Philadelphia and Microsoft Open the High School of the Future

Parents Forum
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<p>I believe some of the better performing countries on international tests have a more problem-solving approach to math education than the US. Tokenadult has studied this issue, so he could say whether I'm right or wrong on this.</p>

<p>You are absolutely right that the project-based approach depends on good teacher education. And teacher education is woefully lacking in this country. A book that has made the rounds of math education circles is Liping Ma, Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics. In the book Ma shows that Chinese teachers who typically enter ed schools after 9th grade have a better grasp of fractions than American teachers (who typically come out of teachers' colleges).</p>

<p>It is not at all clear that the traditional method of teaching is capable of reaching the greatest number of students, considering the amount of money colleges must invest in remedial math and English. It is certainly the easiest way to teach. But between the teaching and the learning is like between the cup and the lip.</p>

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<p>“kk19131, you can debate whether or not they are a good use of tax dollars (personally, I would think that infrastructure or police services would be a better use of tax money for Philadelphia, which has no bike lanes, horrible mass transit, and hundreds upon hundreds of murders per year, including many random ones of students and tourists like the UPenn student killed last week in North Philly), but new facilities do make a big difference in the quality of education. My point, however, was that Philadelphia is doing nothing new here. It's just copying what many other districts all over the country have already done. This is just a PR stunt for them.”</p>

<p>The student who was murdered was just taking classes at Penn. That’s not to say that he wasn’t a “Student” in the school, but he was very far from its protective “bubble” of a campus, and was not full-time. </p>

<p>Also, this is a HUGE waste of tax money. This new school will NOT make a big difference. The Philadelphia public school system is very stressed and underperforming. One new school in a random neighborhood is not going to have a big impact on a macro level, the level which is arguably more important. Sure, this school will be nice for the first few groups that come through it, but it, like most other schools in Philadelphia that are built as the “wave of the future”, will become run-down and fall by the wayside. What Philadelphia needs is many new schools, and deunionized teachers, if it is to succeed at educating its children. </p>

<p>I also do believe that is a PR stunt. The city has a campaign to make it appear more hospitable to families and businesses. The seeming belief in City Hall is that the only way to attract businesses, families, and recent college grads is to display the city in a new light. This 60 million dollar waste of money is just one of those ways.</p>

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<p>kk19131's screen name ought to mean that s/he knows something about the area where the new school is located, but I think there's a lot wrong in this poster's posts.</p>

<p>(1) There is certainly a PR aspect to the "Microsoft" school, but that's largely Microsoft. The school itself, and the many other schools being built or renovated, is completely substantive. These new schools may not work, but they are a real attempt to improve mass education here, probably the first to get any traction in more than a generation. Even the PR has substance, since it helps make parents and students excited about change and willing to go along with it -- two things that are necessary to any success.</p>

<p>(2) This is nothing like "one new school in a random neighborhood". As I said in an earlier post, on Thursday four new high schools opened, of which this was one, and there have been numerous others over the past five years and many more scheduled for the future.</p>

<p>(3) Of course Philadelphia isn't doing something totally new. When you spend hundreds of millions of dollars, you only have one chance to get it right, and you do your best to find things that have some track record of success. However, I don't know of any large urban district which is doing as much as fast as Philadelphia is right now.</p>

<p>(4) Philadelphia has hundreds of miles of bike lanes and a public transit system that is mediocre at worst. And it is mediocre only by comparison with a few great systems, like NYC, Boston, and DC. For years, my kids got all over the city on public transit.</p>

<p>(5) I'm not the biggest fan of the teachers' union, but the union has not been an impediment to Paul Vallas' reform program. It has accepted numerous contract changes to make the system more flexible. And salaries are not high in Philadelphia -- the system is constantly hemmoraghing good teachers to higher-paying suburban districts. So there isn't much basis for attacking the union these days.</p>

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<p>I went to a school similar to this. It's a joke. Parents and students beware.</p>

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<p>After discussing this briefly with Marite, is it possible that this type of project-based approach is more successful with math and science than the liberal arts? We know students are better able to master science when teachers use labs and other hands-on methods. Maybe it's true for math, too. </p>

<p>I'm old-fashioned but I don't think hands-on learning works as well for subjects like history and writing. You don't learn history by creatively imagining it, nor do you learn to write (at least not well) by encouraging literary flights of fancy before mastering basic spelling and grammar.</p>

<p>Could this be part of the reason there seem to be more magnet schools that excel in teaching math and science, while liberal arts magnet schools are more likely to struggle?</p>

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<p>DRJ:</p>

<p>I'm not sure we mean the same thing by project-based. For example, my Ss learned about Africa in 5/6 grades. In each case, all students learned some basic facts. But each chose to write a paper on a specific topic for which they had to do research. In many ways, it was like a college course in which students become more knowledgeable about one subject by researching and writing about it. There was also a lot of class discussion, again strikingly similar to discussion sections. There was no "creatively imagining" history. I remember S1 deciding to write about the ancient kingdom of Axum (I had not known there had been such a kingdom) and so we went to the public library to borrow books on African history so he could write his paper. Learning basic spelling and grammar was incorporated in the many writing opportunities. Students were asked to produce first drafts which the teachers commented copiously on, and to revise them in light of the comments. </p>

<p>I think that the danger of project-based learning is not that the basics are short-changed. It is that inexperienced teachers may lose sight of the goals of the project and lose control of the learning process. They may also lose control of their class, which, typically, is less structured than a traditional class. </p>

<p>It is much easier to maintain an appearance of learning and class control if all is needed is quiet while the teacher drones on. But this appearance of successful teaching and dutiful learning may be deceptive. I remember all the paper-passing and surreptitious reading of forbidden magazines and books while in front the teacher serenely went on lecturing, oblivious to the fact that a good 1/3 of the class had tuned out. </p>

<p>I agree that there is no single teaching and learning style that will suit everybody. We have been very happy with the way our children learned; but I know many parents who felt that their child needed to be in more structured classroom environments even though they liked the pedagogy at our kids' school.</p>

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<p>Marite,</p>

<p>Maybe we are talking apples and oranges but I don't think so. There is only so much time in a schoolday unless you are going to say that much of the work will be done outside the classroom - which is fine but there is only so much time in the day, too.</p>

<p>Let's say a school devotes one hour a day to history and on a particular day the teacher introduces a topic such as the Boston Tea Party. Depending on the grade level, my recollection is that an elementary school teacher in a traditional classroom spent most of that hour discussing the events that preceded the event and the details of the Tea Party itself. The teacher probably would also touch on the significance of the Boston Tea Party in the context of the American Revolution. I'd estimate the division of time as 45/15, with 45 minutes spent on the people, places and dates of the Boston Tea Party and 15 minutes spent on the significance. In higher grades, the times might be reversed since presumably the students have been introduced to this topic earlier in their educations.</p>

<p>Yes, students tune out but sometimes they also learn by osmosis. I tune out everyday - to hear my family tell it, sometimes several times a day - but that doesn't mean my mind is in a vegetative state. If I am vegetating, it's probably because I need the mental down time.</p>

<p>My understanding in project-based education is that students might present a play illustrating the events leading up to and culminating in the Boston Tea Party, write journals about the events and consequences of rebelling against one's government or, if they were lucky enough to have one in their area, visit a Revolutionary War museum to view an exhibit on the Boston Tea Party. These are all excellent ideas and I wish every student had the opportunity to do something like this, but it takes time. Easily 2-4 class periods. So what do you miss when you do this? By definition, you have to skip over some part of the American history book when you embrace project-based history education because it's too time-consuming to devote this much time to every topic.</p>

<p>In my grade school years, we did things like this every so often. They called it field trips or special projects and they were heaven-on-earth. I wish I could have learned everything that way, not because I would have learned it better but because it was so much fun. Our son attended a private high school that followed this model. It was creative and challenging, and he benefitted from it enormously. I am convinced, however, that he benefitted because in K-6, we made sure he attended a traditional school where he memorized as much raw data as humanly possible. </p>

<p>Our son's private high school had an award-winning K-6 that provided creative opportunities to its students in every lesson. They had daily medievel festivals, Mexican fiestas, Brazilian mardi gras, and every cultural exposure you can imagine that included children as young as age 3. It was impressive and stimulating but, and I know this is anecdotal, every single National Merit Finalist at that high school for 8 straight years was a transfer from the traditional K-6 program.</p>

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<p>DRJ:</p>

<p>It's true that project-based learning takes up a lot of time, time that might be used to teach something else. But it gets to the issue of breadth vs. depth. My beef against the AP program in history and literature is that it is far too broad and not deep enough. As I've said before, my kids wrote far more in earlier grades than in AP classes. </p>

<p>Actually, if the class was about the Boston Tea Party, I could guarantee that it would not be just a couple of periods but a whole unit. The students might learn about daily life in the 18th century, about British and colonial politics, about where tea came from, the China trade, clippers, etc... They might be asked to produce skits, each writing his or her part. </p>

<p>Anecdote for anecdote: There were 15 different k-8 schools in our district (now reduced down to 12). When S attended the reception for NMSF, fully half of NMSFs came from our k-8 school; most of the rest came from another school that also has a project-based curriculum.</p>

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<p>Marite,</p>

<p>Point taken. Maybe that brings us back to this: It's not the program, it's the teacher.</p>

<p>EDIT - The Texas schools I'm familiar with don't spend that much time on the Boston Tea Party. It might limit the available time for Texas history!</p>

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<p>DRJ:</p>

<p>I''m not sure that our school spends much time on the Boston Tea Party, either, truth to tell. I see each unit not so much as an opportunity to learn about the specifics of a country's history or culture--how much do we remember of what we learned in 3rd grade?--but an opportunity to learn how to learn: to read, to ask questions, to write. For those purposes, it does not matter whether one uses the Boston Tea Party or the Alamo. The skills acquired while doing one unit can be transferred to and are reinforced by the next unit. </p>

<p>I do agree that you need excellent teachers--and, on the whole, the teachers were excellent. Interestingly, it was the math teaching that was the most traditional and the least successful. I think, however, that the math-teaching was traditional because the teachers were strong in the humanities/social studies. They clung to the text and to the single method they had learned to use and could not think out of the box. This did not become so clear to us until S2 came along, able to use different methods to attack problems rather than the single one the 5th grade teacher had learned and was regurgitating to the class. That teacher, by the way, was terrific as a humanities teacher. She just was not good at math and could not have thought up a problem on her own for the kids to solve.</p>

<p>I don't mean to denigrate more traditional teaching methods. They work well for certain kids and not so well with others; just as project-based learning works better with certain kids than others. It is also possible that project-based learning may not be very successful with kids who do not have the home resources that are often required (such as parents willing to take their kids to the public library to borrow books).</p>

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<p>I think people overvalue the need for "good" teachers.</p>

<p>High School is a time where you learn the basics, and that means memorization and regurgitating. Its in college when you're suppose to develop true problem-solving skills and higher thought.</p>

<p>America has poor Math and Science literacy because of this kind of thinking that students need to have "good" teachers who can entertain them or more technology.</p>

<p>Learning math and science at the high school level is as simple as practicing problems and rereading material day after day. Most learning takes place outside the classroom and much of that is reliant upon a student's work ethic and focus.</p>

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<p>if the school can teach the concepts behind the subjects to the students with technology, then they should do it. but if technology is a hassle and distraction, then i would go back to the traditional way. personally, the traditional way of learning things is much more efficient. i can learn a bigger deal of information than using the computer or other electronic gadgets. currently, my college has this online site where most of the homework and quizzes are done. i dont feel like im learning anything. it seems the majority of the learning is still things on paper.</p>

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<p>kgu07,</p>

<p>I confess I like technology and gadgets but I agree that you don't need them to learn. Have you had classes or teachers that used technology in ways that helped you learn? If so, would you share that here?</p>

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<p>Aaah, its like a fantasy to be studying in one of those places. Well we missed it, let's se if it's the wave of the future. Now, the big thing is that students in the US study in such envronments asking profound questions and all. Maybe you'll get a couple of CEOs from that place or even some world class scientists.
However, that depends on themselves, ya, teachers and parents do come into the equation but the most important people are the students themselves.
Doesn't that bring out the old technological divide among the haves of rich countries and the have-nots of poorer parts of the world in Asia and especially in Africa.
Being in Nepal myself, the closest I've come to technological study was google which was voluntary. I mean I was so bored by my teachers, I learnt everything from the internet. Well we did have Audio-visual sessions and computer labs with facilities equal to if not better than most US high schools. We did project works too but weren't allowed to type or print maybe until class 7 or 8 because of the differences among the students.
I think I learnt more by doing projects during my schooling years more than I learnt in the class. We haven't been taught Bernoulli's principle, thanks to our decades old curriculum but we had to learn them ourselves for doing our aerodynamics prooject in the 10th grade.
Anyways, even we didn't spend so much time on Boston Tea Party. haha</p>

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<p>So long Snow Days. Hello Blue Screen of Death Days. ;P</p>

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<p>no...my school uses this online software called blackboard. im more worried of my gpa than what i learn from the homework and quizzes. the average for most homework and quizzes is around 50-60% for all the kids who have done them. this is freshman general stuff. it is suppose to be easy because everyone has had the material in high school. the only thing this technology is doing is dropping gpa like stocks during bear markets. i learn the most from the textbooks and the study guides that supplement the textbooks, and lectures. technology plays no role in my college education. again, all its doing is dropping my gpa like crazy.</p>

<p>i believe technology should increase the speed and efficiency of WORK. it should not be used to learn new material.</p>

57

<p>I love how Microsoft (you know, the company with the infinity billion dollars) made the broke Philadelphia school system foot the $63 million bill. So much for "Bill-anthropy." Jerks.</p>

<p>And what's more Microsoft is making them pay for the privilege of locking them into proprietary Microsoft solutions. Terrible from a moral as well as logistical point of view...</p>

<p>While I hope the spirit of this school lives on, I hope the shameless self-serving nature of Microsoft's efforts in it are exposed and do not.</p>