Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, December 2, 1994 TAG: 9412020023
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DUBLIN LENGTH: Long
The Demonstration School for Science, Math and Technology was set up this fall within Dublin Elementary School to put into practice what education researchers have long been preaching: how to produce lifelong learners.
``It's fun to be in a class where you get to do more things with technology,'' said fifth-grade student Becky Simpkins.
She said she likes the way subjects are mixed together, rather than kept separate as they were in her classes before this year. In mathematics, for instance, she also gets to study the history of math, she said.
Megan Parker, who is also in the fifth grade, is reacting similarly. ``She's having an enjoyable year. She's enjoying the computer part of it, and the diverse curriculum,'' said her father, Bill Parker.
Demonstration school students are familiar not only with computers, which Pulaski County has in all its schools, but also with working in teams with common skill levels or interests.
They study problems and come up with projects involving more than one subject, cutting across the curriculum. They learn to apply basic skills to solving real-world problems. Their tools include electron microscopes, Internet access and various kinds of activity kits.
``Regardless of what the problem is, they have to learn how to get down and work together to get the darned activity to work,'' Superintendent Bill Asbury said.
``They think that they're having fun, but they have to read the instructions and follow the instructions,'' he said. ``Even the little kits are technology-driven.''
Demonstration-school classes cut across grade levels, but that is seldom obvious, as School Board Chairman Ron Chaffin found during a recent visit to John Hocker's class for grades 3-5.
``He said, `OK, which ones are the third-graders?' And I couldn't tell,'' Chaffin said.
Dublin Elementary Principal Wallace Bruce said business and industry representatives have told educators that they want graduates who have mastered basic reasoning skills and can work in teams, and that is just what the demonstration-school students are learning.
``I think the future is going to need children coming from the setting like we have them in now,'' he said.
Educators for years have been stressing the importance of a good foundation in the lower grades to keep students from losing interest or dropping out in the higher ones.
In Pulaski County, teachers and administrators stopped talking about it and found ways to provide it.
The first step was a systemwide change in staffing kindergarten through second grade, to allow smaller classes and more individual attention from teachers. The goal for the year was that no teacher in those grades would have more than 20 students.
The lower student-teacher ratio started with the lowest grades and will be expanded upward as money and staffing allow. Meanwhile, the demonstration school was started as a way of seeing how other teaching techniques worked at all elementary levels.
Students for the demonstration school were not recruited on the basis of being gifted or talented. Choosing an elite group of students would not have proved anything about the program if those students went on to become more successful in their later school careers.
Instead, students were picked randomly from the general school population. The demonstration school has proportionately the same number of girls, boys, extra-bright and special-needs children as the rest of the school.
Parents of children chosen for the demonstration school were given the chance to say "no" to their child's participation. Only four did so, once the program was explained.
``We expected more,'' Asbury said.
One parent thought that the demonstration school might be too experimental. The other three were more comfortable with the traditional classes. There also were parents who spent some time in the classes before they agreed to leave their children in the program.
In fact, classes are used to having people drop in and watch what is going on. It is, after all, a demonstration school set up to see what techniques work well in teaching. Educators from other areas, as well as parents, are interested in that.
Bruce said the school, including the six rooms in one wing which house the demonstration classes, has an open-door policy.
``We have a lot of visitors,'' he said.
A typical day sees students arriving as early as 8 a.m. to start working on their projects. They might access computer communication with other schools, work on thinking-skill activities or mind games such as chess and puzzles, or listen to audio books.
The start of the regular school day brings basic-skills instruction with constant monitoring of what levels each student has mastered, using standards set by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
The program is set up to make sure students are where they are supposed to be before they move on to other levels.
The demonstration school teaches the same basic skills that are emphasized in all county schools, but in a way that uses the skills to solve real-world problems. Reading, writing and other communication skills are used along with math and technology, but they are not separated into rigid subject areas.
Whether the program is working will be determined only if students from the demonstration school show quicker or better mastery of subjects in later grades, compared with their counterparts from traditional classes.
But parents report seeing differences already, such as improved meal-time conversation with their children and the youngsters' expanded interests in the world around them.
``David has been more excited about school,'' said Eva Ayers, whose son is in the third grade and part of the demonstration school.
``When he comes home, he tells me what he's done in school, which is something new. And he doesn't balk at going,'' she said.
Her impression has been that demonstration school students are getting more hands-on learning than something less exciting, like filling out work sheets. ``They've been learning about physics because they're launching rockets,'' she said.
by CNB