GEAR UP ACCUPLACER GRANT! by Robert Dais, GEAR UP Massachusetts Director

We are pleased to announce that GEAR UP Massachusetts is the recipient of a competitive grant awarded through the U.S. Department of Education and Research Triangle Institute (RTI), to test and evaluate new learning strategies to help at-risk students who want to attend college after graduation.


As a recipient of the grant, our program is receiving additional funding for a Mathematics intervention for 12th graders in the 2010-’11 school year. This new program, Math Plus will work with 12th graders who have an interest in college but whose scores on Mathematics assessments would place them in remedial education rather than college-level courses upon entry into a college or university.

We believe this initiative is a tremendous opportunity for students at North High School. If successful, more students will start college without the costly remediation that is often a financial barrier to success. The grant will fully fund a mathematics elective course at the high school for GEAR UP students who fit the project criteria and who may require, under new state rules, an individualized plan for success.

Math Plus is based on a successful program at Worcester State University designed to help students move quickly from remedial status in mathematics to eligibility for college credit-bearing coursework. It is designed for students whose scores on the Elementary Algebra Accuplacer would place them in a remedial course in their first year of college. Accuplacer was developed by the College Board and is an assessment given by Massachusetts public institutions to determine whether students can enroll in college-level instruction.

Many students are interested in college, yet a surprising number—even some who pass MCAS— still place into remedial courses in higher education, and studies show that a large share of students in remediation often fail to attain a degree or certificate.

We look forward to partnering with you and welcome your support for this timely initiative.

Wordle

This is a great website: http://www.wordle.net/.  Input some text and you get "word clouds". The more times a word is mentioned the larger it gets.  I used some information about my program (GEAR UP) and I think the result highlights what we aim to do very well.  Try it with a text you are reading with your students (a historical document, a poem they've written, your class motto).  I think it's fun for visual learners.

My first podcast!

Gabcast! Bringing Web2.0 to College Access #1



This quick podcast was created through my free Gabcast (http://www.gabcast.com/) account.  I simply made a toll free call with my home phone and two minutes later I had this cute podcast all set and ready to share.  It was easier than recording my voicemail.  Give it a try, what a nice little tool!

GEAR UP Massachusetts

 What is GEAR UP?  Take a look!
(shared with permission from GEAR UP Massachusetts 08/12/2010)

Screencasting

I had a lot of fun using Jing (jingproject.com) to collect screen shots from a couple of websites my students frequent.  I took the screen shots and loaded them into a PowerPoint and used Jing again, only this time to do a video capture.  This enabled me to narrate the screencast and then upload it to screencast.com.  Now I have two screencasts to share with students registering for the SAT and ACT online for the first time.  Hopefully I won't have to hang over their shoulders as they register.   If they would rather do this at home or with a friend outside of school hours they still have the opportunity to have some assistance.  I hate when kids run in on the registration deadline (2 minutes before I have to fly out of the building to collect my first grader from the school bus) clearly needing help but I'm not in a position to offer it.  Now I can direct kids to our class blog where they can watch the tutorial and register without a problem.  Let me know what you think of the screencasts.  How are you using this technology?

ACT Screencast: http://screencast.com/t/NDEyNmZhZjMt

SAT Screencast: http://screencast.com/t/YjkzODRlZ 

TEDxDenverEd- Brian Crosby- Back to the Future

Great example of Web2.0 in the classroom
(shared with permission of Brian Crosby 07/30/2010)

Up and running

It's been a busy week applying all of the techniques  I've learned in Professor Whittier's ED901 course at Worcester State University. I have put together a blog for my students at the high school (http://worcestergearup.blogspot.com/) to act as an online newsletter along with this blog to chronicle my journey into the land of Web2.0. These blogs have also been added to my account at Feedm8.com to ensure that my students can view them on their mobile devices. 

I should clarify that I am not a teacher, but rather a college access professional working at an urban high school under a federal grant.  My role is to work with first generation, low-income students in grades 9-12 to prepare them for a post-secondary education.  I arrange college field trips, do individual counseling, and assist in the admissions and financial aid process for our students. 

As the school year approaches (just 22 days away) I will be preparing my Web2.0 arsenal.  I imagine there will be bumps but hopefully our students will be engaged and open to these new experiences.