| Replicating no, learning & adapting yes |
6/10/04 10:42 AM |
| Author:
Joe Nathan
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Over the years, I've seen a number of efforts to replicate. As Bryan suggests, many of them have not been successful.
However, some HAVE been, when they focused on
* learning how a teacher or a school dealt successfully with a problem or challenge
* giving people a chance to really LEARN or develop skills similar to those in the successful school
* acknowledging that there may be modest local adaptions
Here's a quick example:
One of the people involved with the Coalition of Essential Schools came to a Center for School Change workshop about 10 years ago. This person described how the Coalition encouraged students to make a presentation to adults at the end of the year. The presentation focused on something that the student had learned.
Many of the schools attending this workshop thought this was a great idea. One of the schools decided to have students do this not just at the end of the senior year, but twice in the junior and twice in the senior year.
Another (charter) school (Minnesota New Country) decided to have presentation nights every 6 weeks, in which some of their students would make presentations and each student was required to make a presentation several times a year. This has worked out very well for MNCS.
So a number of schools decided that the idea of students making public presentations was an excellent one. They learned from each other (and from some people at Alverno College in Wisconsin) various ways to assess progress. Then they adapted the idea to their local situation.
Hope this helps.
Posted as a reply to:
Sharing and replicating by Lauren Morando Rhim 
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