Wednesday, January 25, 2012

A Day in the Life of an RTHS Student


Howard is up early, just like every morning. He can’t complain; it’s only a thirty-five minute bus ride to Research Triangle High School. Some of his neighbors have an even longer bus ride to their base schools, and they don’t have WiFi on their buses like he does. Howard catches the Triangle Transit Authority bus from a grocery store parking lot in West Raleigh every day, which drops him right at RTHS with an hour to spare before his first class.
Once on the bus he takes out his tablet and connects to his playlist. His chemistry teacher has suggested a video and a slide deck that two other teachers have produced to help him learn how to draw organic chemical structures. Last night he watched his teacher’s introductory video, commented on it, and tried his homework. Simple straight chains are easy, but he still isn’t confident with functional groups. The video is short, and knows that he can always use the drawing utility he has downloaded to try drawing structures. The program can name the structure he draws, and tell him if he drew it correctly. He opens his notebook and the slide deck and listens to another teacher’s lecture. Within a few minutes he is sure he can recognize an ether molecule and is able to answer the questions on the practice sheet his teacher handed out at the end of class yesterday.
A short walk from the bus station gets Howard to school, which is open early every day. There aren’t many other students here yet, so there are plenty of empty chairs in the gallery. He usually spends this hour before school finishing homework. It’s great to have that time at school because there is always a teacher in the gallery for help. With chemistry out of the way, his tablet can become his book for English class. His assignment is to post three questions about the reading to the class’ Google document to discuss the next day. He likes this assignment because he gets his questions answered and doesn’t have to worry about volunteering to ask them himself, unless the question is a good one—then he’ll take credit for it.
Off to first period: Government and Politics. He is part of a small group producing a campaign commercial for a made-up local government candidate. They have finished researching the laws concerning campaign ads and are planning theirs. They will shoot the video next week and edit it in time for next Friday’s due date. Part of the assignment is to find and critique four ads on the Internet. Each group member has already found one, and today they are showing them to each other and discussing them. Their teacher spends a few minutes with each group checking and grading their progress. They have checkpoints to meet at certain places in the project’s life cycle as well as a final grade.
Second period is English. Luckily he has finished the reading, as his teacher gives a reading quiz. It isn’t difficult, but just another progress check. The class discussion is lively, and the teacher and his classmates answer his questions about the reading during class.
Third period is his study hall time. Study hall is different at RTHS than at other schools. Rather than quietly sitting at a desk, students migrate to the gallery or to one of several small groups of couches and chairs in corners and hallways all over the school. A teacher is always present at one of the designated study areas (DSA) to take attendance, so students have to find a group with a teacher and check in. The groups stay pretty constant all year as students sit with friends or classmates in similar classes. The teachers are there for help and to keep the period productive, but students are allowed to talk quietly and work together. Students do homework, watch class videos (with earbuds), or read for fun, as long as it’s productive. Gaming and Facebook have to wait.
Fourth period is Howard’s music class, his favorite class. He is studying music composition and production. He and his fellow students use sequencing software to compose and produce music during class. Each student sits with headphones on, editing samples and layering tracks. His teacher spends time with each student, jacking his own headset in to hear what students are working on. It is nice not having to lug around a trumpet to make music. Later in the year his class will upload the tracks for release to the Internet as well as putting on a show for parents.
After lunch he still has geometry, Spanish, and chemistry. Chemistry is work in the lab, making esters. It is nice to do something hands-on after so much computer work all day. He doesn’t mind working on his tablet, and it is nice to be able take all of his work with him anywhere he goes. Spanish is language lab practice, which gives him the time to practice speaking with as well as listening to native speakers his class chats with over the web. By the end of the day, Howard has a new set of sources for his playlist and a few more homework assignments, but he knows his teachers will be ‘going home’ with him, virtually, and tomorrow he will be back in front of them with time to practice what he watched and simulated the night before. He and his friends will be chatting and posting tonight as well. With all the help he can get at just about any time, he realizes, the school day doesn’t really end.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Guest blog post on The RTP Blog

RTHS is being featured on TheRTPblog.org
Check out our guest blog post here.

Below is the post:


Did you know that RTP will soon have its very own high school dedicated to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) learning?  Research Triangle High School (RTHS) is anticipating opening as a public charter school in RTP this August 2012.  The school’s launch is spearheaded by Pamela Blizzard, a founder of nationally-ranked Raleigh Charter High School, and of the science education non-profit Contemporary Science Center in Durham’s Museum of Life and Science.
RTHS will offer an education that blends digital materials with experiential learning, enabling us to reach a broad spectrum of learners, and to develop young people into mature, sophisticated thinkers and doers. We hope to draw applicants from a range of academic, economic and minority backgrounds… a school that will represent the diversity of the Triangle. Our goal is to accelerate learning for all who come to this school, preparing them for college and our globally competitive work world.
 Innovations at RTHS:
* Cutting-edge instructional techniques will blend digital material and collaborative experiences, reflecting the mobile world in which we live and work today.
‘Flipped’ coursework will allow students to learn from digital lectures and material outside of class time, and to learn from group labs, seminars and collaborative projects during class time, allowing much greater differentiation for students’ learning.
* Research Triangle industry internships and projects, developed through partnerships with surrounding companies, will allow students to develop skills and a solid sense of the work-world around them and their place in it.
* An extended school day will provide more opportunities for instruction and help outside of class, as well as overcome transportation barriers.
* Learning Teams of teachers and industry experts will support key STEM learning objectives, creating a fertile field of experts collaborating to create better learning opportunities for students both at RTHS and beyond.
Are you the parent of a rising 9th grader and looking at high school options?  We are anticipating charter approval by February 3rd. The student application period will open for rising ninth grade students on February 4th and close on March 15.  The school will begin with a ninth grade class of 160 students, and add a new grade each fall until grades 9-12 are covered with a projected student enrollment of 420. For more details visit:www.researchtrianglehighschool.org.

Research Triangle High School RTP Open Houses
Friday, February 10th 12 PM to 1 PM
Wednesday, February 15th 5:30 PM to 7 PM
Research Triangle Park Headquarters
12 Davis Drive
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709

Thursday, January 12, 2012

The Flipped Class Manifest


At RTHS, our education model is built on several innovations chosen from research and success across the country.  RTHS will be a place where students learn by an innovative blend of digital and experiential methods, in order to develop into mature, sophisticated thinkers and doers.  One of the ways we are going to do this is through a technique called "Flipped Learning."

What is Flipped Learning anyway? 
Recently, several authors that work with the Flipped Classroom in both administrative and applied positions got together and wrote The Flipped Class Manifest to clearly address the main ideas and the most common concerns raised about the Flipped Classroom. While RTHS will not be offering exactly what they describe, this article is a nice introduction and a great springboard for discussion on Flipped Learning.


In summary, flipped coursework will allow students to learn from digital lectures and material outside class during traditional homework time and to practice higher order thinking skills through group labs, seminars and collaborative projects during class time.  The flipped digital content can be reviewed and learners will have access to any topic whenever they need it.  This technique will allow much greater differentiation for students, engage both teacher and student, and afford students much greater practice time with content and skills during class time when the teacher is present.

Below are some notable quotes from the article

"Flip" is a verb. We are actively transferring the responsibility and ownership of learning from the teacher to the students in a Flipped Classroom. When students have control over how they learn content, the pace of their learning, and how their learning is assessed, the learning belongs to them.  Teachers become guides to understanding rather than dispensers of facts, and students become active learners rather than receptacles of information. 
Practitioners of the various flipped classroom models are constantly tweaking, changing, rejecting, adding to, and generally trying to improve the model through direct experience with how effective it is for kids. It's not "record your lecture once" and you're done; it's part of a comprehensive instructional model that includes direct instruction, inquiry, practice, formative and summative assessment and much more. It also allows teachers to reflect on and develop quality and engaging learning opportunities and options for internalization, creation, and application of content rather than just fluff or time filling assignments.
What do you think about Flipped Learning?  Do you have any questions about the technique? We welcome further discussion on this topic!

Thursday, January 5, 2012

What are we doing?!

Last month Eric Grunden and I visited the Ohio STEM Hub collaborative and some of its key schools. MC2/Squared High School in Cleveland was highly recommended, so we spent half a day with the indomitable Jeff McClellan and were not disappointed. MCSquared is a small high school in downtown Cleveland, a public district with virtually 100% free and reduced lunch students. Since opening in 2008 they have skyrocketed to the top of the Cleveland public school district rankings with their strong problem-based learning program and innovative partnerships with the Cleveland science museum, GE Lighting and others in local industry.

So this year, with state budget cuts pushing the district to do something drastic, they did. They cut the faculty at MCSquared 83%. The fired 83% of the teachers at the top- performing school in their district. Since the kids were not going anywhere, they had to have teachers. So the district brought in substitute teachers to fill those slots - people without content knowledge or teaching experience. Jeff McClellan is working his young, passionate talented heart out to bring these new folks up to speed on how to... teach... innovatively and in a problem-based learning environment. But ...

What on earth are we doing in this country?!!