|
December 1, 1998
Kids Are Leading the Learning at Perry Middle School
by Judy Shasek
We are a critically overcrowded school with nearly critically low reading and writing
scores. Our needs are increased family involvement and integration of technology into the
curriculum. Because we are at high risk, the county has provided us match our funding with
50% of its own so that we can have Internet-wired labs, more computers in the classrooms,
and four computers in all reading classes.
Our teachers, however, were not using the computers or software at first; many of the
computers were not even being plugged in. We had no money for release time to train the
teachers, and if we trained them out of the classroom then they would really would not
understand the value of integrating the technology. We looked around and found that
students were the only people who had (1) time to use the computers, (2) computer
understanding and savvy, and (3) creativity.
We developed a team of students who were strongly trained as mentors. They did
authentic projects for the school that solved real school needs. They ran Internet
contests and became familiar with many quality sites. They learned to create multimedia
projects that answered essential questions.
Then they began to train other students. For example, two seventh graders trained eight
sixth-grade reading students how to use the accelerated reader, how to write using
ClarisWorks, how to boot the machine, how to save to a disk, and so on. When those eight
students returned to class, they plugged in the four G3 computers for the first time and
began to act as teacher mentors for their classmates. Without missing a beat, the entire
class was soon on its way to using the software in the curriculum. The teacher learned by
watching and asking the kids—and always had a mentor right in the classroom.
Our projects include nine students working together, writing, analyzing, organizing,
and making a difference. They work with students from 16 countries (click here to see the results of the past
month’s work, and here to see another
student made project for a class service learning project). Other student-driven learning
opportunities include Network
Navigators at Perry Middle School; be sure to check the four links at the bottom of
the page. Our style of teaching and using technology can be seen at Edupreneurship.
E-mail: Judy Shasek
|
