The Dr. Michael Conti School (aka School 5) in New Jersey offers "a visual assault to the senses, unending in its variety and creativity." It also offers a curriculum in which projects are not just busywork, and basic skills are conveyed in an innovative fashion:
There are the maps made of candy, marshmallows and pebbles. Down the hall, miniature paper lockers are flapping open and shut, the product of a math exercise assigned to a group of seventh-graders.
Perhaps no display is more fetching than the efforts of the pre-kindergarten students to answer the question, "Who are the people in our neighborhood?" On the first floor of this three-story schoolhouse on Merseles Street, the pre-kindergartners have erected a pizzeria complete with a fake, but delicious-looking pizza, and a bodega with shelves stocked with Goya beans, rice and crackers.
The point all of this unleashed creativity isn't to educate the next generation of set designers. The goal is to teach core curriculum subjects like mathematics and English in a way that fascinates, challenges and engages the students, school officials said...
Test results for the 800-student, 68-teacher institution have been impressive.
For four years in a row, the school's eighth-graders have led all other schools in the district in their passing percent of standardized math tests. Last year, 97.3 percent of School 5's eighth-graders passed the language arts section of the standardized test, and 87 percent passed the math exam. Among fourth-graders, 92.5 percent scored proficient or better on the language arts test, as did 83 percent on the math exam...
[Principal] Ramos said the project-based learning process begins with a "driving question" - What is a rain forest? How does color shape our world? Who are the people in our neighborhood?
From this starting point, students are asked to do research, surveys, draw graphs and maps, write out their conclusions, make a video about their findings - with teachers all the while making sure that core curriculum skills in math and English and other subjects are taught and digested.
Posted by kswygert at November 19, 2003 10:11 AM