What is the DesignWorlds for Literacy Project?
The DesignWorlds for Literacy Project is a partnership of the Oak Grove School District in San Jose California and DesignWorlds for Learning. Inc.
Beginning in August, 1998, students and teachers at six schools in the Oak Grove School District have been divided into design teams to work collaboratively with the other participants in research, planning, design, and producing the DesignWorlds for Literacy Web site. The core design team is comprised of the thirty-six students who participated during the August Institute/Academy with each of their eighteen teachers. A public exhibition even of student projects and the collaboratively designed DesignWorlds for Literacy Web site is being planned for Spring, 1999 in collaboration with the Blossom Valley Learning Consortium and its Challenge 2000 Multimedia Project Teachers, and Oak Grove School District's annual Young Authors' and Multimedia Faire.
Three outcomes for the triad for evaluation:
- Student achievement
- Scalability
- Sustainability
The following questions are the basis for evaluating success:
- To what degree have the experimental groups of students in the DesignWorlds for Literacy community met or exceeded a five percentile point difference on normed referenced district-wide achievement tests? Goal: 80% or more of the students in the experimental groups will match or exceed the average level of a five percentile point difference as measured by normed reference district-wide achievement tests.
- To what degree can students demonstrate the use of technology to communicate ideas through DesignWorlds for Literacy projects? Goal: 80% or more of the students successfully communicate learning as measured by a completed and published collaborative multimedia project.
- To what degree has DesignWorlds for Literacy been successful in scaling the achievement started at Edenvale School. Goal: At least four of the fourteen remaining schools commit to implementing DesignWorlds for Literacy by March, 1999.
- To what degree has DesignWorlds for Literacy been successful in forming a sustainable critical mass of teachers at each site? Goal: The sites have a critical mass of technologically proficient teachers (3 or more) functioning as a team at sixth and seventh grade as measured by the technology standards in the Oak Grove School District Technology Plan.
The Oak Grove School District has a vision of being a "world class district producing world class students" and has been in the process of "reinventing itself" over the past few years to ensure its graduates are prepared to compete in the twenty-first century. It is committed to using replicable, scalable methods to help students be even more successful learners, traditional instruction in reading, writing, and computing, as well as developing the emerging required skills of collaboration, proficiency with technology, and written and oral communication.
How Does the DesignWorlds for Literacy Project Work?
The DesignWorlds for Literacy Project is helping Oak Grove teachers develop more proficiency in demonstratably helping students use technology to accelerate their knowledge acquisition in literacy, science and the skillful use of computer and communications technology; all specified goals of the parents and educators in our community and the requirements in the National Standards, California State Frameworks, and Oak Grove Curriculum Guides.
This pilot DesignWorlds for Literacy Project involves a cadre of teachers and students at six Oak Grove Schools. Pending funding, the will expand to ten schools in year two and sixteen schools in year three. the foci of DesignWorlds for Literacy are completely aligned with both National Standards (e.g. NCTE, NSTA), as well as the California Curriculum Frameworks and emerging New Standards in English/Language Arts, Science, and Applied Learning & Technology. The common theme throughout all these standards is on the student's achievement of a deep understanding of the meaning-making from within written text and multimedia materials, and in their being able to effectively represent and communicate their knowledge in writing and through multimedia, to authentic, real world audiences.
Vital to DesignWorlds for Literacy is supporting the professional development of teachers involved at each school to create the necessary critical mass at each site, and, at the same time, developing a "community of practice" between staff members in the various schools. Literacy and science projects are jointly planned and resources and some equipment is shared. To foster the "community of practice," DesignWorlds for Literacy creates interdependency through the project having all the equipment necessary, but no school having every piece of equipment.
Scalability and Sustainability
One of the goals of the DesignWorlds for Literacy project is to teach all 6th and 7th grade students to use technology and increase their individual achievement. The thrust of the Project is also to expand the pockets of excellence in the Oak Grove School District by creating a project that in both scalable and sustainable so that the academic achievement needs of all of the students are met.
Sustainability is created because the DesignWorlds for Literacy Project:
- builds a community of practice to sustain the innovation
- increases the amount of student learning in the same amount of time
- maintains or exceeds the student achievement level of the initial experimental group across the district.
This page created by Linda Ullah, Technology Learning Coordinator for the Blossom Valley Learning Consortium, Oak Grove School District for the DesignWorlds workshop.
