new West Home Page was celebrated on the West Junior High daily announcements in October and published in the Unified School District 497 Daily Post. The URL is posted throughout the building on bright blue posters. (Appendix 22)

    At the Kansas Foreign Language Association conference on November 2 in Topeka, Kansas, Phyllis Farrar gave a 75 minute presentation titled "Community Connections". She presented the development of a cross-curricular unit, "Germans in Lawrence," using community resources, technology, and a student project model for instruction in a foreign language. The session was small, but participants immersed themselves in the planning tools and sample activities and gave excellent feedback. (Appendix 23)

    Steering committee members are discussing appropriate district presentations useful to humanities colleagues. Some will take place this spring at departmental meetings. Plans for a summary presentation to the school board and to community collaborators have also begun.

     John Jewell, the research assistant at Watkins Community Museum has contributed two articles about the grant to newsletters of the Douglas County Historical Society, which governs the museum. He speaks to board members regularly and will be reporting at an upcoming meeting to specifically discuss what should happen when the grant runs out. (Appendix 24)

    School-wide awareness of the grant project has been improved as this school year began, but could still be improved. Students tend to be more involved with integrated projects as 9th graders, than are the 7th or 8th graders. This means many students are unaware of the project until their third year at West. However, having a stable, current student home page will increase visits to the project links to be found there.

    Teacher awareness has spread from the eight original participants to the entire faculty. Grant goals are integrated into lesson planning, from the core teams to special education classes. New teachers have been oriented to grant goals, and sometimes bring strengths previously lacking. Several new teachers are facilitating the accomplishment of grant goals and enthusiastically embracing the culture of collaboration.

    After a year of high turnover in the humanities, we experienced little turnover for this new year. All humanities teachers are benefitting from the project, and several new teachers have already shown interest in becoming more involved.

    Due to recent history of low German enrollment in the junior highs, Level 1 will no longer be offered in 8th grade, but will be in 9th grade. This results in no Level 2 students at West. The "Germans in Lawrence" unit developed to correlate with 9th grade social studies must be revised considerably, because of Level 1 language limitations.

    The new block schedule (three 'blocks' with core subjects on alternating A/B days and two 'skinnies') was implemented this fall. This schedule allots 90 minutes to each instructional period; allows the continuation of teaming in the core classes (English, Social Studies, Math, and Science); and increases the amount of instructional time considerably. For most of the curriculum, these changes engender support for grant goals. Our focus on project-based instruction, integration of technology, collaborative projects, and integrated humanities curriculum for the past four years makes the transition to teaching in long blocks of time an easy one. Grant participants provide leadership in staff development to prepare for the schedule change. The transition has been relatively painless.

    During the past several months, administration at Watkins Community Museum , one of our community collaborators, has been in transition. The governing board of the Douglas County Historical Society assumed administrative duties and assigned the museum director, Steve Jansen, the role of historian. Jansen eventually resigned. Since the bulk of our work with the museum detailing the process through which primary documents could be located and published had been accomplished, this has had little effect on the work of the grant. Our assistant at the museum, John Jewell, continues to work afternoons on a regular schedule and reports to the board.

    Successes with grant goals continue to accumulate. The creation of a Web site database of community historical resources has been accomplished and the process it takes to maintain and enlarge it is well understood. The database continues to improve, in organization, in quality of items, as well as quantity, and lends itself to a variety of student projects. The collaboration of West Junior High Staff and community members is increasingly rewarding. Mutual goals and reciprocal support epitomize the meaning of the "Community Connections" grant title.

    Integration of technology into the fabric of staff collaboration and into instruction is almost seamless. Skill levels of all staff have so greatly improved that technological problems are solved quickly and with minimal disruption of instruction. More teachers are bringing more classes to the computer lab and library, time on task is more productive, and problems arising from these activities are solved more collaboratively and creatively.

    As we settle into a schedule using longer blocks of instructional time our staff practices all innovative methods of instruction fostered by this grant. The successful implementation of Quality Performance Accreditation strategies in reading, writing, and problem solving results from a collaborative attitude of all staff and the sincere belief that our curriculum must be fully integrated in order to effectively reach students. The faculty feels revitalized and eager to continue our efforts in teaching; students realize the excitement of learning and correlation between their education and their community.