The project partners are committed to the following:
The six public broadcasters are partnering in teams of two to work with selected local schools or school systems and across regions to create a subset of the curriculum, including science, math, literature, language arts, fine arts and history. LPB and MET will focus on K-6 schools; WHRO and WHYY will target middle schools; SMCI and KCET will work with high schools. The curriculum will be designed to make a difference in the classroom. Teachers will be involved in every stage of the curriculum development, from planning through evaluation. Key features of the curriculum are flexibility for teachers, replicability for schools with few resources, companion teacher training, and collaborative development between schools and regions, and across grade levels. Ultimately, a student entering at the kindergarten level will be able to graduate from high school and continue on to the workplace having been influenced by various materials and processes developed in this project.
SOME SALIENT POINTS OF THE CURRICULUM:
The elementary school level will integrate existing PTV READY TO LEARN programs (as well as developing programs) as a basis for special student, community and parent projects; active-viewing techniques using PBS and ITV programming and Galaxy Classroom materials; and oral history and aural readings/reports produced by students and combined in multi-media presentations that involve practice in communication skills. Teacher training will be provided for conducting these activities. Selected project teachers will participate in PBS MATHLINE staff development.
The middle schools will offer three areas of curriculum and testing, not just in the schools, but at home. These include a language arts publishing project, a social studies Internet resource on early American history, and modules on music and fine arts. The school-to-home component will place thirty computers in the home, with training for parents and teachers to work together so that the student has a cohesive learning environment.
The high schools will develop three areas (literature, science and math) with interdisciplinary modules for urban studies. "LITLINE" will offer teachers the same kind of mentoring as PBS MATHLINE, for contemporary American authors. Science and math will include units for teaching collaborative learning techniques in physics and chemistry. The urban studies unit will create web sites for students to learn more about their own respective cities (Washington, DC and Los Angeles) and offer teachers throughout the country a template to use in creating similar programs locally.
Within the new curricula will be many locally-developed components that can be replicated and/or adapted in any part of the nation to assist school improvement at every level.
EVALUATION:
The evaluation will consider how well the technology and new curricular elements mesh to attain improvement in student performance. A national evaluator will co-ordinate with local evaluators to formulate a strategy which allows comparisons between different curriculum standards, regions and methods of collecting and measuring baseline data and ongoing results. Ongoing results will be collected over the life of the project, using similar instruments, and each year's results will impact the development of subsequent activities.
DISSEMINATION:
As public broadcasters, the six partners bring to the project a strong infrastructure for dissemination throughout the country. Results and curriculum materials and models will be made available through public broadcastings formal education vehicles (such as satellite delivery systems) as well as traditional educations delivery systems.
This project will incorporate, adapt, develop and demonstrate effective educational practices. This includes not just curriculum development and teacher training, but also parental and community involvement in a student's education. Public broadcasting has a proud tradition of providing quality educational material. This project will move this mission forward by incorporating new technology and serving as a model for a community that wishes to move its education system towards the 21st century.