CHAPTER TWO

Setting Description
No bells? No vice principal? No state standards written on the whiteboard? Students passionately engaged in hands-on projects? Exhibitions of student work pulling in over a thousand visitors? This is High Tech Middle School.

History
High Tech Middle School (HTM) is a public charter school serving sixth through eighth grades in San Diego, California. The school is nestled in the uniquely designed buildings of the old Naval Training Center (NTC) at Liberty Station in Point Loma. Even today, walking along the corridors of this historical site, built in the 1920s in the popular Mission Revival style, one gets a sense that something groundbreaking is developing within its walls. If form can influence function, the space created at High Tech Middle tells you that learning is not going to be typical at this school. HTMs building is open and airy, with a vast amount of natural light pouring through windows and skylights. Artwork and student projects line the main corridor and invite visitors to peruse the walls as though they are walking through a museum. HTM opened its doors in the fall of 2003 as a spin-off of High Tech High. High Tech High was founded by Larry Rosenstock in 2000, based largely on the research that he and his colleague, Rob Riordan, had conducted throughout a national schools project funded by the U.S. Department of Education. HTM is one of five schools located on the charters campus, The main commons is one example of HTMs open spaces. affectionately referred to as The Village. Students come from all over San Diego County to attend HTM. The school hosts approximately 335 students who enroll through a lottery system that generates a balance of San Diego zip codes. At HTM you will find students from the Countys poorest and wealthiest communities and everywhere in between engaged in

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collaborative work. Priority enrollment is only given to siblings and students graduating from a feeder school, Explorer Elementary (located next door to HTM).

Guiding Principles
High Tech Middles curriculum (like that of its sibling schools) focuses on covering content through all-encompassing projects. The school adheres to a ProjectBased Learning philosophy. The High Tech schools were founded on the following four design principles.

Personalization Teachers provide students with unique projects tailored to their abilities and interests and by emphasizing choice. At HTM, the staff ensures that kids are known well. Each team of 56 students spends the majority of its day with only three teachers. Each student is part of an advisory, a small, mixed-grade level group of students who meets daily for social-emotional and academic check-ins with an advisor. In the role of advisor, I get to know my students closely in an initial home visit (during 6th grade) which establishes a rapport with their family and helps me gain powerful insights into their life. I am paired with these students for three years, watching them grow from 6th graders to 8th graders. Adult World Connection HTM strives to prepare students for the real world through projects that connect them with professionals and specialists who serve as mentors and an audience for their work. We emphasize doing work that is authentic and professional, pushing beyond the limits of conventional schoolwork. In my projects, students make contact with experts in the community as they do research. We have also done projects for organizations like the Hellenic Cultural Society of San Diego. These real world connections increase the sense of importance students feel about their work. They also positively influence the quality of work and level of engagement in the classroom. Common Intellectual Mission High Tech Middle does not track students and promotes an inclusive classroom where students of all learning styles and levels learn together. There are lessons for all to learn in the integrated classroom. My autistic students improve their social skills through collaboration with their peers. Mainstream students learn lessons in compassion and empathy through their experiences with students who would otherwise be tracked into special day

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classes. Of course, this is all made possible by working closely with a team of inclusion specialists who help differentiate projects and activities for students with special needs. Teacher As Designer Teachers at HTM are given great autonomy to create and carry out projects. They work in teams of multiple disciplines to design cross-curricular projects. These projects combine academic and technical subject areas and unite them around a theme. Ideally, these projects stem from students needs and interests. How does it all get planned? Teaching teams are given common planning time and meet daily before school (up to four times a week). The magic piece that brings teachers together to engage in critical discussion is the use of protocols or structured conversations. Teachers frequently use protocols (shared throughout the entire High Tech High organization) to solve dilemmas and tune projects.

School Culture
The culture at HTM is created and shared by both students and teachers. The general sense you get from students is that learning is fun and school is cool. You seldom see fights, vandalism or hear antagonistic language in the halls between classes. There is a general sense of respect and positivity maintained by the student population. Students are treated like individuals and given a lot of freedom to self-regulate. I believe that several factors help create this culture: Family Support HTM is a school of choice. Students, with the support of their families, apply to the school. These families typically continue to provide academic support once enrolled. The High Tech schools strive to achieve a diverse and integrated mix. Children of all different backgrounds and experiences work and learn alongside each other. HTM is a small school. With 336 students, every child gets a sense of being known at the school. The small community makes it easier to facilitate the school-wide sense of respect and accountability.

Diverse and Integrated Culture Small School

High Tech Middle is a teacher-run school with a director acting as facilitator and liaison to parents and the school board of directors. The director fulfills the traditional duties of a principal, VP and sometimes school counselor. Almost all decision-making is

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transparent and involves teacher feedback. There is an emphasis on meetings (three a week) that involve professional development, addressing school-wide issues, brainstorming and tuning projects and working together. Collaboration is second nature to High Tech teachers. Over the last several years there has been some debate regarding the frequency and type of meetings and the protocol for making decisions. Currently, the staff is encouraged to make consensus decisions. This sometimes lengthy process is promoted as a way to ensure that everyone feels valued in decision-making and that the staff does not become divided by majority votes. Change and innovation is a common theme at HTM and generally accepted by the staff as a strength of the school. Most recently the staff decided to replace X-Block with an eight week enriched, advisory project. This will mark the first time at HTM for a mixed-grade level academic endeavor. Additionally, each grade level is experimenting with new schedules that allow the exploratory teachers (drama, art & Spanish) to teach two-hour blocks at least once a week. Teachers at HTM share a lot of passions and have a lot of fun together. There is definitely a work hard, play hard ethos among the staff. The sense of friendship and community shared by teachers helps foster a positive, energetic and inspired work environment.

Demographics
From year to year, there are variations in the demographics of ethnicity at High Tech Middle. However, the numbers show that HTMs lottery-based, zip-code balance helps create an integrated and diverse school in many regards. The following data is culled from the 2011-2012 academic year (preceding my research). White and Latino students were equally represented (113 students in each category), while there were 46 African Americans students. There were 25 Filipino and 25 Asian students. Other ethnicities represented a fraction of the population. Thirty-four students qualified as special education (nearly 10 percent), which mirrors proportion at the surrounding San Diego Unified School District. One hundred twenty-one students (or 36 percent of the population) were categorized as socioeconomically disadvantaged.

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High Tech Middle Demographics by Ethnicity (2011-2012)

White, not Hispanic Filipino, Not Hispanic Asian, Not Hispanic Hispanic or Latino of Any Race 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 Number of Students

Classroom Setting
I teach 6th grade humanities at High Tech Middle. There are approximately 112 students in HTMs 6th grade. They are split into two teams of approximately 56. Each team is taught by three teachers (Humanities, Math/Science and Multimedia or Art). These three teachers collaborate on projects as a team (although the degree of collaboration varies depending on interest and subject). On a typical day a student will have two hours of Humanities, two hours of Math and one hour of Exploratory. Each teacher runs an X-Block (or elective class) at the end of the day during 6th period. These elective classes range from athletics to arts. Students choose the class based on their interests. Here is a sample daily schedule: Periods 0 1 2 Time 9:05-9:25 9:30-10:20 10:30-11:15 11:15-11:25 3 11:30-12:20 Class Advisory Exploratory (Art or Multi-media) Humanities Recess & Snack Break Math

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12:20-12:50 4&5 12:55-2:35 2:35-2:45 6 2:45-3:30 Lunch Project-Block (Integrated Project) Recess & Snack Break X-Block

My Classroom: Form Meets Function

I have always wanted my classroom to inspire questions about the world to transport young minds beyond the four walls of the here and now. Several years ago, students created oversized maps depicting the geography of the major ancient civilizations (Mesopotamia, Africa, Greece, China, etc.). These cartographic wonders now line the lofted walls of the room and capture sunlight cascading through my vaulted skylight. To accompany this visual, I provide a soundtrack. I am a huge fan of world music. Frequently, as students enter my class, I play music from some distant part of the world (Greek bouzouki solos, Senegalese kora riffs, Brazilian beats or Quebecois fiddle reels). My favorite question is, Whats that kind of music? Right off the bat, I know that I have piqued their curiosity! Throughout the past several years, I have run my humanities class in a similar fashion: half of the time is spent on literature, while the other half is spent on a project. The project has a history or social studies theme. Once a year, I team up with my teaching partner to do an integrated, collaborative project. In the morning (for one hour) we typically read a class novel or engage in literature circles that connect to the theme of our project. Publishing work with students is my passion. It all started with an integrated project that stemmed from my passion for graphic design and my teaching partners interest in sustainable and eco-friendly technology. For two years in a row, Nicole Costa and I worked with students to produce a magazine titled Urban Ecology, which aimed to educate an adult audience about environmentally sound approaches technology and urban design. This project showed me how dynamic collaboration could be. Some of my other favorite projects have revolved around the Ancient Greeks (a subject that seems to fascinate nearly all 6th graders). Several years ago we published a book, retelling mythology (complete with beautiful illustrations). Last year, we teamed up with the Hellenic Cultural Society of San Diego to publish a calendar highlighting the achievements of the Greeks. These types of projects culminate in an exhibition of work, celebrating the collaborative efforts of students who produce one, unified product. I like my 6th graders to end the year with at least one professionally published project that

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helps kick start their portfolio of powerful work at High Tech Middle. These types of projects provide a foundation for the type of community we build at our school. So, what does the space look like that creates these types of projects? First, you will notice that the tables are arranged to encourage dialogue and collaboration a huge focus in the 6th grade year (when many students are making a transition from solitary, standardized test-based classroom environments). Getting students to shift paradigms and realize that learning is social and collaborative is my huge aim and I want my classroom to influence this. Our tables (which seat a pair of students) are typically arranged in a horse shoe around the perimeter of the room, leaving an area in the middle available for team meetings and circular discussions. Two walls in my classroom are devoted to massive white boards. These serve as spaces for capturing student thoughts (like lists of student questions) or posters created as visual aides. One of these whiteboard walls folds accordion-style to open up and allow my classroom to join my partner teachers room. This simple architectural feature has a huge effect on our sense of collaboration as teachers. It only takes a minute to transform our room from two classrooms into a massive laboratory where we run our afternoon project-block (a block of two periods devoted to an integrated project that we run together). The front of my classroom features an interactive, multimedia whiteboard with permanent posters like our Homework Tracker and Humanities Assignment Sheet along with exemplary work of students. This serves as my direction-giving and direct instruction zone. My multimedia whiteboard typically hosts the daily agenda in the form of a PowerPoint. The far side of my classroom is devoted to a multimedia/computer cabinet, library, and project cubbies. The wall closest to the classrooms entrance serves as a row of cabinets and a sink. Some cornerstones of our class reside in this area: The What Did I Miss? File, This Weeks Work, Area 51 (a place for no namers and lost items) and Papers for Mr. Shaddox (a tray for collecting work). At High Tech Middle, each time our staff gathers for a meeting, we rotate to a different teachers classroom. I relish the opportunity to open my room to my colleagues. When the meeting is held in my room, teachers often remark on the positive and inspiring vibe of the space. They admire the elaborate mind maps and colorful brainstorms scattered across the whiteboard wall. They comment on the butcher paper posters, documenting our projects progress, taped up along the walls. Throughout the action research, my classroom continued to reflect our learning process.

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