The Dean's Corner

Welcome to the Winter 2008 Edition of Stone Soup.

In the last issue of Stone Soup, I reported to you about regional planning for the impact of the AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) chip fab plant at the Luther Forest Technology Park. In this issue, I would like to report about another regional effort that will impact what we do in higher education: Tech Valley High School.

Tech Valley High School is a collaborative effort which was initiated by Questar III and the Capital Region BOCES. Their intent is to create a "high tech" high school that is similar to the 40+ high tech high schools which have begun to appear across the nation with support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In these schools, curriculum is integrated with technology applications which are utilized by local high tech industries, and curriculum delivery is project-based, as opposed to lecture-based.

Opening in the Fall of 2007, Tech Valley High School (TVHS) will be located in space donated by MapInfo in Troy, NY, until its final campus has been constructed. In the Fall, TVHS will open its doors to 40 high school freshmen representing 38 capital region school districts. Each year, each successive freshman class will grow in size until, at its full capacity, TVHS will serve 400 students across grades 9 - 12. As opposed to its being an honors school, TVHS will select students of all skills and abilities. The primary pre-requisite is that students must want to attend TVHS.

Through the Continuing Education Division, Schenectady County Community College has been represented in both the planning and development phases of TVHS. SCCC has had representatives on the TVHS Business Alliance, the Implementation & Integration Committee, the Learning Team, and the Teaching and Methods Subcommittee.

The most exciting component of TVHS is its instructional delivery method, which will consist predominantly of project-based instruction. Through project-based instruction, students will become active rather than passive learners and they will learn to look at a problem from a variety of perspectives. Two issues facing TVHS planners include a) the orientation of students to the new instructional format and (b) the preparation of teachers so they become facile in the delivery of project-based instruction and in engaging students such that they gain higher order thinking skills. The student orientation program is under development as of this moment, and the four "core" teachers (math, science, language, and social studies) will begin their professional development in project-based learning later in the spring.

Facing us in higher education is the question of what will happen to the graduates of Tech Valley High School and similar high tech high schools when they enter higher education? Research is already demonstrating that students who graduate from a secondary education environment where they have been engaged in defining the scope of the learning projects they undertake and where authentic assessment is the norm, do not tend to remain in the traditional higher education lecture-oriented environment. Instead, they seek out the rare higher education institutions which practice project-based learning.

Another aspect of that question is what should higher education be doing to prepare its faculty to receive these students? And yet another is what should teacher preparatory programs be doing to prepare teachers in the arts of project-based instruction? SCCC led the charge in February 2007 by calling the first meeting with two regional teacher preparatory institutions to discuss these questions. Follow-up meetings will include additional colleges and it is anticipated that a grant proposal will follow soon thereafter.

As more high tech high schools are developed across the nation, more and more students will seek a higher education experience which is project-based. In the capital region, by 2014 we should experience at least 100 new graduates per year who fit into this category. Where will they go? Well, some will carefully select universities which teach in the project-based manner. Others, however, will come to community colleges because they will want the training necessary to be employed as technicians in the emerging industries of Tech Valley, such as SuperPower, AMD, and other nanotechnology, biotechnology, and information technology industries and their respective supply side companies.

What should we at SCCC be doing to prepare for this new student? Clearly, at the very least, we should be planning to integrate more project-based education into our courses and programs. To do this, we should be begin by educating our full-time and part-time faculty in the vocabulary of project-based education, including special emphasis upon creating projects which are designed to develop higher order thinking skills, focus upon real problems existing within our regional community, and utilize authentic assessment strategies. In addition, we should ensure that members of our faculty have the opportunity to see TVHS in action, to engage in pedagogical discourse with its teaching staff, and to speak with its students about what they plan to do after high school.

Certainly, the efforts of the regional visionaries are beginning to pay off for Tech Valley. Ten years ago, most college graduates left our region to seek employment in the robust economies of the south and west. Today, with new job opportunities, excellent schools and colleges, and expanding recreational and entertainment venues, previous graduates of our colleges are beginning to come back to the capital region and new graduates are tending to stay. New ventures, such as Tech Valley High School, add to the excitement and challenge us to step forward into the future. What a great time to be in Schenectady!

Dean Baker