Education Week - May 22, 2013 - Special Report - S26

EDUCATION WEEK: DIGITAL CURRICULA > www.edweek.org/go/digital-report

Tech Skills
Emphasized
In STEM Ed.
CONTINUED FROM PAGE S24

related fields, but many do, said
Ms. Kennedy, allowing students
to put their digital skills to work.

‘Working on a Real Issue’
Connecting authentic learning
experiences with high schoolers is
also a major emphasis of the stem
school in the 25,400-student Lake
Washington district outside Seattle.
That school, called the stem High
School, has partnered with the University of Washington to provide
internships, expertise, and collegelevel curricula, said its principal,
Cindy Duenas, and it has pursued
relationships with companies to
provide internships and other
learning experiences for its students.
“No longer are we just doing
lab work for the sake of doing lab
work,” said Ms. Duenas. “[Our students] see that they’re working on a
real issue that could have a positive
impact.”
To complete such work, she said,
students have access to high-tech
labs that seat up to 75 people and
contain the technology expected

from a university-level research lab,
including biotechnology dna equipment, a crime scene digital evidence
photo system, and a geographic information systems (gis) lab. The district itself moved to a 1-to-1 laptop
computing model last year, which
has greatly supported the work at
the stem school in particular, she
said.
Ms. Duenas describes the school’s
curriculum as a combination of
problem- and project-based learning, in which students spend the
school year working on six or seven
projects.
Students tend to have similar
schedules during the 9th and 10th
grades, but when they enter 11th
grade, they begin to differentiate
the curriculum by choosing a stemfocused concentration. Rising juniors this year can choose between
environmental engineering and
sustainable design, forensic psychology, or digital media and design, Ms.
Duenas said.
At the 400-student New Technology High School in Napa, Calif.,
students are thrust into a businessstyle setting that lets them learn
collaboratively in teams through
project-based learning in a technology-rich environment.
The school runs on a “bring your
own device,” or byod, model, in
which students bring digital devices
from home to connect to the school’s
wireless network.
Netbooks are available for students who don’t have their own

MAY 22, 2013

Nick Adams for Education Week

S26

devices, said Michelle Spencer, the
principal of the 17-year-old school,
but after the holiday season, the
school now has 60 leftover netbooks
because most students have acquired their own computing devices,
she said.
New Tech High also receives
technology donations from business partners in the community,
including a recently donated 3-D
printer that Ms. Spencer hopes to
incorporate into the curriculum
next year.
The tech-infused environment
can take some getting used to, said
Christa Rico, a sophomore.

Great

change
begins with
great

ideas.
Throughout my education,
I was fortunate to have very
supportive teachers, principals
and professors. The people at
Peabody have been wonderful.
Greg Aikens, M.Ed.
special education
(visual disabilities)

Explore Our Difference
peabody.vanderbilt.edu

“[The teachers] definitely started
us off very slowly,” she said, by introducing students to their email
accounts and showing them how to
keep track of their progress in the
school’s learning management system, which enables students and
parents to keep a close eye on the
students’ grades.
“It was hard to get into checking
my email and [the lms] every night,
but now I have my email open even
during the summer and breaks,”
Ms. Rico said.
Using technology also breaks
down the barriers between teachers and students at the school, said
junior Pamela Willeford.
“New teachers often don’t feel
comfortable with technology,” she
said, “and the students and the rest
of the staff help them.”
What’s more, all students have access to a video-production lab where
they can create professional-quality
videos. One such video recently won
honorable mention in a national
student-created video contest
hosted by c-span.
“It’s a convenient way for teachers to allow students to show what
they’ve learned,” Ms. Spencer said.
In addition, the school partners
with Napa Valley College to provide
stem-related college classes on the
school’s campus. And students are
required to complete a 50-hour internship in the field of their choice
during the summer between their
junior and senior years or during
senior year.
After the internships, students
are required to create digital portfolios of the projects they’ve worked
on during their time at New Tech to
share with prospective colleges or
employers.

‘Greater Meaning’
Meanwhile, at Virginia’s Thomas
Jefferson High School for Science
and Technology, students have access to 13 specialized research labs
to perform original research and
learn about the latest developments
in stem fields, said the school’s principal, Evan Glazer.
Students at the science and
technology school are chosen from
applicants based on merit and interest in stem by an admissions
office separate from the school,

STEM High School 9th graders,
from left, Jenna Oratz, Mindy
Hsu, Miranda Pehrson, and
Ethan Perrin search for
inspiration for drawings.
The school integrates physics
into art lessons.

Mr. Glazer said.
All the elective courses are stemfocused, and students are required
to complete a rigorous science and
technology curriculum, including
at least one year each of computer
science, calculus, and design and
technology, as well as four years of
core science courses, in addition to
a senior-year research project. The
project requires each student to conduct original research on a topic of
the student’s choice.
The more specialized classes that
the school offers—such as microbiotics, alternative energy systems,
neuroscience electronics, and nanotechnology—are proposed by the
teachers at the school with feedback from government and industry partners about the most pressing trends and needs in stem fields,
said Mr. Glazer.
Teachers at Thomas Jefferson
typically curate the curriculum
for each of the specialized classes
through a combination of digital resources, research, and proprietary
resources, such as textbooks.
“The nature of curriculum is often
driven by what students know and
what they’re able to do,” Mr. Glazer
said. “What’s unique about some
of the outcomes of our curriculum
is that there’s an expectation that
you’re going to help students go in
directions that haven’t been defined.”
If students want access to technology not available in the labs at the
school, which Mr. Glazer said resemble equipment you would typically find at a university, they are
encouraged to reach out to other
partners, such as the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md.,
for mentorship and access to equipment.
“Whenever there’s connectivity
to an outside organization or a real
problem that we experience, it creates greater meaning for the students,” Mr. Glazer said. n

http://www.edweek.org/go/digital-report http://peabody.vanderbilt.edu http://peabody.vanderbilt.edu

Education Week - May 22, 2013 - Special Report

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Education Week - May 22, 2013 - Special Report