Below we examine projects at HTH from the viewpoint of both faculty and students. The faculty commentaries, drawn from the school’s annual curriculum yearbook (which can be ordered through High Tech High Learning), reveal the multiple ways HTH teachers reach across disciplines and make learning relevant.

The student project descriptions are but a small sample of the hundreds of summaries posted in the digital portfolios kept by each student. The examples we share here reflect the extraordinary range of projects that students pursue. As one student said simply, “I never would have thought to do a project like that!”

Teacher interviews

Student project descriptions

Real world research

“In science there’s a view that you have to have a Ph.D. to do research,” says HTH science teacher Theresa Gilly. “I don’t believe it,” she continues, “I believe high schools should and could be doing real research.” Gilly came to HTH determined to prove her belief true. After seeing good results with a water-quality project in which students designed a water treatment facility, she and her tenth-grade teaching partners teamed up for an energy project that drew in chemistry, math, and the humanities.

With California in the midst of an energy crisis, oil prices rising, and the world in turmoil, the project had plenty of relevance. As Gilly’s chemistry classes studied nuclear energy, humanities teacher Mark Aguirre arranged debates on nuclear issues in his class. Students took in the San Diego mayor’s “state of the city” address citing energy as a key issue, and then took up their own task: recommending an action plan to the city council that would reduce reliance on fossil fuels and increase environmental awareness.

They started by researching the science and origins of various fuel sources, including hydrogen fuel cells, solar power, wind power, wave power, and biomass. “Building on our previous project about water, we did a series of experiments where they tested the fuel efficiency of water,” Gilly says. Then groups of four set out to build a hydrogen fuel cell that would run a solar powered car. “When you put water in, a solar panel splits it into hydrogen and oxygen, and when you cover the solar panel the car will run on water,” she explains. “They had to do real research on how economically feasible that is.”

“Once you teach kids how to do high level science, then the understanding starts to come,” Theresa Gilly says. “As they’re doing pipetting, they ask questions: So now what’s happening? Why? If you really want to get kids interested in science you can’t do it the old way. You have to let them figure it out.” There’s another reason Gilly engages her students in research-based projects like building a hydrogen fuel cell for a solar car. “I want products,” she explains, adding “kids drive themselves, they work better, when they have a real world expectation from someone outside the teacher. You can get them to do more work for you —it’s an intrinsic motivator.” Click here for examples of related teacher prompts/student responses (PDF file) Writing across subjects “Writing and communication are very important no matter what discipline kids eventually go into,” says Will Turner, who teaches on the tenth-grade humanities team. In their first year teaching together, he and his team colleagues concluded that improving their students’ writing took precedence over memorizing factual information. “We were less concerned with the 50 state capitols and Presidents’ names,” explains Turner, “than whether students can get information, analyze it, draw their own conclusions, and then present all that in writing.” The team agreed on using Writing Workshop as a vehicle for content, spanning the disciplines of math, science, history, and literature. Because the same group of students rotates through the team’s classes, their teachers can merge class periods for joint projects like this. Students typically work on the writing workshop assignments for two weeks, starting with a reading that prompts discussion and the first draft of an essay. At the end of the week, all 60 students come together for an extended workshop in which they exchange drafts for peer editing, then revise. In the next week’s session teachers give them feedback on that revision, and students use the workshop to prepare their final draft. Students respond to articles from science journals or the lay press. They might read a magazine article, for example, on the government’s decision to comply with the Native American Graves Protection Act by returning remains to a tribe’s people rather than to a museum. “Was that a good decision?” the team of teachers might ask, prompting students to summon—and distinguish between—legal evidence and scientific opinion. Over time, Turner says, “we use writing workshop not as a stand alone thing but as a vehicle for curriculum, focusing heavily on short stories.” They might ask students to analyze the use of irony or describe the segments of the plot in Poe’s short stories. By term’s end, students write their own historical fiction—an 8-10 page story that covers a 24- to 48- hour time period of a particular historical era they are interested in knowing more about. The workshop has its challenges, Turner acknowledges. With 60 students tackling 60 different projects, “logistics can be maddeningly difficult. We spent hours figuring out how to grade them,” he notes. “My job is not just teaching but project management—most teachers struggle with that.” Yet by working together the three teachers discovered an increased capacity to assign and assess writing, which ultimately benefited students. “All of us coach students as they do their peer editing, and then after the second draft we divide the work to assess it with common standards,” explains Turner.

Creating a High Tech High Network At 15, Rickey Morton might be “the youngest female on the planet” to have been certified by Cisco Certified Networking Associate (CCNA), said Deborah Sponder-Levin, the parent volunteer who has taught HTH electives in network administration. For one class, Rickey and two other 16-year-old HTH certified networking associates, Gil Shafir and Abel Levin, worked closely with a Cisco engineer to redesign the very infrastructure of the network to allow use of certain software students liked best. “This is a flat network and we want to create a layered network [LAN] instead,” Rickey explained. “This one’s security features don’t allow for software like Audio Galaxy, where they give you your own satellite and you’re allowed to download music.” “Right now if the kids experiment the whole school folds,” noted Deborah. “They want to have their own “Dirty LAN”, so that if they mess it up, they fix it.” Because that involved a new module for the server, the students investigated the various options and costs, and sent to Cisco their own proposal for the new LAN. Eighty students take the twice-weekly networking course, and usually most are boys. Designed for community colleges, it is conducted via the Internet (at www.cisco.net) and culminates in an extremely challenging exam; those who pass can move on to well-paid careers helping companies set up their information technology networks. “I thought: I’m here at High Tech High and I should be high tech, too,” said Rickey, who tried her first computer at eight and transferred to HTH in the middle of tenth grade. “It seemed like everyone knew more than I did, and I was fascinated. My dad, who owns his own business with weight loss products, says you never stop learning, which I believe also.” Rickey found her schoolmates eager to help with everything from the tutorial on programming to learning Javascript and Dreamweaver. “Everyone here has to do a digital portfolio on a website, so students would ask me if I needed help with it,” she said. “Now I find myself teaching other new students the same things.” In fact, student experts abound at HTH, said Deborah: “A student teaches our elective course in Flash, which is an animation software, and 24 kids enrolled.” “Whenever I do have a project I always try to work computers into what I’m doing,” said Rickey, who also was working to add Microsoft certification to her HTH resume. “In Humanities, we had to do a website about the 1920s and I did mine in Flash. At my internship at Junior Achievement, I was the web page designer. The first book I read about computers was Bill Gates’s biography out of the library here.” She imagines a career in animation or programming, she said, and hopes to study computer science and Spanish at New York University. “Sometimes I feel uncomfortable because I’m the only girl around here who really does care about computer-related topics,” Rickey admitted. In classes dominated by males, she said, “I just try to get along with them, like I’m one of the guys.” Deborah Sponder-Levin, whose own career in network administration makes her a steadfast role model, lamented the fact that males tend to dominate the school’s computer culture. Still, she observed proudly, pointing to Rickey as evidence, “Once they’re there, they stay.”

By devising a three-tiered rubric, the team also resolved the challenge of working with students at varied writing levels. After students can meet expectations for a one-paragraph response, they move up to a five-paragraph response and then an essay in which they compare and contrast viewpoints. Turner compares the approach to working up from a white belt in karate to higher levels: “The white belt is writing one paragraph well.”

Click here for examples of related teacher prompts/student responses (PDF file)

The medium and the message

Of the cross-disciplinary project she helped develop with her ninth-grade teaching team, math teacher Susan Reed says, “There’s something nice about it. It doesn’t quite fit in.” The project asks students to develop a medium along with a unique message that suits it.

Students work in pairs as they develop their medium—a lighthouse, a typewriter, a decoder, a camera—and a message. Spending about half of each math period on it, Reed says, they typically call on measurements and binary code to amplify their idea.

In physics class students work on more advanced ground. “I’m learning as much as they are,” Reed exclaims. “They’re learning how to make a camera! They’re creating a projector system with a screen and a flashlight, learning about electrodes and generators. They’re reading manuals on how to produce a sensor and then putting it together. I don’t think they necessarily realize how far they’re taking this.”

In humanities class, students concentrate on working out the message itself. They also practice their skills in professional writing, preparing project proposals, status reports, and end result reports, as they follow the project through.

“When kids first get here from eighth grade they are not ready to do large projects right away,” Reed observes. “To see the thread develop they need practice.” Over the course of the year she assigns four or five projects: first mini-projects, then a larger in-class project, then finally a cross-disciplinary project.

The adults, too, work on a similar learning curve. “I’m doing four or five projects a year,” Reed notes, “and each time I do it, I improve in my ability to convey requirements and offer support,” she says. “It’s difficult, it’s time consuming, but it’s worth while.”

The technology resources offered at HTH are a big help, she adds. “If we didn’t have the computers and the technologically savvy people, it would be much more challenging. We have an engineering lab that’s full of tools. It’s a process—each time we get better at finding what we need.”

Click here for examples of related teacher prompts/student responses (PDF file)

Teamwork and technology in social studies

“When you start working in teams you have to start explaining things, to yourself and to your co-teachers,” says Mark Aguirre. A seasoned history teacher with a more traditional background, he knows the contrast well. “When you teach alone, you just do things. You don’t have to justify why.” As his tenth-grade team has tried out thematic projects across disciplines, one teacher typically takes the lead, with responsibility for the culminating project. But “it’s a baby step to where we’re going,” says Aguirre. He foresees someday having all classes working toward the same integrated final project, not just making loose connections as they arise across subject areas.

Doing projects does not always mean developing curriculum from scratch. For the first trimester Aguirre used materials from a national History Day competition sponsored by the Constitutional Rights Foundation. Working with the theme of revolution, students developed projects of their choosing, from a video documentary on the Japanese internment camps (an entry that won honors at the state level) to a website demonstrating the revolutionary art of animation.

By year’s end, Aguirre had immersed his classes in social studies issues with energy connections, linking with the team’s fuel energy project led by Theresa Gilly. For a debate on nuclear issues, for example, each class took a different topic: the proposed federal site for plutonium waste in Yucca Valley; the tradeoffs of using nuclear energy; its usefulness compared to other fuel sources.

Another project spanned the whole year and focused on globalism. Choosing a United Nations topic that interested them, groups of students created their own video public service announcements. The process involved researching and analyzing their issue, defining the PSA’s message, making its storyboard narrative, filming the piece itself, and working with computer animation video editing programs to bring it to final form.

Click here for examples of related teacher prompts/student responses (PDF file)

Student Project Descriptions > >

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