Guerilla Educators

BARACK OBAMA GREEN CHARTER HIGH SCHOOL UPDATE

Strategic Planning accelerates as the Barack Obama Green Charter High School prepares for their debut in Plainfield, New Jersey in September, 2010.  On Friday, October 23 and Monday, October 26, the Founders are holding a reception at the Plainfield Public Library.  The gathering will be a joyful celebration marking their official charter grant, a way to say "thanks" to the many people and organizations who have assisted to this point in making Obama High a reality, and a recognition of their present and future Community Partners whose assistance will be crucial as we approach 9/10 and beyond.

Project Based Learning Quick Start Guide

Based on the many Project Based Service Learning Professional Developments Guerilla Educators conducts, it has been apparent for some time that educators need a "Quick Start" reference guide about how to begin the process of using projects with their students.  To that end, I have developed this guide...

Project Steps

 Brainstorming:

• What type of project do you want to conduct with your students?
  
• Why (rationale)
• Will you be collaborating with other teachers in, or out of your school?

 Project Goals:

• What do you want to accomplish with your students?
• How will you get there?
• How will students participate in the creation of Project Goals?

 Essential Questions:

• Take a real-world topic and begin an in-depth investigation.
• Base your question on an authentic situation or topic. What is happening in your classroom?  In your community?
• Select a question about an issue that students will believe, by answering, they are having an impact on. Make it relevant for them.
• The question should be a "now" question -- a question that has meaning in your students' lives.

 Curriculum Connections:

• What curricular areas can be addressed based on the project theme and activities? 
• Project activities can and should be synchronized to curricular objectives.
• Build planning time in to address curriculum connections.   

 Community Partnerships/Resources:

• Which community organization(s) can help you with your project?
• In what ways will the Community Partners model good citizenship/leadership?
• What resources do you need to see the project through to completion?
• Will project related class trips be taken?

 Project Timeline

• Overall length of time
• Time per week
• Weekly Schedule

 Project Activities:

• Planned to achieve overall project objectives.
• Connected to grade appropriate curricular objectives.
• to achieve proficiency in standards and curriculum across at least 2 subject areas.
• FUN!

 Benchmarks:

• Set clear time referenced deadlines for each task and/or product.
• Should be scaffolds to build on previously achieved objectives towards success of the project.
•  Help build the frameworks and parameters in which the project can take place

 Reflection/Journals:

• Student journals will offer students the opportunity to continuously reflect and assess their progress toward completion of the project.
• Teachers can use student journals as valuable assessment tools.
• Offer students the opportunity to learn from the strategies that did and, perhaps more importantly, did not work to achieve project objectives.

 Assessment/Rubrics:

• An effective assessment program uses multiple strategies to demonstrate growth and performance, and should be closely correlated to your stated goals. Projects in which students create multimedia presentations, Web pages, artwork or songs may be evaluated differently than traditional written, typed, or even word-processed papers. Assessment strategies can include performance tasks, teacher observations, personal communications, standardized testing, and student and teacher developed evaluation rubrics, and others.
• Rubrics are an effective assessment and evaluation tool used for PBL. 
• Rubrics allow students to be involved in their creation, which creates buy-in and clarifies expectations all around.
  

Reporting Out/Celebration – Students will report out to peers, school staff, and the larger community:

•  What they learned.
• How they addressed the problems or issues.
• Their final products.

The students will be celebrated and recognized for their important work!

BREAKING NEWS: BARACK OBAMA GREEN CHARTER SCHOOL GRANTED CHARTER

On September 22, 2009 the New Jersey Department of Education approved the Barack Obama Green Charter High School.  Obama High is projected to start with 120 students in grades 9 and 10 and expand to 240 students in grades 9 to 12.  The school is projected to open its doors in September, 2010.  Congratulations to Ms Safiyah Sadiq, Mr. Steven King, and Ms Alisa Barnes the hard working co-founders!  Guerilla Educators is proud to be associated with this worthy educational endeavor.

Map Rap Map

I recently had the privilege of re-connecting with Amy, who was a student in my 4th grade class in 1994 at Cook-Wissahickon Elementary School in Philadelphia.  Amy has graduated from Penn State, is a working professional, and is out on her own making her mark.  Lo and behold, in her bedroom at her parents house there hangs the map -THE MAP- she created in Room 211 of the United States of America.  In Amy's words...

The giant loopy little-kid handwriting that used to proclaim "The Country Of The United States Of America" across the top, as well as firmly marking both oceans and the Gulf of Mexico, has faded into near-oblivion. Also, why did I only label one of the Great Lakes? ALSO, I tried to number them in the order they appear in the Map Rap, but I'm pretty sure I fudged that too.

But! I still have it on display- that's got to count for something, right?

This was part of what I termed the Geography Literacy Series and included (heaven help my self esteem) the Map Rap and the Eur-Rap.

If any other former students still have their maps from their time in Room 211 at Cook_Wiss, send them along.

Friendship Tech Prep Charter School Professional Development

Day 2 of the Friendship Tech Prep Academy Charter School Project Based Service Learning Workshop, presented by Guerilla Educators consisted in large part, of authentic hands-on demonstrations (thanks to Emily Curley of the Alliance to Save Energy) of what the participants learned in Day 1 about the Project Based methodologies.  Take a look...  Under the leadership of Ms Natalie Gordon, the Principal and co-founder of Friendship Tech, educators there took part in this Professional Development which was designed to give them the tools to conduct hands-on projects with their students.  Special thanks also to Ms Alicia Adams, Director of Professional Development for Friendship Charter Schools.  Good luck in your first year of operation, Tech!

Guerilla Educators Featured on CNN

Guerilla Educators is now featured on CNN Online, as part of their series,"What if our education system worked better?"

Guerilla Educators Around the World

The Guerilla Educators blog has now been seen in 120 countries and counting!  Welcome, Cambodia!

Project Based Learning Workshop for Educators and School Designers

 Guerilla Educators

Project Based Service Learning Workshop

Guerilla Educators is pleased to announce the next iteration of our renowned Project Based Service Learning Workshop. This 1.5 Day Professional Development is designed to give educators and educational facilities designers the pedagogical knowledge, understanding, and foundational basis of the Project Based Service Learning methodology.  You will receive practical teaching and learning strategies by your own “hands-on” project based experience in the sessions, and you will see real students conducting real projects in and out of real classrooms.  Participants will then create their own projects and refine them through the Hallmarks of Effective Teaching and Learning.
 
You will learn:

•    Project Based Service Learning; What it is and Why I Need It

•    Pedagogical Underpinnings of Project Based Service Learning; why PBSL works

•    Application of PBSL Across a Wide Variety of Disciplines

•    Integrating Curriculum Standards with Projects

•    Differentiated Instruction for ALL Learners and PBSL

•    The Critical Role of Community Partners in PBSL

•    Networking Projects Across the Grades

•    PBSL and your students.  Getting Started

•    Types of Projects.  What interests YOU as a teacher?

•    The School as a 3 Dimensional Textbook

•    Critical Role of Technology in PBSL

•    Projects, Ownership, and Student Engagement

•    Real World Problem Solving

•    Critical Thinking Skills

•    Citizenship

•    Inclusion

•    Multiple Intelligences

•    FUN

Leave us a message for more info and schedules.

The 9 Hallmarks of Effective Teaching and Learning

Sound, effective educational best practices share certain characteristics regardless of the educator's pedagogical approach to teaching and learning.  To this end, we have identified nine of these hallmarks, listed below. 

The 9 Hallmarks of Effective Teaching and Learning:

Hallmark 1: FUN - First things first.  As a 4th grader concisely put it some years ago, "Teacher John, if it ain't fun, why would we do it?"  School and  Fun?  While the terms are usually perceived to be in diametric opposition to each other, students having FUN within the framework of their school-based activities is an integral aspect of Effective Teaching and Learning and, with Project Based Learning are the overarching links that facilitate academic and civic success. 

Hallmark 2: PROJECT BASED LEARNING - We believe that Project Based Service Learning is the most effective pedagogical strategy for ALL students to achieve rigorous academic and civic success across all grade levels and regardless of demographic variables.  The Project based methodology is also the overarching portal to realize the other Hallmarks.Projects: 

• Effectively account for the needs of students who have a wide array of individual learning styles.
• Offers the teacher the opportunity of differentiating instruction based on those individualized learning styles.
• Addresses students’ multiple intelligences (body, kinesthetic, verbal, etc).
• Employs multiple modalities where many senses are involved in the learning process, thereby increasing the learner's ability to retain knowledge.

Hallmark 3: OWNERSHIP - When students are interested and invested in the completion of a school-based project, they begin to own their educational processes.  With ownership, all aspects of their school career, including mastery of curriculum become important to them. With ownership comes:

• Personal responsibility.
• Employment of strategies like critical thinking, hypothesis, extension of learning becomes commonplace.
• Motivation to succeed.
• Facility to achieve mastery of curriculum

Ownership starts with YOU, the teacher!  Get invested in the processes of PBSL.  Initiate projects with your students that interest you, so you can authentically model ownership.

Hallmark 4: ENGAGEMENT - Ownership and engagement are essentially 2 sides of the same coin.  When students take ownership and personal responsibility for the successful outcome of their project, it follows that they are engaged and interested.  Any good Service Learning project will present students with many opportunities to think critically, make hypotheses, and extend what they have learned.  Engagement is the door to performing these important skills, which in turn, engender academic and civic success.

Hallmark 5: COOPERATIVE TEACHING/LEARNING - Teacher collaborations present powerful opportunities for educators to learn from each other, which can increase the strategies available in their pedagogical toolboxes.

Students working cooperatively in small groups to achieve project-based goals is a powerful strategy to achieve curricular and standards based objectives.  Moreover, when students are focused on the goals of a project, they are more inclined to negotiate with their peers and make persuasive arguments to get their point of view adopted by the group.  The cooperative nature of small groups working together for successful completion of the project has an extremely positive effect on the classroom climate and behavior issues are significantly mitigated.

Hallmark 6: CITIZENSHIP/COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS - Development of good citizenship skills as part of the fabric of teaching and learning is critical to the long term, real-life success of our students.

• Civic skills give greater depth, context and meaning to student mastery of curriculum and standards.
• Integral to a Service Learning project is the inclusion of Community Partnerships. 
• Professionals who freely give their time and expertise to benefit students are models of good citizenship.
• Community Partners model good citizenship in action.

Hallmark 7: MASTERY OF CURRICULUM - The primary rationale to employ the Service Learning is, in fact, as a tool for student achievement, both academically and socially.  A project's success is ultimately determined by whether the project-based activities are connected to grade appropriate curriculum and state standards and more importantly, whether these connections enable students to achieve mastery across a range of academic disciplines.  We have seen that when students work within the Project Based methodology they own their educational processes, are engaged in a project's activities, work cooperatively to achieve success, and see citizenship modeled by the Community Partners, then mastery of curriculum becomes more likely because the students are more self motivated achieve success in all aspects of their scholastic experience.

Hallmark 8: HIGHER ORDER THINKING SKILLS (HOTS) – Universal access to the internet by our students has changed the equation of how they learn, whether we, as educators, are ready for this change or not.  Unlike the traditional teaching and learning experience, with the Project Based methodology students are gaining knowledge experientially. Rather than feeding the students disconnected facts to be regurgitated on a test, Project Teachers coach the students to apply that knowledge to real world situations which engenders Higher Order Thinking Skills like evaluation, synthesis, and analysis.  Many of the videos on the Guerilla Educators blog authentically demonstrate HOTS in Action.

Hallmark 9: TECHNOLOGY - Technology is the #2 pencil of the 21st century.  As such, any good Service Learning project will be embedded with a wide array of real-world technology-based applications.  

To see powerful, authentic demonstrations of the Hallmarks in action, take a look at this "Seeds to Trees" horticulture project... and click on our Service Learning video Compilation, as well.  Let us show you how to incorporate the Hallmarks into your teaching/learning program.  Our 1 1/2 day Professional Development Workshops demonstrate in a practical, hands-on way how educators, using the Hallmarks as touchstones, can be more effective.  Contact John Sole at: tcherjohn@aol.com for more info.

Barack Obama Green Charter High School

The Barack Obama Green Charter High School, located in Plainfield, New Jersey and scheduled to open its doors in September, 2010, will be that state's first high school that will be driven by sustainable, "green" real-world concerns.  Using the Project Based Learning methodology as the primary teaching and learning strategy available in the pedagogical toolbox, students will achieve curricular and social proficiencies while addressing the critical issues of sustainability which affect their neighborhood, the nation, and the world.  With world class Community Partners, students will conduct "hands on" projects in areas like sustainable design, green architecture, alternative energy, and water quality.  Students will not only get a first rate education at Barack Obama Green Charter High School, they will also become the leadership cadre at the forefront of sustainability.   

Guerilla Educators is proud to be a part of this unique educational initiative by providing professional consulting services to assist across a wide range of education related issues.