Boston Public Schools
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Boston, MA
Dr. Walter Stroup
We have set up a number of integrated model classrooms in two
Boston Public Schools this school year. The schools we work with most
directly in the project are two of the most challenged in the system.
Statistically, the
Maurice J. Tobin School located in the Mission Hill section of Roxbury services the most
economically disadvantaged student population of any middle school in
Boston; and the Jeremiah
E. Burke High School in Dorchester is in the process of transforming itself after losing its accreditation in
the spring of 1995. Clearly no one set of hands can service all the needs
of the students at these sites, but the SimCalc Project in cooperation with
Texas Instruments is working closely with committed
local educators and community leaders to
be playing a part in the transformation of the students' learning
experience.
At the Tobin School we are working with someone who teachers full classes of
sixth, seventh, and eighth-grade students. At the Burke High School we are
working with all the teachers who work primarily with ninth-grade students.
Included in this group are two 'regular-ed.' teachers, three 'special ed.'
teachers, one bi-lingual education teacher, and two student teachers. In
these very 'real' settings we look to develop a model that can play a
significant role in national efforts at mathematics reform and
classroom-based technology integration.
The technological model we have put in place in these schools includes each
student being equipped with a hand-held Texas Instruments TI-83 graphing
calculator. Each teacher also has available to her/him in the classroom a
powerful desktop computer and overhead display system that serves as a
vehicle for the all-class discussions and presentations of student work.
This powerful computer either has or is currently in the process of having
installed direct connections to the internet. The internet is viewed as a
resource for new curriculum materials and a place to retrieve interesting
data sets for the classroom analyses.
The classroom materials are developed so every students can work
individually or in small groups on a series of activities or challenges.
The questions and challenges are designed so there is no one right answer or
approach and the multiplicity of student responses serves as a catalyst for
the discussions and further analyses that follow. Using the powerful up
front computer student work is drawn up to become the basis for the whole
class discussion. The flexibility of the component-based nature of the
MathWorlds software is essential to being able to create a wide range of
learning experiences and challenges centered on the math of change and
variation. We are working to develop the hardware and component-based
software to improve the communication between the students' hand-held
devices and the up front computer.
A substantial cutting-edge curriculum is being introduced in these schools.
By building on big ideas and interconnecting mathematical strands we have
found a way of bringing together important aspects of the traditional
curriculum with the SimCalc Project's emphasis on having all students engage
the math of change. Our goal in these schools has been to create a
curriculum that addresses current needs even as it introduces to all
students a substantial number of powerful ideas from calculus. We are
closely coupling the current basics with what we have every reason to
believe will be 'the basics' for living and working in the next century.
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