Based on both statistical analysis of employment data and extensive research involving over 300 faculty members from two and four year postsecondary institutions, managers, and high school educators, the American Diploma Project (ADP) benchmarks concretely define the English and math that graduates must master to succeed in credit-bearing college courses and high-performance, high-growth jobs. Key findings: employers' and colleges' academic demands for high school graduates have converged, yet states' current high-school exit expectations fall well short of those demands.
Education Trust and partners Achieve and Fordham Foundation (2004).
Not only are middle and high school-aged youth difficult to engage in after school activities, but they are more likely to have unique demands on their time in the hours after school. This issue brief highlights the challenges providers face in serving older youth and the innovative strategies that programs have used to recruit and retain older youth in after school.
Southwest Educational Development Laboratory (2004).
Mike Schmoker offers practical advice for school improvement, presenting changes that are not costly or disruptive to high schools. The second article in this issue takes us to Irving, Texas, where Irving ISD has established successful smaller learning communities that are making a difference for students in this largely working-class community. Irving’s SLC program has a strong vocational component, which is also present at another school visited—Garza Independence High School in Austin, Texas. Garza is an alternative high school that is not a holding tank for troublemakers, as is often the perception for alternative schools. It is a school that accommodates individual differences and learning styles, a school where most of its graduates go on to college.
National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education (2003).
This project began with an enigma. In surveys, the parents of Hispanic high school seniors place enormous emphasis on higher education. By significantly higher percentages than the rest of the population, the parents of Hispanic high school seniors believe that a college education is an essential prerequisite for a good job and a comfortable middle-class lifestyle. However, this desire for higher education does not translate into reality. Compared to non-Hispanic whites or African-American students, Hispanic students are much less likely to obtain higher education degrees. There is clearly a gap, in other words, between what Hispanic parents say they want for their children, and the paths those children actually follow.
This report offers a number of specific teaching techniques that research suggests will help 4th- to 12th-grade students in our nation’s schools. The report focuses on all students, not just those who display writing difficulties, although this latter group is deservedly the focus of much attention. The premise of this report is that all students need to become proficient and flexible writers. In this report, the term low-achieving writer is used to refer to students whose writing skills are not adequate to meet classroom demands. Some of these low-achieving writers have been identified as having learning disabilities; others are the “silent majority” who lack writing proficiency but do not receive additional help. As will be seen in this report, some studies investigate the effects of writing instruction on groups of students across the full range of ability, from more effective to less effective writers, while others focus specifically on individuals with low writing proficiency.
A general overview of what PBL is and a short history of PBL.
High Tech High teachers document the success of their project-based learning efforts to share with other educators. These in-depth projects can be recreated in your classroom or can be used as a launching pad for projects of your own designs.
Sponsored by the Buck Institute for Education, they offer resources concerning project-based and problem-based learning. From definitions to designs, to PBL current events, this site can get you started with all you need to know to engage your classroom.
PBL online offers a range of PBL resources for teaching online and designing your own projects along with teacher handbooks.
Great Schools offers the pros and cons of using PLB in order to get a greater scope of
what it really means to use PLB in the classroom
Houghton Mifflin offers a brief resource for teachers, with in-depth discussion of project-based learning, including an overview of the issues surrounding it, the student's role in the process and several projects to get you started, including the popular "egg drop" experiment and "Mission to Mars".
West Virginia department of education produced management tools that are used in the Project Based Learning plans on Teach 21. You can find rubrics, checklists, task management charts, learning logs and other documents that will help your PBL planning and delivery.
Hubpages offers social studies, geography, and civics project ideas
Hubpages offers engaging math project ideas for all grade levels
Hubpages offers science lesson plans and project ideas for all grade levels
Hubpages offers English and language arts project plans and ideas for all grade levels
Powerful Learning Practice offers interviews and articles with professionals about PBL along with online courses and project ideas for teachers.
Offers research and resources on PBL and about the PBL system
Sam Houston State University provides videos and links on PBL.
New Tech Network provides project based learning videos, rubrics, and insight into their PBL schools