Ed, I did get results from the University at the end of last month. I sent my message directly to Professor Soloway, the guy in charge of the program and the one that is somehow connected to Health Care Link. The response came from a different person, (Katherine Edgren) and she said that they were in the process of developing a web site about the LAB project. Should be available by mid-February. They said they can send me the url when it is ready. She also sent me a information about the program that has some new items in it that the news release from CM did not.
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LAB Partnership Project: The Learning About Breathing Curriculum UnitLinking the School, Home, & Community via Technology A Brief OverviewDetroit Public Schools:Juanita-Clay Chambers, Rosa Williams, Julian VasquezUniversity of Michigan: Ron Marx, Joe Krajcik, Jon Singer, Rosario Carrillo, Toby Citrin, Elliot SolowayDetroit Community: Henry Ford Health System, CHASS ClinicFor more information contact: Kathy Edgren, Project Manager, 313-764-5154Learning takes place in school, at home, and in the community. Currently, though, there is precious little coordination among the activities that children engage in in those three places. However, in the LAB Partnership Project, we are trying to bring what are now disconnected activities into an alignment so that the experiences in these three venues do compliment each other. In turn, children should benefit significantly from the coherence and synergies of these rich learning experiences.In particular, we plan to create a curriculum unit that focuses on the science of breathing for the 7th grade bilingual science class (ESL 2) during February 1998 at Earhart Middle School, that is standards- based, but yet integrates activities carried out in the home and in the community. Moreover, the new computing and communications technologies (e.g., TV-based Internet hookups in the home) will serve as the enabling infrastructure for this project. Why focus on asthma? First, asthma is being recognized as a major health problem in urban children; some estimate that as many as 10% of the students are afflicted with asthma. Asthma is thought to be one of the leading causes of student absenteeism in schools. Asthma, then, brings a real authenticity to the curriculum: students and their families are interested in asthma, as it impacts them directly. Second, asthma fits squarely into the Chronic Disease Curriculum Unit, a standard unit in 7th grade science. Third, there are activities that children and their families can engage in that address asthma issues (e.g., school and home environmental inventories) that are scientifically interesting and have practical benefits. In developing the curriculum unit, we will distribute learning experiences to the school, home, and the community. For example, while school is an appropriate venue for exploring the science underlying asthmatic episodes (e.g., why certain environmental factors can trigger an asthma attack), the home is an appropriate place to actually collect data on environment factors and their triggering relationship to family membersO asthma histories; and, students might well produce a pamphlet for distribution in their neighborhood that informs neighbors about how to reduce environmental factors that trigger asthma. Technology in the home, which the project will lend out, supports family science learning activities. We will be issuing to each student and their family in the Earhart bilingual ESL 2 science class, a set-top box that enables the familyOs TV to become a window on the Internet. In effect, this unit will serve as a computer in their home with the TV set being used as the computerOs monitor. Students and their families will enter data they collect on this unit (e.g., Peak Flow Meter data, from the Meter we issue to each family) and see, for example, their data in comparison to others. We are also constructing activities where the families visit Internet websites that deal with asthma and chronic disease issues and then discuss their experiences at those sites. The data and other input (e.g., short reports) that students create at home on their Internet-TV units will be available on the computers at school; these inputs will form the basis of classroom activities. Of course, privacy will be a major concern in this project. We will take precautions to safeguard the input of students and their families, as well as protecting family information from inappropriate access. We are exploring the role of community-based organizations in this integrated effort. We are speaking now with various organizations about their participation, e.g., one medical organization is interested in providing online mentors to students and their families. As the project moves forward, we will be solidifying this component of the effort. The Chronic Disease Unit will be used in Earhart and Lessinger Middle Schools; we will be issuing Peak Flow Meters to all students. However, only the ESL 2 class will use Internet- TV units and engage in a set of specific learning activities that integrate the school, the home, and the community. The authenticity of the issue is at the heart of the synergy: students and their families have a vested interest in doing something about the medical problem at hand. The learning experiences at school, in the community and at home align with each other and support each other: what the students study in school can be investigated in private at home with the family; what is done at the CBO links with both the school and the home. It is our expectation that there will be a synergy between the activities at the three sites; what goes in the home will be more effective as a function of what is going on at school and at the CBO, for example. Four units at the University of Michigan are collaborating on this project: College of Engineering, School of Education, School of Information, School of Public Health. The project is supported by funds from the National Science Foundation and the University of Michigan Outreach Project. |
