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Alternative Education Center

Proposal

for

High School Internet Site

Common Knowledge:Pittsburgh (CK:P)Table of Contents

Introduction i

Twelfth Grade Special Program i

Semester Make-Up Program i

Ed-Med Program ii

Project Retrieval Program ii

Part I: Curriculum Project 1

A. Problem Statement 1

B. Curriculum Activity 2

C. Instructional Procedures 4

D. Assessment Plan 5

Part II: Design and Implementation Team 6

A. Mr. Bruce Renstrom, teacher of science 6

B. Mr. Michael Escajeda, teacher of science 7

C. Mr. Terence Palso, teacher of English 7

D. Mr. Jeffrey Painter, teacher of business, Instructional Team Leader (ITL) 8

E. Mrs. Sandra Randall, teacher of social studies 8

Part III: Equitable Distribution of Resources 10

INTRODUCTION

The Letsche Alternative Education Center is located in the Lower Hill District near the Civic Arena and next to Connelley Vo-Tech. Letsche prides itself in being able to reach the students who were unsuccessful in other Pittsburgh high schools. In the 1994-1995 school year, Letsche serviced over 619 students. One hundred thirty-six (136) of these students from the Twelfth Grade Special and Semester Make-up Programs completed the requirements necessary to secure their high school diplomas. Practically all of these graduates were counted as drop-outs by their respective high schools.

Letsche's students come from every high school in the City of Pittsburgh. At Letsche, students from rival schools, gangs, and neighborhoods mix in a relaxed, peaceful educational atmosphere. The composition of Letsche's student body would lead one to expect our school to be a powder keg, yet nothing is further from the truth. In fact, for the past two years Letsche has been the safest high school in the City of Pittsburgh in terms of violent outbursts and disturbances.

The Letsche Alternative Education Center currently comprises four programs:

This unique program enables students who have completed four years of high school without attaining the required number of credits for graduation to obtain a diploma. The 100 students who completed their requirements and now possess diplomas as of March 22 of the current (1995-1996) school year attests to the success of this facet of Letsche.

This program helps students make-up courses which they have failed so that they may be placed at their appropriate grade level. Non-academic problems (such as drug abuse, alcohol abuse, family crisis, gang membership, STD's to name a few) which may be interfering with the students' ability to take advantage of Letsche's academic opportunities are also addressed. An alternative setting is offered in this program for students who have not been successful in the traditional high school environment.

This program is designed to assists female high school students who become pregnant and wish to continue attending classes. Linking key educational, medical, social, and psychiatric services to pre- and post-partum participants, this program enables students successfully to complete their high school courses.

This program actively recruits teen parents who have dropped out of school and gives them the opportunity to re-enroll and complete their graduation requirements.

The faculty and staff of the Letsche Alternative Education Center are dedicated to providing our students with a secure, friendly atmosphere where each of them may realize a potential they otherwise may never have attained.

PART I: CURRICULUM PROJECT

A. Problem Statement

For the most part, the students who are referred to the Letsche Alternative Education Center look upon education as something which ends when they receive their diplomas. They plan no formal education beyond high school.

As the millennium approaches, attitudes such as these will doom many of our students to dead end jobs at low wages. Their existence will be hard and unfulfilling. Paradoxically, however, our students have no fear of technology and are quite comfortable around computers. They switch between 8086, 286, and 486 models; Apple, Macintosh, and IBM machines; Windows and non-Windows programs; and move from mouse to keyboard commands with an ease that amazes many of their technophobic teachers. Our students may not be awed by the computer, but most of them see it as not much more than a fancy typewriter or a very expensive video game system. They take business classes to fulfill elective requirements, but really do not see the practical applications of what they are being offered.

Recently, a new culture has emerged, that of the Internet. It is a place where age, sex, race, religion, and economic or social status do not matter. Once the technology to log on is mastered, a person is accepted based upon what he or she can contribute. One can be an observer or a participant. Information on virtually any subject can be accessed, and people are happy to point the way. It is a place where learning is enjoyable, and one never stops learning because the culture is constantly in flux.

It is our desire to harness our students' easy acceptance of technology and utilize it to enhance instruction in a discipline where the technology and the amount of data are expanding so rapidly that high school textbooks are out-dated almost before they are printed. It is the field that is responsible for all the technology to which our students adapt so easily: the field of science. The facet of the general high school science curriculum where changes happen on practically a daily basis is the course Earth/Space Science. We propose to show the students that the emerging technology of the Internet and the World Wide Web can be used to find information which will enhance the current Earth/Space Science Curriculum.

The students' self-esteem will increase as they become proficient in navigating the Net and the Web and in sharing their skills not only with their fellow students but also with their teachers. Their continually growing expertise will not be isolated to one discipline. It will be transferred as the students do research in other school subjects and in areas related to the students' personal interests and curiosity. The students will discover that finding information can be a fascinating, personally rewarding life-long experience.

We realize that participating in our project will not immediately change all of our students' outlooks on life and learning. It is our goal to demonstrate to them that the acquisition of knowledge is a worthwhile endeavor and to give them the keys to a kingdom of which they would otherwise be totally unaware.

B. Curriculum Activity

The Letsche Alternative Education Center proposes to utilize the resources of the Internet and the World Wide Web to enhance the study of Earth/Space Science. Through the use of such tools for navigating the Internet and the World Wide Web as Gopher, Veronica, Lycos, Web Crawler, and Alta Vista the students will locate information relevant to the units which they are studying. The students will be required to keep logs listing the addresses of sites containing useful information which can be downloaded. This information will be placed in portfolios and will be used to produce reports or projects relevant to the material being studied.

Our team will be using an interdisciplinary approach in that a business teacher will assist students and elevate their mastery of the computer, word processing, database, spreadsheet, and desktop publishing skills used in producing the reports and projects; an English teacher will assist the students in using the proper communication skills for written and oral presentations and will evaluate the progress they have shown; another science teacher and a social studies teacher will assist in the development and evaluation of units and lessons while preparing to use this technology in general science and in social studies classes as the project expands in its second phase.

Units in this project include:

Meteorology: The students will access information from such sources as The Weather Underground, The Weather Channel Home Page, and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Home Page. United States Government (NOAA) weather maps will be downloaded and used by the students to follow weather systems across the country as they approach Pittsburgh. As the temperatures of the various cities in the path of the systems are checked, students will be able to make predictions as to how the weather in Pittsburgh will be affected by the system. Weather forecasts can be logged and checked for accuracy. The paths of tropical storms can be charted and followed. The students will, in effect, have access to much of the same raw information used by the local weather forecasters to make their predictions.

Astronomy: The students will access information from such sources as the NASA home page, or the US Geological Survey's list of astronomy servers. These remarkable resources provide the latest photographs and information from all of the government's declassified excursions into outer space. Information is available here which will not be in textbooks for several years. Student reports on the solar system will be able to contain information that is literally up-to-the-minute.

Geology: The students will access information from Geology Gems at Winoa State University in Minnesota. They will be able to take a virtual field trip via the Geology Travel Destination. At the Geology Image Archive, Amethyst Galleries' Mineral Gallery, and Gemology World, students will be able to examine and download detailed photographs of minerals. Rockhounds Information Page will provide information for identifying common rocks, while The Geologic Time Scale at Berkeley will provide information as to when and where various rocks were formed. The students will find sources for studying caves and caverns at the Speleogy Home Page. They will find information pertaining to glaciers at the website of the Byrd Polar Research Institute at Ohio State University.

Plate Tectonics: The students will access information on volcanoes from the Center for the Study of Active Volcanoes in Holo, Hawaii; the Cascade Volcano Observatory and the Volcano World Home Page. They will find data on earthquakes by using the World-Wide Earthquake Locator.

Oceanography: Students will be able to access information from such world renowned sources as the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Other sources include the National Oceanographic Data Center and the US Geological Survey.

In all of these units, the students will be able not only to access the information which is posted, they will also have the opportunity by way of E-mail to ask questions of meteorologists, astronomers, geologists, and other experts. The study of Earth/Space Science will take on another dimension as it not be confined to the classroom, but will move to the computer lab, and then literally across the country and around the world.

We realize that our approach is unique and rather revolutionary. Up to this point the resources of the Internet and the World Wide Web have not been used in the Pittsburgh Public Schools to enhance instruction in a particular subject. In the first year of our project, all students taking Earth/Space Science, approximately one hundred students, will be involved. In subsequent years, the project will be expanded to include other science courses and disciplines. This expansion will continue until every student in our school is involved in the project. By the time this happens, interdisciplinary projects involving the Internet and the World Wide Web will doubtless have sprung up as the Letsche faculty continues planning units around the Core Curriculum Frameworks (content standards that all Pittsburgh Public School students will be able to demonstrate in each subject area at the end of Grades 3, 5, 8, 10, and 12).

C. Instructional Procedures

We recognize that we are breaking new ground, and therefore we wish to start on a small scale, monitor the students' progress, and refine our activities in order to correct any problems. At the beginning of the year, two to five students will be selected from each Earth/Space Science class. These students will be trained in the proper usage of the Internet and the World Wide Web, and will serve as a core to train other students and teachers. In selecting this core group, special consideration will be given to students who have previously demonstrated a mastery of computer skills in business electives, and to those students, new to Letsche, who can demonstrate such mastery. If students possessing such skills cannot be found in a particular class, the core group will be selected from those who express a willingness to spend time before or after school, and during lunch time learning the technology. Teachers involved in the first phase will receive training from Common Knowledge prior to the first clerical days. Training for the rest of the faculty will take place during in-service days prior to the students' first day of instruction, before school, after school, during TIP time of Wednesdays during the school year, and during in-service days which may be built into the school calendar. In addition, teachers who wish to work on developing their skills will have access during their preparation periods to computers which are not being used by students. Teachers and students who have access to home computers will be able to use their accounts from their homes. We are investigating the Board sponsored Internet initiative at Hill House to see if would be possible for students to use the computers at Hill House to access their Letsche accounts when the school building is closed.

We have no doubt that many students' technical skills will surpass those of many of the teachers. We expect that the students' self-esteem will be greatly enhanced as they become resources and work with the teachers to research subjects, download information, and plan projects or reports. In order to avoid the students being overwhelmed with information, the teachers will direct them to various pre-selected sites. As the students gain proficiency, they will be given more and more freedom and responsibility to locate and evaluate areas of information. The addresses of relevant sites will be entered in a student maintained database which will be distributed to the members of the class. Responsibility for keeping the addresses updated will also eventually be taken over by the students. This list will, over time, become invaluable.

A unique culture has arisen among people who use computers. User groups where people ask questions, solve problems, and exchange knowledge has become commonplace in business. Since no one can master everything about computer usage, or even know everything about one application, people readily assist anyone who has a desire to learn. As everyone has a unique way of approaching a task, even new users can contribute something valuable to the information pool, and are welcome. We expect this phenomenon of the computer culture to happen between the teachers and students involved in this project. The very fact that the number of students involved will be far greater than the number of teachers makes this almost a certainty. Our students will become more comfortable with the technology and will become better at using it. Students and teachers will become partners. Together they will reach their goals with the students often showing more efficient methods of accomplishing the tasks at hand.

D. Assessment Plan

Evaluation of student performance will be done in several disciplines by teachers from the project team:

A. Science: the extent to which the student successfully completed the report or project through the utilization of data obtained from the Internet or the World Wide Web to either add to or enhance the information contained in various science curriculum units presented during the course of the classroom instruction coupled with information presented in class.

B. English: the extent to which the student successfully employed the written or verbal communication skills along with the research strategies necessary to successfully complete the assignment.

C. Business: the extent to which the student demonstrated a mastery of general computer skills, the use of various software (word processing, presentation software, database, etc.), the ability to navigate the Internet and the World Wide Web, and the success in downloading graphics and other data to prepare a report or project which meets or exceeds acceptable standards.

The following evaluation time line is an approximate one allowing the stakeholders time to fine tune the project.

A. September to mid October: By the end of this period, the students will be able to use software to connect to the Internet and the World Wide Web, find three sites on the Web, download a photograph, using a search engine such as Web Crawler find a site dealing with a particular subject, and send E-mail. Students will be given three addresses and told to visit the sites listed. From one of the sites they will be required to download a photograph to a floppy disc. The students will write the address of the site they located using the search engine. When they have completed this last task, the students will send the address to their teacher via E-mail. The teacher receiving the E­mail will visit the address to check for accuracy. The teacher will view the photographs to confirm that they are indeed from the proper source.

B. mid October to January: The students will be given a problem in Earth/Space Science assigned by their teacher and will use the technology to solve the problem. For example, the students will be given a weather front in Washington state, and asked to predict what effect it will have on weather in Pittsburgh. The students will visit an appropriate site, and download a weather map on a daily basis. Temperatures of cities before the front, and in it will be accessed and compared. The students will keep a journal listing the sites visited, the data collected, and their observations. This data will be drawn upon to make a prediction concerning the weather in Pittsburgh as the front approaches. The students will explain how they used the data to make their predictions.

C. February to June: The students will design a project or formulate a problem from one of the units in the Earth/Space Science curriculum and utilizing the resources of the Internet will produce and explain the project or solve the problem.

This method will be refined if necessary to align it with the final versions of the Core Curriculum Frameworks.

PART II: DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION TEAM

The members of the school team involved in this project are

A. Mr. Bruce Renstrom, teacher of science. Mr. Renstrom's hands-on approach to science employs many student-centered classroom activities. Extremely excited by the educational possibilities offered by the Internet and the World Wide Web, Mr. Renstrom has been frustrated by the fact that Letsche currently has only one Internet connection and that it is located in the library. Mr. Renstrom will use this technology to enhance the current curriculum in his Earth/Space Science class. He will initiate and develop the lessons used in each unit of this project. The effectiveness of the lessons will be evaluated by Mr. Renstrom. He will identify problems, and suggest and implement solutions. Working as a partner with his students, Mr. Renstrom will help them evaluate data, and guide them to its implementation in reports and projects. Mr. Renstrom will serve as the assistant coordinator of the project. He will be responsible for setting up accounts, training staff and faculty, integrating any new technology or on-line developments into the project, suggesting lessons and assisting in their development, identifying the links between the project and the science curriculum in the final versions of the Core Curriculum Frameworks, and performing other various administrative duties involved in keeping the project on track.

B. Mr. Michael Escajeda, teacher of science. Mr. Escajeda employs an astonishing variety of simple yet quite effective experiments to illustrate scientific concepts to his classes. He is also excited by the possibilities of this technology and frequently mentions Web sites which could be utilized to enhance his curriculum. Mr. Escajeda will work closely with Mr. Renstrom in developing and evaluating the lessons in each unit. He will be constantly searching for and evaluating new Web sites. He will monitor the publication of the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA Reports!) for news of electronic field trips, science projects, and sites on the Internet and World Wide Web which may be of value to this project. Together with Mr. Renstrom, Mr. Escajeda will evaluate this and other sites and decide which are appropriate for current use. Mr. Escajeda will also prepare units and lessons using this technology to enhance the General Science curriculum. He will employ these when the project expands in its second phase.

C. Mr. Terence Palso, teacher of English. Mr. Palso was introduced to the Internet by his wife who is a medical librarian and uses this technology extensively as part of her occupation. Mr. Palso was the first person at Letsche to actively use his Internet account. He installed and configured the software for the library at Letsche connecting it to both the Internet and the World Wide Web. During weekly TIP time, he has been conducting informal workshops introducing interested teachers to this technology and its possibilities. He has attended the after school workshops dealing with the Internet and the World Wide Web offered by Common Knowledge. Mr. Palso will serve as the project coordinator. He will be responsible for setting up accounts, maintaining the machines and the network, training staff and faculty, integrating any new technology or on-line developments into the project, suggesting lessons and assisting in their development, evaluating the English skills used in each project or report, identifying the links between the project and the English curriculum in the final version of the Core Curriculum Frameworks, preparing units using the Internet and the World Wide Web to enhance the study of the English curriculum when the project expands in subsequent years, and performing other various administrative duties involved in keeping the project on track.

D. Mr. Jeffrey Painter, teacher of business, Instructional Team Leader (ITL) of the Art, Business, Health/Physical Education, Home Economics, Math and Science Departments. While pursuing his masters degree, Mr. Painter took graduate courses dealing with the Internet and the World Wide Web. He studied not only how to integrate this technology into the teaching of business courses, but also how to use the Internet and the World Wide Web to enhance instruction in other disciplines. Mr. Painter will use his business expertise in maintaining the machines and the network, training staff and faculty, evaluating business skills used in each project or report, identifying the links between the project and the business curriculum in the final version of the Core Curriculum Frameworks, and preparing units using the Internet and the World Wide Web to enhance the study of the business curriculum when the project expands in subsequent years. Mr. Painter's unique position as ITL of many different departments will be invaluable in helping the project expand to other disciplines in succeeding years and enable him to facilitate the integration of the Core Curriculum Guidelines into the project when the final versions of these guidelines become available.

E. Mrs. Sandra Randall, teacher of social studies. Mrs. Randall is fascinated by the information available on the Internet and the World Wide Web and the implications it could have for enhancing instruction. She will be involved in planning the implementation of the lessons, suggesting refinements, and evaluating the success of each of the projects units, as well as of the entire project. Mrs. Randall will identify the links between the project and the various social studies curricula in the final version of the Core Curriculum Frameworks, and prepare units using the Internet and the World Wide Web to enhance the study of social studies and history when the project expands in its second phase.

Our proposal involves approximately one quarter of the teaching faculty of the Letsche Alternative Education Center. The site administrators are willing to spend the time involved seeing that the other stakeholders are comfortable with the technology and the other teachers are willing to spend the time which will be involved to become proficient. The stakeholders realize that the success of the project will depend on their spending a great deal of time planning, executing, evaluating, and refining. This commitment, the provisions provided in our proposal for teacher support, and the inclusion of the teachers who will take the project into its second phase should enable this project to expand throughout the school and integrate itself into the Core Curriculum Frameworks.

The Internet and the World Wide Web are dynamic structures. Their structures guarantee that they will be constantly in a state of flux. In order to stay abreast of developments, to monitor student progress, to help the teachers plan their lessons, and to prepare for the future, the committee proposes to meet formally once a week. Meetings will be open to anyone who desires to attend, and will eventually include students and parents. We expect to have dozens of informal meetings during the week, but the weekly meetings will give everyone an opportunity to get together and exchange ideas. As we will be heading into uncharted waters, we want to offer as much encouragement and support to each other as possible. We also feel that this sort of atmosphere will help other teachers to join us and more readily accept the student-teacher partnership which will evolve from this endeavor.

The Comprehensive Educational Improvement Plan (CEIP) of the Letsche Alternative Education Center sets forth a great many strategies for achieving our school's educational objectives. Among these strategies are

1. "to provide students with experiences working with new technology in a variety of classroom settings."

As it develops, our proposal by its very nature will provide students with experiences using computers and new technology to access information to be used in a wide variety of classroom settings.

2. "to provide students with experiences working with new technology and software currently used in business."

E-mail is currently a widely used tool in business, and the possibilities of the Internet and the World Wide Web are being realized by the corporate community.

3. "to provide access to and instruction for 'internet' through the School Library and Business Labs." (sic)

If funded, we propose to set up a computer lab staffed by the stakeholders which will be open before and after school to students and faculty. We also plan to add one or two more terminals to the Letsche Library.

As can be seen, our proposal is clearly aligned with the Letsche CEIP plan. We propose to keep our project flexible so that it will be able to accommodate any changes in the CEIP plan necessitated by the final versions of the Core Curriculum Frameworks.

PART III: EQUITABLE DISTRIBUTION OF RESOURCES

One hundred percent (100%) of the student body attending the Letsche Alternative Education Center have multiple factors which would qualify them to be considered extremely at-risk. Eighty-six percent (86%) of our student body is African American, less than one percent (1%) is Asian and Hispanic, and approximately thirteen per cent (13%) are white. Females comprise seventy-one percent (71%) of Letsche's students.

The percentage of Letsche students reported as low income students on the ECIA Chapter 1 Federal Programs application is eighty-one point five percent (81.5%) compared with fifty-one point three percent (51.3%) for the district.

On the Pennsylvania Reading and Mathematics Tests administered to students in the eleventh grade in February of 1995, seventy-five percent (75%) of Letsche students were in the bottom quartile in mathematics compared with forty-three point four percent (43.4%) for the district. On the same test, eighty percent (80%) of Letsche students were in the bottom quartile in reading compared with forty-five point five percent (45.5%) for the district.

Our school should receive this resource because our students are unlikely to encounter it in their normal course of existence. The economic level of most of our school population makes it highly unlikely that personal computers with Internet and World Wide Web access provided by an on-line service will be available at home. Many of the high schools from which our students come have no or very limited access to this technology.

In the first year, we propose to include approximately one hundred students in our project. This group will not only be comprised primarily of low income, African-American students, but will also include another group traditionally under-represented in projects such as this: females taking science courses.

The feeder pattern of the Letsche Alternative Education Center is unique in that it includes every high school in the city of Pittsburgh. We would be very happy to work with the other high school CK:P sites in any manner possible. We are also investigating the Board sponsored initiative at Hill House which proposes to link every school located in the Hill District to see how we might participate in that project.

As the world rapidly becomes divided into those who can use computer technology and those who cannot, we feel that our students deserve the opportunity to join the computer culture. Society is beginning to reevaluate and restructure its social programs, expecting individuals to assume greater responsibility for their lives. If our students are to be required to determine their futures, we feel that they should at least be provided with the tools which will enable them to realize their goals.