Computers ‘humanize’ teaching

Two Arizona members of USA TODAY’s All-USA Teacher First Team — Marge Christensen Gould (2000, Tucson) and the Continuing Education Academy team (2002, Tolleson) — owe much of their success at reaching at-risk students to their effective use of computers. Both use computers to provide individualized, self-paced instruction, relieving the pressure to keep up for students who’ve struggled in other classrooms. And both back up the "high tech" instructional delivery with "high touch" one-to-one help.

USA Today

USA TODAY’s Tracey Wong Briggs takes a look at the teachers and their programs, part of an occasional look at the educators named to the newspaper’s recognition program for outstanding K-12 teachers. For more information or to nominate a teacher for the 2003 All-USA Teacher Team, go to http://www.allstars.usatoday.com.

The LEARN Center gets down to business

Marge Christensen Gould is in the business of education the future workforce, and her office classroom sets the tone.

Wall-to-wall carpeting, computer clusters, silk plants and an "office worker of the week" sign greet her at-risk literacy students, who take off their baseball caps as they come in and head straight for their computers. Only a couple of times during the day does Gould gently admonish: "Who gave you a coffee break? No work, no paycheck."

A tiny woman with an even tinier voice, Gould nonetheless commands respect as the CEO of the LEARN (Literacy Education and Reading Network) Center here at Catalina High Magnet School. Smartly dressed in business clothes, she holds Monday "office meetings" to assign weekly and long-term projects. Students work at their own pace to complete assignments, as well as computerized typing and reading programs. A steady stream of volunteers, including business executives, health care professionals and military officers, circulates to give one-on-one help.

Gould helped start the LEARN Center in 1987 as a partnership of the Tucson Unified School District and Arizona Supreme Court. The goal: Give at-risk students the literacy and job skills to keep them out of the criminal justice system.

What started as a one-semester course for a dozen students has evolved into a four-year program for 100 that includes mock job interviews, a mentorship program, frequent inspirational guest speakers and a Celebrate Literacy evening. The year-end event draws 300 people to a local hotel to honor LEARN Center students and volunteers.

Gould takes homeless kids, teens with little or no English, students who have had run-ins with the law, kids who live in poverty. And yet the center’s graduation rate of 98% is higher than the school as a whole.

"Sixty% come in reading at or below a fifth-grade reading level, and yet 60% go on to some form of higher education," Gould says. "I haven’t had to send anyone to the school office in 14 years, and these are supposed to be the toughest kids."

The key, she says, is the student-centered, success-oriented environment. "We treat them as adults. Kids really respond to that. Time is money; no work, no credit."

"Here you learn; you don’t get screamed at," says Elizabeth Briones, 17, a ponytailed senior who speaks Spanish at home and aspires to be a social worker. "It’s like a job. You sit at the computer and do your work."

Computers allow individualized instruction and are a big selling point to the students, many of whom won’t go to a remedial reading lab, Gould says. "The word ‘remedial’ does not exist in our vocabulary," she says. But if you offer computer and workplace skills, you can sneak in reading, she says.

The business mind-set that permeates the LEARN Center starts with Gould, who has seen her role evolve into a business leader and manager. Rather than asking businesses for broken-down computers, Gould develops business proposals showing that the LEARN Center’s product is educated workers, well worth the investment. Business and community leaders advise her on the board of her non-profit Educational ReadSources (www.edreadsources.com), which trains educators as far away at Tennessee to set up similar programs.

Steve Santa Cruz, who installed donated wall-to-wall carpeting for Catalina’s LEARN Center 15 years ago, continues to be one of Gould’s biggest supporters, even though he moved to San Diego and started his own company. His Tucson employees mentor Gould’s students, and he has pledged carpeting to educators trained by Gould to start similar centers.

Gould, Santa Cruz says, has learned to turn return on investment. "Marge can put on the table a prospectus to rival anyone. She can provide quite a bit of material to prove her exacting results," he says. "There’s a lot of dynamite in that 5 feet. It’s very difficult to say ‘no’ to Marge."

CEA’s outreach lifts up those who need it most

On the verge of retirement in 1997, inner-city Phoenix teacher Jim Green was approached by the high school superintendent in nearby Tolleson and given a challenge: to create the ideal alternative school.

Given the reins to build the school and hire the staff, Green drove a beat-up car through migrant-farming pockets to find all the invisible students who pushed the dropout rates of the district’s two high schools to 16% and 11%. Early on, the school ran vans to students’ doorsteps to bring them to a small, rented space behind a convenience store, where a few students took five freshman-level courses.

Now in its sixth year, Tolleson Union’s Continuing Education Academy is housed in a large, stucco-covered modular building nicknamed the Alamo or the Taco Bell. CEA offers a complete high school curriculum, serving about 500 full-time and part-time students over the course of a year and helping the fast-growing district lower its dropout rate to 3%.

"I came up with a plan that within five years, we’d have a first-class program that was second to none in the nation," Green says. He envisioned a school that would meet students’ immediate needs and have an adult education component while offering an extended program, an electronic curriculum and day care for teen parents. Only day care has not yet been added, and "we’re on the threshold of that happening," he says.

The CEA teachers — Green, Ann Stover, Lorenzo Cabrera and Daman Mullins, along with several part-time instructors and two more full-time teachers hired this year — designed CEA to be as flexible, stress-free and supportive as possible for students who often arrive with social and academic baggage. Key components:

* Extended hours and flexible scheduling. CEA is open 7:30 a.m.-7:30 p.m. and during the summer, to accommodate students’ work and child care schedules. Students with severe health problems can also dial up from home.
* A self-paced curriculum via workbook and computer. CEA’s 32 computer stations offer courses via NovaNET, including human anatomy and chemistry with virtual labs.
* Individual education plans, developed by the teachers based on pretesting, counselor referrals and meetings with students and parents.
* Contracts for attendance, signed by students and parents.
* Partnerships providing courses in anger management, substance abuse and social skills, dual community college credit, and employment skills and job placement services.
* Free materials, support and courses for adults who want to earn their high school diplomas.

CEA remains low-key yet hums with activity. Stickers above the doorways remind: "Attitude is everything!" Students sign in, stretch out and get to work on computers or with workbooks. Quite a few talk quietly or listen to music via headsets. Some sit alone; others sit together and chat. Without hovering, teachers move around to give one-to-one help.

The self-paced curriculum demands discipline and self-motivation, but it relieves the pressure of having to keep up, Stover says. Some students are just picking up a credit or two to graduate; others attend full time, signing a contract to work 25 hours a week at the school and at home.

Freshmen, she says, often need more structure than CEA offers. Juniors and seniors are more mature and start to realize how important a diploma is in today’s job market.

The computerized curriculum, installed in 1999, came around at exactly the right time, Stover says. "Without NovaNET, we could not offer the upper division courses. As soon as we could, the enrollment boomed."

CEA isn’t for everyone, nor is it meant to educate a student all four years of high school, Green says. But those who find traditional settings too rigid often respond when CEA puts them in charge of their education.

"This school is what you make it, so I make it the best," says Sylvia Lilly, 17. A senior who "did the whole teenage rebellious stage" and dropped out as a freshman, she found the drive to learn at CEA, where she is on course to graduate a year early.

Green, who responded to the superintendent’s promise of empowerment to start CEA, taps that same motivation in students.

"Humans function best when you empower them," he says. "We empower you to make choices."

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-01-22-ariz-teach_x.htm

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It’s not just wrenches, grease and sweat anymore

Thanks to a newly formed bond between Albuquerque Public Schools and state auto dealerships, hands-on teenagers with a yearning for learning are being steered to fill a void in the automotive technician pool.

By Dan Mayfield
Tribune Reporter

Ten junior and senior auto-shop students hovered around the late-model, red Ford Mustang – decked out with decals and a bumping stereo – as it pulled into the shop garage at Eldorado High School and was hoisted on the lift.

Students gushed at the car.

But not Daniel Nelson, Amanda Stang and Andy Hennig.

They couldn’t have cared less about the vehicle that would be a dream ride for most high school kids.

They were more interested in the engine of a 20-year-old Buick – a car older than they are.

It may seem odd – 16- and 17-year-olds ignoring a hot Mustang – but then these three are more than just high school grease monkeys.

They were re-seating pistons in the Buick V-8 and rebuilding the engine – tweaking here, banging there.

The creaking of the torque wrench and the slopping of grease on a piston ring is music to the ears of auto-shop managers across Albuquerque.

There’s a critical need for automotive technicians, they say. Jobs like computer service technician or technical support analyst have a better ring to people than mechanic, and the industry is having a hard time recruiting new automotive technicians, shop managers say.

A new program, called the Automotive Teacher/Dealership Collaboration Project, aims to change the image and inspire kids to go into the business of fixing cars.

The program is designed to give high school students the skills they need to jump right into a career, or the basics they need to enter an advanced vocational school program.

"It’s real simple," said Charles Henson, executive director of the New Mexico Auto Dealers Association. "Dealers say they need more qualified people for all our dealerships, and people are saying there aren’t enough jobs. Could there be a better fit?"

Of the 126 dealerships Henson represents statewide, the vast majority need more qualified technicians and mechanics, he said.

Nationwide, say dealerships, the industry is 60,000 to 70,000 technicians short.

And these aren’t just wrench-turning jobs.

They’re high-tech positions that require more math and science knowledge than people might realize, said Jim Gore, service manager at Don Chalmers Ford.

"We’re needing essentially the same skill set as Intel," Gore said.

Gore is a Ford Senior Master Technician, a certification that took 950 hours of class time to earn, he said.

Technicians need to know advanced math and have knowledge of wiring diagrams, engine physics and more.

"People don’t realize that until they look under the hood of their car and don’t have a clue," said Peter Pacheco, auto-shop teacher at Eldorado.

Good technicians, Gore said, can make up to $25 an hour after a few years on the job. Some specialized mechanics can make much more.

Starting salaries are $12 to $15 an hour for most technicians.

"I think it fits a niche for certain kids," Pacheco said.

The collaboration program began last May.

Henson, representatives from Albuquerque Public Schools’ School-to-Careers program, teachers from eight high schools and representatives from seven dealerships met to discuss the problem and what could be done about it.

"The idea was to take the bureaucracy out of it and have the teachers talk directly to the dealerships," said Mary Ann Landry, a resource counselor for School-to-Careers. Landry is the go-to person for both the teachers and the dealerships. She’s also the grant writer who made the program happen.

She secured $70,000 for each of the eight schools for new tools to help the students through the Carl D. Perkins grant program. The program funds vocational programs in high schools.

With the money, each school is to get a front-end alignment machine, special CD-ROM instruction kits and a National Automotive Technicians Education Foundation-certified curriculum.

With the $20,000 left over, each teacher will outfit his or her school with specialized equipment to meet the needs. The hope, Landry said, is to have each school specialize in something, such as brakes, diagnostics or body work.

"The overall mode of thinking has been college bound, not vocational," said Dale Pepke, auto-shop teacher at West Mesa High School. "The reality is, few kids go to college."

He’s already seen kids from his classes go on to own tire shops and work for dealerships. Now, he said, with the weight of the dealerships behind his teaching, he hopes he can convince more students to go into the business.

"My goal is to get kids into tech schools that aren’t going to college," he said.

On average, Landry said, 20 percent of high school students go to college. He said only 50 percent of those complete a four-year degree, and of those, just 5 percent get an advanced degree.

So the idea, Landry said, is to attract kids like Nelson, Stang and Hennig.

And it seems to be working.

They’ve been targeted by Eldorado auto-shop teacher Peter Pacheco as future auto technicians. They have the skills, the desire and the interest in cars to make a career of working on them.

"Personally, I like the roar of a V-8. The chills go up my spine. That’s what I like about it," Hennig said

All three said they’re now looking into technical/vocational schools instead of a traditional college.

"I want to go work for a NASCAR team," Stang said, as she pounded in a piston on the Buick V-8.

And some students are now realizing it at an even younger age.

At West Mesa High School, Abel Munoz has taken over as a class leader, despite being a freshman.

"My brother’s girlfriend’s dad and I put together a whole new engine on my sister’s car," Munoz said. "As it was done, it started working. There’s something about that. It lets all my stress out or something. I want to do this for a career."

http://www.abqtrib.com/archives/business03/012003_business_autos.shtml