New Tech Network is a different take on school

Students expected to do more on their own, work together to finish projects

Teacher Thomas Lewandowski finishes a song during class Wednesday at Rogers New Technology High School. The school is entering its second year as a charter high school that is part of the Rogers School District.
Teacher Thomas Lewandowski finishes a song during class Wednesday at Rogers New Technology High School. The school is entering its second year as a charter high school that is part of the Rogers School District.

Routines are different at Rogers New Technology High School.

Instead of a ringing bell signaling time to switch classes, students look at their watches. Instead of teachers taking attendance, students in Christine Faubel's sixth-period Spanish II class open their laptops, find their class page online and check in.

The Rogers high school is entering its second year as a separate, district-run charter high school. It is among a small but growing number of schools in Arkansas that have joined the New Tech Network, a national group of schools following a model of schooling that focuses on learning through hands-on projects and giving more responsibility to students.

Students all have laptops that provide access to an Internet-accessible learning management platform that's a central place for checking course agendas, keeping up with projects, tracking grades, recording journal entries, participating in discussions and submitting finished work.

The New Tech High School model was introduced to the state in the 2011-12 school year. In August of that year, Gov. Mike Beebe announced the creation of a STEM Works project that was piloted in Cross County High School in Cherry Valley and Lincoln High School in Washington County. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and math.

Both schools began participating in the New Tech Network in 2011-12 and received approval to convert to district-run charter schools the next school year.

STEM Works now includes 16 New Tech schools, as well as schools adopting other models that include technology and project-based learning. Seven schools are participating as Environmental and Spatial Technology Core schools, a model developed by the nonprofit EAST Initiative. Thirty-eight schools and technical centers have implemented programs developed by Project Lead the Way, a nonprofit provider of education programs in technology, engineering and biomedical sciences.

Some schools are participating in more than one program.

Switching models

At Cross County, moving to a different model for high school came with some challenges, Superintendent Carolyn Wilson said. Teachers had to adjust to a different method of delivering instruction that involved guiding students through the learning process, an approach most teachers had not experienced throughout their careers or in college.

Students were used to being told what they needed to know, but the New Tech approach requires students to work together on group projects that have now become routine.

"Students seek out the expertise of their peers to partner with on assignments, not necessarily their friends," Wilson said.

Wilson has noticed that students know everyone in their class better because they are assigned to different groups throughout the school year, she said. Students have gained self-confidence in speaking in front of groups because of the frequency of oral presentations.

However, when Cross County teachers quit teaching to state tests, student scores became flat, she said.

"We believe that our students are some of the best-prepared students in the state for a future after graduation whether it be college or career," Wilson said. "But unfortunately, the public has been led to believe that the test scores give one the best picture of a school's success."

At Lincoln, New Tech enrolls 500 students in the eighth through 12th grades, and the charter will be in place for two more years, Superintendent Mary Ann Spears said. Toward the end of the charter, district officials will re-evaluate the program and make a decision about whether to continue in the network, she said.

Students have learned to work in teams, have improved their presentation skills and increased their involvement in the community under the New Tech model, Spears said. The campus faces ongoing challenges after converting the entire high school, she said.

"It seems that there has been more success with New Tech in districts where it was an option or a school-within-a-school," she said.

Half and half

This is the third year for Van Buren High School to operate a New Tech academy within the high school and the first year for the academy to have students from three grade levels at the high school, including seniors, said Tim McCutchen, director of New Tech in Van Buren. About 340 students of the 1,350 enrolled at Van Buren High School are involved in New Tech.

Within New Tech, half of a student's grade is based on content, while the other half is based on other skills, such as his work ethic, work within a team, written communication, oral communication and critical thinking, he said. Projects last from two to eight weeks. Each project culminates with the group members making a presentation on their projects and presenting their findings.

With four or five projects going on at the same time in different classes, students quickly learn to manage their time, McCutchen said.

New Tech students take their core classes within the academy, though their English and history courses are combined into two-hour blocks that are jointly taught by an English and history teacher, McCutchen said. Students have the option to "passport out" of the academy for other courses offered in the high school.

"It's a form of learning that a lot of kids like," McCutchen said. "We have had some students, it's not their learning style. Some other kids come into New Tech where they have struggled in a traditional style of teaching. They have really blossomed in the New Tech style. In the New Tech style, they're not going to be getting a worksheet. It's very different."

Jennifer Prado, who is teaching Algebra III in New Tech, plans to start a unit soon that will involve learning about the concept of matrices, which are rectangular arrays of numbers. She will begin by having students explore how that concept is applied in the real world.

Prado will give her students a letter from a fictitious company asking students to help make customers' data more secure, she said. She anticipates that the problem will lead students to begin researching encryption and different ways companies keep information safe. Encryption should lead them to think about matrices. If not, Prado will help point them in that direction.

By the end of the unit, Prado expects her students to know how to add, subtract, multiply and divide matrices.

"This is the really exciting and scary thing about project-based learning," she said. "I know what all they need to learn about matrices. I don't know exactly what direction it's going to take each day."

Preparing for after high school

Rogers New Technology High School opened with 290 ninth- and 10th-graders in 2013-14. This year, the campus has about 400 students in the ninth through 11th grades. The campus will have its first senior class next school year and will be at full capacity when enrollment reaches 600 students.

Becoming a Rogers New Technology student requires an adjustment for students who are used to education working a certain way, with classrooms arranged in rows, Principal Lance Arbuckle said. They are used to a teacher telling them what they need to know, what to write down and what will be on the test Friday, he said.

That's not what junior Hannah Katt, 16, experienced as a New Tech student. The prospect of a smaller high school environment that offered a different way of learning interested her when she applied to enroll as a sophomore.

Katt said she likes the professional feel of the New Technology school. She likes that students are called "learners" and teachers are "facilitators," she said. In projects, students are assigned to specific roles and can be fired for not doing their work. Students feel like their teachers depend on them, she said.

One of the first projects this year required students to think about where they see themselves in 2020, she said. She chose optometrist as her first choice for a career and worked in a small group of juniors who also had an interest in the medical field. They had to research the salaries of their chosen careers, benefits, and first and second choices for colleges. They had to research tuition and pre-requisite courses.

She appreciated having time to think about and plan for her life after high school, she said.

"I feel like I'm supposed to be preparing for my career and what I'm going to do as an adult," Katt said. "We don't just get a textbook, here's a worksheet and we're done. The things we learn here, we're really going to use them."

Metro on 08/31/2014

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