Getting Started with High School Redesign
Thinking about high school redesign? We assembled a great reading list to get you started.
Formulating a strategy
- Transforming High Schools: 8 Strategies for EdLeaders
- Organizing Your School As A List Of Courses Doesn't Work For Learners
- We Inherited a Factory but We Need a Design Studio (and 9 Other Problems)
- School Change: Go Fast and Go Slow
Plan a visit
- 100+ Middle & High Schools Worth Visiting
- 15 School Districts Worth Visiting
- 101 Top School and Charter Networks
- Professional Learning: The Power of School Visits
Consider becoming a design-focused school
- What’s up with all the design focused schools (podcast)
- Student-Centered Designed Focused Learning at One Stone (Boise, ID) and Student-Led One Stone is Transforming Boise And The Five Secrets to One Stone’s Success
- Building Transferable Skills: Design Tech High at Oracle Campus (Redwood City, CA)
- Design Focused High School Builds Tech Talent in Indianapolis
- Leader Spotlight: Riley Johnson on New Tech High School 2.0 (Napa, CA)
- Design Thinking, City as Classroom, Museum as Homebase (Grand Rapids MI)
Four SoCal STEM schools with great design principles
- Odyssey STEM: First to Combine Big Picture Learning and altSchool (and Reimagining High School in Paramount USD)
- STEM Projects in Active Learning Spaces at Samueli Academy
- Da Vinci Schools Expand Opportunities in Los Angeles
- Del Lago Academy: Rethinking High School: Badging, Competency-Based and Real-World Work
Big schools with a coherent academic program
- Union High: How a Big School Makes Learning Personal (Tulsa OK)
- Huntley Blend Provides Support & Flexibility (Chicago IL)
- South Fayette Schools: A Computational Carnival for Kids (Pittsburgh)
- Montour Schools: Home of the Evolving Educators (also Pittsburgh, and check out the middle school AI program)
- Santa Ana USD Provides Next-Gen CTE Pathways (Orange County, CA). Also listen to David Haglund on Lessons Learned in Santa Ana
- Case study on Singapore American School
A Virginia district that led with a great set of design principles:
- Listening to Kids and Designing from Scratch for Timeless Learning (book review)
- Find a Way to Yes: 9 Leadership Lessons from Pam Moran
- HQPBL Case Study: Albemarle County Public Schools
Consider using new school development to spur district-wide redesign:
- El Paso and New Tech Network: District Transformation in High Gear
- Transforming Border Learning Experiences: New Tech Network in El Paso (podcast)
- New Tech Network Powers A Common Learning Model & Unique Missions
On project-based and place-based learning
- Why High School Students Deserve Extended Challenges
- New School Formula: Harder Problems and Fewer Answers
- HQPBL Case Study: The MET School (Providence, RI)
- Learner-Centered Iowa BIG Propels Jemar Lee (Cedar Rapids, IA)
- Giving the Gift of Place (podcast) and Why Place-Based Education? (Jackson, WY)
- The Progressive Schools of Philadelphia
- HQPBL Case Study: Energy Institute High School (Houston, TX)
- Students Ask Big Questions At Science Leadership Academy (Philadelphia)
- Making the City the Text at High Tech High (San Diego)
On the shift to competency
- The Case For Competency-Based Education
- Organizing Your School As A List Of Courses Doesn’t Work for learners
- Scaling Competency-Based Education: Equity-Focused Strategies for Policy and Practice
- How Career and Technical Education Can Inform Competency-Based Learning
- Show What You Know: A Landscape Analysis of Competency-Based Education
Become an early college high school
- A Successful Quest For An Early College Solution (Houston, TX)
- IBM Prep: Chicago’s Goode STEM Partners for Associate degrees and IT Careers
On career-focused high schools
- All About STEM High Schools
- Career Ready High Schools
- HQPBL Case Study: ACE Leadership High School (construction trades)
- Community Defined Projects at Health Leadership High (Albuquerque, NM)
- No-Collar Jobs Offer Schools Chance to Create Mashups of Academics and Vocations
- Smart List: 22 Coding and Computer Science Resources
On advisory and guidance
- The Best Academic Schools in Tennessee Feature the Best Character Program in the Country
- The Role of Advisory in Personalizing the Secondary Experience
- How Did You Fail Advisory?
For more see:
- What 100 School Visits Taught Us This Year
- Diploma Networks: A New Way to Help Schools Adopt Broader Outcomes and Next-Gen Learning Models
Teacher/Tutor/Small Business Owner at Educational Basics, Ltd
5 年Schools have to first improve basic 3 R skills at the elementary level. If not students are lost by middle and high school. Teaching should be more interactive to involve kinesthetic learners. The visual learner functions best in school, but the needs of those kinesthetic and auditory learners should be helped through creative teaching.
Having done this I can definitively say if the teacher can let go of the traditional process that they had in their own schooling, and let the students use their subject area how it is used in the world outside of schools is the change that needs to be made. No more gatekeeping and keeping students out everyone can be successful. Let the student see what it’s like to be an artist, a writer and a scientist.
Interesting, but it’s not the building that is in need of redesign. As suggested in one of the articles, the redesign is all about what learners should experience and the accompanying evidence.
Providing Personalized Education for Every Journey
5 年??????
Educational Improvement Consultant
5 年Create Classrooms with huge, non-breakable plexiglass windows, rooms geared up for 21st Century tech., open floor space where students can feel comfortable, but also enuf area so they can sit in an area where they focus to get their necessary instruction.