New Project Promotes Learning for High School and College Freshmen

An innovative project at the New Tech School of IDEAS at Decatur Central High School helped prepare both ninth-grade students and some University of Indianapolis freshmen for college success. The joint venture helped educate students about plagiarism, provided interactions between high school and college students, and exposed teacher education students and faculty to new methods and models for learning.

Sally Nichols, English teacher at the New Tech School of IDEAS, launched the project to  educate both high school and college freshmen about plagiarism. Using a project-based approach, Nichols' BioLit students researched plagiarism to determine its meaning, address academic concerns, find ways to avoid the problem, and learn to use the appropriate style manual for writing. The ninth-graders worked in groups and were charged with becoming experts on quoting, paragraphing, summarizing, and citing sources. The groups collaborated to synthesize their research, determine relevance and use technology to create slide shows for presentations to the teacher education students at UIndy. When asked about her experience with the project, freshman Baleigh Garl said, "I won’t go to a Web site and write word for word. I have learned how to summarize, cite sources and use MLA format."

A group of panelists made up of UIndy faculty from the School of Education and sophomore students evaluated the presentations of each group. The group worked with students to provide feedback on their presentations and capitalized on the opportunity to see the learning methods of the New Technology High School model in action. Dr. Kathy Moran, associate dean for the School of Education at UIndy, said, "This was a nice opportunity to have university faculty come out and watch student presentations as we’re exploring the ramifications of new models of high school for teacher education, and at the same time, show our teacher education students other ways to think about high school."

Moran has been a member of a group of partners working with the New Tech School of IDEAS since its opening in August. The group has observed classrooms, supports school faculty to provide real-world learning experiences for students and promotes the importance of higher education. "We hope that this project provided the New Tech students with an impetus to think about college," Moran said.

 

CELL upcoming events

September 11, 2008
Indiana New Tech High School Network Meeting

September 18, 2008
Indiana Early College High School Network Meeting

November 17-18, 2008
Indiana Education Transformation Conference:
Responding to Tomorrow's World -
Breaking the Mold of Today's High Schools

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