# Presentation: 124154

## Archived InformationMath Education at High Tech High

## High Tech High

- Who am I?
- What is High Tech High?
- What’s wrong with math education in this country?
- What is HTH trying to do about it?

## High Tech High

- Who am I?
- Ben Daley
- Director, High Tech High
- Chief Instructional Officer, High Tech High Village

## What is High Tech High?

- Public, charter high school in San Diego
- In 5th year
- Diverse group of students selected by lottery (all applicants placed in lottery)
- All staff on one year contracts

## What is High Tech High?

- 100% of graduates have gone to college (2 graduating classes)
- 60% were first in their family to go to college
- Alumni at MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, Haverford, Harvey Mudd
- High test scores (10-10)

## HTH Replication Efforts

- National effort supported by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
- Sites in Tucson, AZ, Harrisburg, PA, Los Angeles (2 sites), Portland, Chicago, San Carlos, CA (Bay area), New Bedford, MA
- New Charter Management Organization
- High Tech Middle (opened in fall 2003)
- High Tech High International (opened in fall 2004)
- Will have 6 small schools at San Diego campus in fall 2005

## High Tech Middle
Floor Plan

- Floor Plan

## The HTH Design Principles

- Personalization
- Real World Immersion – Adult Connection
- Common Intellectual Mission
- Teacher as Designer

## Personalization

- Small class size (22-25 students in core classes)
- Small teaching teams (44-66 students per team)
- Advisory program

## Adult World Connection

- Site Visits
- Internships
- Presentations of Learning
- Exhibitions

## Common Intellectual Mission

- High expectations for all students
- No ability grouping
- All students are on the college track
- Our challenge is to challenge and support a diverse group of learners in every classroom

## Teacher as Designer

- Hire great teachers, articulate a shared vision, remove obstacles
- HTH is a teacher run school
- Teachers design the curriculum.  It does not come from legislatures, school boards, or principals

## Project Based Learning

- Learning in a context
- “Hands on – Minds on” learning
- Students making, building, and doing
- School is both a vocational school and an academic school
- Students present their work to panels of experts from the community
- Less is More

## Textbooks

- “The teachers who don’t rely on textbooks seem to know their subject matter better than teachers who rely on textbooks.”
- 				- Kiel Bowman, HTH ’03
- “The less the teacher relied on a textbook and the fewer number of topics the teacher covered, the better these students performed in college level physics.”
- - Dr. Phil Sadler, Harvard University

## Middle School Math/Science

- 6th grade: Math & Earth Science
- 7th grade: Math & Life Science
- 8th grade: Math & Physical Science

## High School Math & Science

- 9th: Math/Physics
- 10th: Math/Chemistry
- 11th: Math, Biology, Engineering
- 12th: Math, Advanced Science

## High School Math

- 		_Student A_			_Student B_
- 		Math 1			Math 1
- 		Math 2			Math 2
- 		Math 3			Math 3
- 		Calculus			Math 4
- We emphasize algebra and geometry because standardized tests are a hurdle that students need to overcome.
- All entering 9th graders take HTH Physics/Math 1.

## What’s wrong with math education?

- Most of what we teach in math classes is not important
- We are on a calculus driven system, which is linear and hierarchical, and has one entry point and many exit points
- Could be on a statistics driven system, which would have more flexibility and many entry points

## The problems with arguments for traditional math curriculum

- It’s fun
- It teaches “thinking” skills
- It’s important for a career in science

## What HTH is doing about math education

- Teaching traditional boring math because of standardized tests
- Teaching math and science integrated for grades 6-10
- Teaching real world, project based, integrated-with-science math as much as possible

## Slide 21

## Examples of Projects

- Who wants to be a millionaire?
- The human powered submarine
- The math & physics of rock climbing
- The math & physics of movies

## www.hightechhigh.org

- Student work
- Examples of teacher developed projects
- The HTH math curriculum
- The HTH resource center