REACHING OUT AND MAKING CONNECTIONS:



ENHANCING THE CLASSICAL ACADEMY THROUGH THE COMMON KNOWLEDGE PROJECT



A CURRICULUM/NETWORK PROJECT SUBMITTED BY THE STAFF OF SCHILLER CLASSICAL ACADEMY

MARCH 3, 1995
INTRODUCTION
Schiller Classical Academy is a magnet school in the Pittsburgh Public School system. The Classical component of our program allows students to explore various cultures and civilizations that have helped to shape our thought and activities as we move along an historical time line from ancient through modern times by the eighth grade. Interdisciplinary units are planned to provide relevance and interest for students and to show them how the study in one content area is inevitably linked to the study in another.
For the past two years, we have also been working with PACE ( Portfolio Assessment Collaboratives in Education), a network of schools coordinated through Harvard University, to develop a system of portfolio assessment. Students have become actively involved in assessing their own work, making presentations, and doing research related to classroom projects that teachers have developed.We remained challenged on how to best reach the student who has not yet met with success, but we seem to be reaching some of these students through this project.
At the beginning of the 1993-94 school year, the Schiller staff agreed to redefine our classical curriculum. We wanted to be sure that we were indeed giving our students a unique program of studies. After much discussion, a total of four themes per grade level were identified for our first curriculum efforts. A proposal was developed and approved by the Office of School Support for a group of Schiller teachers to engage in curriculum writing. A list of the identified themes can be found in the Appendix.
The staff further agreed that the PACE portfolio project afforded us an opportunity to restructure our school. It would make students more accountable for their work, would encourage students to get more involved in meaningful and motivating assignments, and would hopefully provide greater opportunities for all students to experience success in their school work.
The CK:P project, to be described within the body of this proposal, will provide Schiller students and staff with a wonderful opportunity to use the technology that exists in our society,but which has not been available to our students up to this point. It could make available to us a vital tool that we have badly needed at our school to accomplish the two curricular goals described above. These goals, as well as the limited state of technology at Schiller, was addressed clearly by parents, community members, and teachers in our CEIP plan. We are excited about the possibilities that are presented by initiating this CK:P proposal in our school.
PART ONE-CURRICULUM PROJECT
A. Problem Statement
As discussed in the Introduction to this proposal, the members of the Schiller Planning Team remain convinced that the technology that would become available to us through this project is an important, vital tool to help us reach the restructuring goals to which we have been committed for almost two school years. Specifically, we hope to address the following issues:
  1. How can we use the Internet to enhance the interdisciplinary nature of the classical academy?
  2. How can the Internet be an effective tool for the development and promotion of student portfolios?
  3. How can we use the Internet project to motivate the reluctant learners and to provide them and their families with the opportunities to be successful?
B. Curriculum Activity and Instructional Procedures
This project is a collaboration of interested teachers and the school principal as a means to enhance our goals. The theme of our project is "Reaching Out and Making Connections" We will use electronic networking to reach out to new information sources and to new people. We want to make connections between the past and the future, and we want students as well as adults to be involved in this exploration.
In order to provide a sharper focus to this particular proposal, the Planning Team has decided to plan the CK:P proposal around one theme per grade level. Sixth grade teachers involved in CK:P will devote their energies to the Neighborhood Unit, which is intended to get students to initially focus on the culture they know the best, their own. Seventh grade activities will center around Medieval Times, and at eighth grade, the CK:P project will focus on Ethnicity.
Given the diversity of neighborhoods that feed into Schiller, the end result of our sixth grade study will be to develop a "Pittsburgh Scrapbook" which students will ultimately publish on the Internet. Much of the work in language arts class at grade six will center around writing activities. Our in-depth study of Pittsburgh neighborhoods will require students to access information now being compiled by Carnegie Museum. Students would also add to the existing neighborhood data by publishing their research. For instance, a student's walking tour of Beechview or an interview with a retired trolley conductor from Mt. Washington could actually be added to the Carnegie Museum's collection of information.
We hope to enhance the writing process by eliciting peer responses from other than our own sixth graders. Teachers from Carrick High School and Liberty Elementary have already agreed to have students offer responses and revision suggestions for our students. In addition, students could also venture out on the Internet seeking feedback and comparing their writing with student writers and professional writers from around the country and around the world. Letter writing via e-mail to pen pals on the internet will provide our students with new points of view and should serve as a real motivator to the previously reluctant learner.
Sixth grade social studies students will research the history of their neighborhoods. They will access information now being compiled by Carnegie Museum, and they will locate other information sources both within and outside the Internet.. Students would also add to the existing neighborhood data by publishing their research. In math class, sixth graders will locate Pittsburgh-related information such as census data, weather information, quotations of Pittsburgh-based corporations, and local government budgetary information. In conjunction with their Connected Math unit on statistics, students will learn about different ways to compile and to analyze the data.
Visual arts is an important component of all interdisciplinary units at Schiller. The Andy Warhol Museum, which is the only one-man museum in the United States, celebrates the life and art of a native Pittsburgher. By accessing the Museum, an international art participation project will be initiated from Schiller. Examples of Andy Warhol's silkscreened line drawing portraits will be sent over the Internet along with self-portraits done by Schiller art students in the "style" of Warhol. These works will be sent to schools in other countries. These schools will be asked to send to Schiller examples of their students' self-portraits done in Warhol line drawing style. As all the self-portraits come in, they will be assembled into a wallpaper quilt much like the one displayed at the Warhol Museum. A large display (24 x 24 feet) will be created for the Art Wall at Schiller.
As in the sixth grade, much of the research required for the seventh grade Medieval Times project will occur in the social studies class. Students will visit museums and explore as many data bases and information sources as they can locate. Students will be asked to produce travel catalogues and brochures on traditions/holidays, customs. The language arts teacher will supplement his study of journalism by using the assembled data of the Medieval period to publish a newspaper of the Medieval period.
Seventh grade math students will pursue this topic through the study of Medieval architecture. After locating all available information, students will be asked to design their own castle. This project will facilitate their understanding of the concepts of area, perimeter, and ratio and proportion. The final projects will be scanned and added to their electronic portfolios.
As the spirit of the Middle Ages was religious, the most important Medieval art creation was the cathedral. By accessing such resources of the World-Wide Web as World-Wide Web Virtual Library: Museums; World Art Treasures; Museum Web; and the Art History Related Images; students will view many different examples of Gothic Cathedrals. Students will "zero in" and enlarge specific examples of gargoyles on the cathedral facades. They will then create from clay their own examples of gargoyles, based upon such research.
Eighth grade CK:P activities will revolve around the Ethnicity and Multicultural unit. After first surveying the ethnicity of students in their own class, math students will use spreadsheet to graph their findings. Working collaboratively with the librarian, students will research their own ethnicity. Math topics will include contributions of their heritage to mathematics, economics of their native culture, monetary systems of their ancestors, etc. A survey will be devised and sent out through the Internet to students around the world to learn more about others' cultures. Problem solving pen pal relationships will be initiated with students from different backgrounds.
The purpose of the visual arts unit will be to increase students' awareness of his or her cultural heritage by understanding how each cultural heritage developed its own visual language. Students will use many of the same resources previously cited to identify primitive art of their own heritage. They would then create tribal masks, based on such research. We will photograph the masks to put the student work on to the Internet for others to enjoy.
The Schiller library will become a central research area for students to continue to work on particular projects. Students will see the library as a place that is always available to them. Network research will be supplemented by established library resources. We also want to make the library accessible to students and parents at times beyond the regular school hours, such as before and after school. We would also like to recruit parent volunteers, so that the network resources might also be available several evenings per week.
In addition, the applied technology classroom will be an important place to work with students. They will learn the basics of operating the computer, simple keyboarding, and lessons on how to access and search the information highway and how to send and receive electronic mail. It is in these classes, as well as in the library, that students will learn how the computer can be an invaluable tool for them. They will also discuss how the computer and its various capabilities are used in various careers.
At all grade levels, we will be particularly interested in sharing and getting feedback on our work from students in other PACE cities. We have already made contact with PACE schools in San Francisco, San Diego, and Denver for regular communication between students, as well as for developing a system of assistance and support among teachers.
In consideration of these curricular plans, much debate occurred within the planning team on the advisability of maintaining a computer lab that would allow an entire group of students to work on their projects simultaneously. The final decision was made, however, that such a plan was impractical and unworkable. Much time would be lost in arranging schedules and would require students to spend limited times on the computer when larger blocks were required. The planning team members preferred that smaller numbers of computers be placed in each of the classrooms, so that "learning stations" would be established. A variety of activities would be going on in our classrooms at those times where students were engaged in research.
Therefore, we are requesting that there be three computers, one printer, and whatever other equipment is required, to be placed in the classrooms of each participating team member. The library would receive four computers and two printers, as it would serve as an information resource center and as a sort of mini-lab. Each computer would need a portable stand with electrical outlet for each. We would need one permanent LCD projection panel for the art room, and two other LCD panels (one for each floor) to be shared by all other teachers. In order to transmit graphics, one scanner would be required. This scanner would be centrally located in the library. Also required for the library would be two CD-ROM drives, to allow for student and teacher research using the ACCESS PA Project Data Base. In order to allow for program expansion or potential changes within the building, we are requesting that every room in the building be electronically wired.
C. Assessment Plan
The Schiller planning team strongly feels that this project matches perfectly with goals that have been previously established for our students. We have learned through our discussions around redefining our classical academy program and from training received through PACE, that we need to develop students who, when given a significant problem, will be able to access the appropriate data, to analyze the information that was collected, to present their conclusions in a clear and understandable form, and to communicate what they have learned. As teachers, we need to develop new techniques so that our students may become independent thinkers. We must strive to develop thoughtful challenging assignments that will motivate and instruct our students. We must also remember that we are learners as well, and we must use the new technologies not only for our own personal growth, but so that we may also better instruct our students.
There will be several levels of evaluation:
  1. Student portfolios will continue to be used as a form of student assessment. These portfolios will contain evidence in the form of results of the research projects (citing Internet sources utilized) and email communications with other people. The portfolio products will continue to be assessed based on the evaluative criteria previously developed through PACE (see appendix).
  2. Students will be asked to keep a written journal of network activities. They will be asked to record what they do and reflect on how it has enhanced their learning.
  3. Questionnaires will be developed by the planning committee for students, teachers, and parents. The data collected will be used to determine the future directions of the program. The data collected will be reviewed by the CK:P Implementation Team to determine future directions of the program for teachers and students.
PART TWO-DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION TEAM
A. Support and Vision
 The Schiller planning team consists of nine teachers and the school principal. The Planning Team members are all dedicated individuals who are committed to excellence for their students. They have all been actively involved in the planning and implementation to Schiller's CEIP, and they view the CK:P project as an exciting opportunity for professional growth, as well as an exciting means to reaching the goals that have been outlined previously in this proposal. Most of the individuals on the committee are veteran teachers who have a history of becoming actively involved in school district projects.
By the time this proposal has been submitted most of the team members will have visited Woolslair at least once and will have spent many hours thinking about how their curriculum could fit into this project. The Schiller planning team members and their role are described below.
Mr. Thomas Jordan is a mathematics and language arts teacher at Schiller. He has been an active participant in the PACE project and has agreed to work with their research component. He will use the resources of the Internet primarily with his sixth grade mathematics students. With assistance from other committee members, Mr. Jordan has agreed to serve as the principal site coordinator of the project.
Dr. Richard Gutkind is principal of Schiller and has guided the staff through the initial planning of the project. As he feels that it is the principal's role to establish a vision and to be an instructional leader, he will remain actively involved in program implementation and will assist Mr. Jordan with coordinating the project.
The sixth grade project will be implemented by several teachers. Ms. Angela Joseph will coordinate all sixth grade language arts activities related to CK:P. As the school coordinator for our PACE project, she has received much specialized training and serves as an important role model for us in implementing our portfolios. Math activities will be shared by Mr. Jordan, Ms. Andrea Bibaud, and Mr. Daniel Fagan. Ms. Bibaud is Instructional Teacher Leader, serves on district-wide mathematics committees, works actively with PACE on one of their curriculum writing projects, and is a key person in the ACT program (Assessment Communities of Teachers). Mr. Fagan is Instructional Teacher Leader for mathematics and is committed to increasing the mathematical and problem solving skills of our students. Mr. Kenneth Adams will handle the social studies component. As Instructional Teacher Leader for sixth grade, he will also coordinate the sixth grade units and each teacher's role with the CK:P project.
Ms. Ethel Quarles is seventh grade Instructional Teacher Leader and will coordinate the project at that level through weekly team planning meetings. She will also teach the social studies component for grade seven. Mr. Fagan, whose primary teaching assignment is at grade seven, will be responsible for all math activities at that level. Mr. Jordan also teaches seventh grade language arts and will implement those activities with his students.
As the ITL for eighth grade, Ms. Bibaud will be responsible for monitoring the eighth grade project. She will also plan and implement the grade eight math activities. Mr. Daniel Bolick has been the visual arts teacher at Schiller for the past seven years and is the person responsible for all visual arts activities. He is an accomplished and an award-winning artist and, as a past participant in Arts Propel, uses many of those techniques with our current portfolio project.
As the school's librarian, Ms. Jayne Eckel will be responsible for maintaining the library as a research center that is always available to students. She will assist students in their search of the Internet, as well as direct them to other resources that our available through our own library. Teaching research techniques will be an primary focus of the library lessons taught to large groups.
Mr. Ron Anderson is the applied technology teacher. Serving as a co-coordinator for the project, he will be responsible for the technology component described previously. He will be assisted by Ms. Lisa Sbraccia, who, although not part of the planning team, is an applied technology teacher and is eager to work with her students.
Of the ten individuals described above, six of them have home computers and the others are considering their purchase if this proposal is approved. Mr. Anderson is currently taking a computer class at Robert Morris College. Dr. Gutkind was issued a user number by CK:P over a year ago and has spent much time since then learning to access and use the Internet.
B. Management
 The management of this project can actually be viewed as two separate components. While the members of our planning team have learned much about the Internet and its possibilities for instruction, they also agree that much training will be required for them personally before they feel comfortable in introducing this technology into their classrooms. At another level, we must have a management system in place within the school so that we can be assured that we will implement the program as described in the proposal.
At present, Schiller does have a Compaq Presario computer with an internal modem in its library. As soon as we learn that our proposal has been funded, Schiller will fund the cost of a dedicated phone to the library. Teachers could begin to experiment with the Internet even before the current school year ends, using the expertise of CK:P and our own staff to initiate training.
Prior to the start of the 1995-96 school year, we are requesting that at least three days of staff training be scheduled for Schiller staff in the CK:P computer lab at Woolslair. Once the school year begins, we are requesting that there be three other inservice experiences planned there, either after school or during our inservice days.
At Schiller, we will plan our own training. We will use the Compaq computer, our home computers, and the new equipment, as it arrives in the building, to begin to send each other e-mail messages. We will also try to establish our first contacts with teachers from other PACE sites and from around the world. We will then begin to explore the Internet, either individually or in pairs, to develop a list of data sources available to use with our curriculum projects. We need to be able to access information prior to our students' explorations.
Our continued monitoring will assure us that the proposal is being implemented as stated. CK:P planning will become a part of our regular morning planning time. The first and third Mondays of each month will be devoted to meeting with CK:P team members. One of the first tasks of this group will be develop a timeline for CK:P program implementation for the 1995-96 school year. They will also determine the specific training needs of affected staff. These meetings will be chaired by our site coordinator, Mr. Jordan, assisted by co-coordinators, Mr. Anderson and Dr. Gutkind.
The three grade level ITL's will be responsible for implementation of the interdisciplinary units. They will also see that CK:P is a regular topic at grade level team meetings and that each team is moving forward with CK:P. As PACE coordinator for Schiller, Ms. Joseph will coordinate the portfolio aspect of the project.
C. Comprehensive Educational Improvement Plan (CEIP)
 Although the Common Knowledge Project is not mentioned specifically in Schiller's CEIP plan, it is certainly there in spirit, and the ideas expressed in this proposal present us with the perfect opportunity to address our areas of weakness, as well as to implement our long range goals. Indeed, Schiller's vision statement states that our program of studies will "prepare students for the increasing demands of our high tech society. For example, all students will be computer literate, and they will be able to use the computer as another tool with which to accomplish their goals." Under our Statements of Shared Beliefs, the Parent/School/Community Council asserts, "It is important that students gain expertise with computers and other high tech resources. They must be prepared for participation in a high technology-based society by learning higher level thinking and problem solving skills."
In examining the available data about Schiller, the Council often discussed the need to upgrade the technology at Schiller. Lack of technology and facilities as listed as a weakness under the area of "Curriculum/Assessment/Instruction" as well as under "Learning Environment and Student Experiences". Despite our mutual displeasure with this situation, it was not chosen as a long range goal, because we felt that an immediate change was not within our control and would require resources beyond the scope of the Council. In discussing the Common Knowledge proposal at the most recent meeting on February 23, the Council gave it its strongest support.
What does come through most strongly in the CEIP plan is the Council's choice of goals and objectives under the Curriculum/Instruction/Assessment design area. Schiller's long range goal for this area is "to develop and maintain a challenging academic program which will provide opportunities for all students to be successful." Three outcome based objectives were chosen as a means to reach that goal: (1) to develop and implement student assessment strategies as measured student portfolios...; (2) To develop and implement at least one unit per grade level per year that reflects the interdisciplinary approach to the classical program...; and (3) to reduce the racial achievement gap... Please note the strong correlation between these objectives and the problem statements previously mentioned in this proposal.
PART THREE-EQUITABLE DISTRIBUTION OF RESOURCES
 Community members and professional colleagues not associated with the school often assume that, since Schiller is a magnet school, we must certainly have a modern facility with unlimited access to technology and other educational resources. They tend to believe that only the highest academic achievers attend the school and that our school is free of the violence and other discipline-related problems that plague other city schools. Although we do set high standards for our students, our school is confronted with all the challenges that are faced by the comprehensive schools, and with a smaller and an antiquated physical plant that requires considerable upgrading.
When fully enrolled in September, Schiller will house approximately 360 students. The average academic class size will be around 30; classes are slightly smaller in visual arts, music and exploratory foreign language. Our racial balance will always be about even--50% African-American and 50% Other.
Because the school is a magnet, the student population represents a cross section of the city of Pittsburgh. Almost 90% of our students are bused. Schiller attracts students from neighborhoods throughout the city with substantial numbers from the North Side, the Hill District, Beechview, Homewood, Beltzhoover, and West End. For example this year's sixth grade class represented a total of 39 elementary schools that sent students to us. This diversity of neighborhoods can be viewed as a source of cultural richness, but it can create problems in terms of neighborhood conflicts brought into the school. The distance parents must travel has made it difficult for many of them to become more actively involved in the affairs of the school.
According to current records, approximately 50% of our students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, with almost 67% of African-American students who qualify. About 25% of the total population receive public assistance; 41% of the African-American population is on public assistance. While these figures are slightly more favorable than the comprehensive schools, they are equal to or lower than most other magnet schools.
Academically, our students have scored well on standardized reading tests. Nevertheless, there exists a racial achievement gap of 22% between African-American and Other students. In mathematics, the total of 45% of our students scoring at or above the national norm ranks 3 percentage points below the district average. The racial achievement gap of 29% represents a challenge that needs to be addressed.
As all classes at Schiller are grouped heterogeneously (with the exception of one section in the eighth grade scholars program), the particular classes chosen to be most directly involved with the CK:P project will resemble the demographics described above. There will be gifted students working alongside underachievers who encounter frequent discipline referrals, failing grades, and low test scores. Students who have computers at home will help classmates who have no other access to this technology.
One of the most glaring weaknesses of the school is the state of its technology. The principal computers available to our students are the 30 obsolete Tandy Color Computers in our computer lab. Students do little more with them than some simple graphics programs and a very elementary word processing program called Elite Word. We are unable to use the computer as the potential teaching tool that would be match our goals of interdisciplinary studies and portfolio assessment. Not only do we lack such tools as graphics, data base, spreadsheet, etc., we are completely unable to explore the vast resources of the Internet that could fit so well with the goals outlined both in this proposal, as well as in our CEIP Plan.
In anticipation of this proposal, Schiller teachers conducted a survey of our students to gain an understanding of what kind of computer experience that students bring with them from home. We learned that nearly 47% said that they had access to a home computer. Almost 34% said they had a printer; 16% claimed to have CD-ROM; and 14% said they had modems. When asked how they used their home computer, the most frequent answer was "games". However, when the question was, "How do you think a computer could help you with your school work," the most common responses were "help write a report", "access to information
In addition, our library has been a source of frustration for us and a prime target for improvement by our Parent/School/Community Council. While we intuitively felt that we had an inferior facility, an analysis of the data last year revealed that the total number of volumes in the library was by far the lowest of any middle school in the city. The ratio of 6.5 library items per pupil didn't even come close to approaching the ratio of any other middle school, around 15-20 items per student. Thus, our library has not been an effective information resource center. A parent committee is currently lobbying for a renovation and upgrading of that facility.
Based on this information, the planning committee has identified these needs of our students and our unique community: access to the most up-to-date research tools so that we may best implement our curriculum; making computer technology available to those students and families who would not ordinarily have it available to them; using the computer technology as a motivator for underachieving and apathetic students; using the computer to enhance other school-adopted goals such as portfolio assessment or the PUMP Algebra project.
The issue of continuity is difficult to address in a school such as Schiller where no feeder pattern exists. However, the diversity of communities that feed into Schiller and previous enrollment patterns of promoted eighth graders indicate that many of them will attend high schools such as Schenley and Westinghouse where CK:P already exists. In addition many of our incoming sixth graders will enter from elementary schools where they have had some exposure to this technology.

APPENDIX A
INTERDISCIPLINARY UNITS FOR CLASSICAL ACADEMY
Sixth grade: Neighborhood Unit
Greek/Roman Festival
Middle Eastern Culture
Future times

Seventh grade: Renaissance
Medieval Times
Early Beginnings (Vikings, Germans, Norsemen)
French/English Revolution

Eighth Grade: Native Americans
Colonization
Civil War
Ethnicity