Innovation: Unique Solutions for Real Schools
The Digital Youth Network | 6to16 | STEP Literacy Assessment | More Tools
A crucial aspect of the Urban Education Institute’s work is sharing what we learn in our schools and in our research. This work has been underway since 1988 and continues today with more focus and new partners. Our researchers do not work in isolation but rather collaborate with practitioners working in schools to develop tools, best practices, and ideas that improve teaching and learning. Two recent examples of this successful collaboration are the Digital Youth Network for middle and high school students and 6to16, a unique college readiness program. A sample follows of more Urban Education Institute tools that use technology creatively to support students and the professionals who work with them every day.
The Digital Youth Network
Visit www.iremix.org to view or hear student work and learn more. The Digital Youth Network teaches students in grades six to twelve to become discerning consumers of technology and new media as well as innovative creators and teachers in their schools, families, and communities. Our students creatively apply technology to become filmmakers, composers, record producers, video game designers and robotics engineers. Staff from the Urban Education Institute and artists from the Chicago area coordinate DYN and teach students at two University of Chicago charter schools, the new space in Harold Washington Library, and at other South Side Chicago schools in the Urban School Improvement Network at the Urban Education Institute.
“I am doing better school work because of the Digital Youth Network. It gave me other ways to express myself than just writing everything down.”
- Shani Edmond, 10th grader at Woodlawn High School
Our approach, both an afterschool program and a mandatory media arts class, allows participating schools to decrease the class time spent on developing youth’s technical expertise, freeing classroom teachers to concentrate on content. Since our students arrive in class with digital skills, teachers truly can integrate technology across the curriculum and students can use their skills to support ambitious teaching and learning. We also host a social networking space for students, Remix World, that provides young people with online mentoring and opportunities to share work and ideas beyond the school and program day.
Closing the Technical Fluency Gap: Comparison of Chicago to Silicon Valley Youth
Stanford University and the University of Illinois-Chicago continue to collaborate with us on an evaluation of our program, but preliminary findings are encouraging. For example, researchers found that North Kenwood/Oakland charter school students are participating in a wider range of experiences that build technology fluency than a comparison group of students in Silicon Valley in California, the nation’s high-tech hub.
View the chart comparing Chicago and Silicon Valley Youth.
Contact: DYN founder or program director
6to16: College Success for More Urban Students
The Urban Education Institute has developed 6to16, a college readiness curriculum and social network that is currently being piloted in four Chicago public schools. The goal of 6to16 is to radically increase the number of urban students who are accepted to college and persist to graduation, providing a national model on how to overcome college enrollment and preparation barriers among urban youth, along with disappointing graduation rates. It starts with students early, in grade six, and supports them through college graduation, grade 16.
Interested in becoming a 6to16 mentor?
The University of Chicago Urban Education Institute gratefully acknowledges the support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in the development of 6to16.
Assessment Tools
STEPTM Strategic Teaching and Evaluation of Progress
STEPTM is a developmental literacy assessment for grades K-3. It includes a set of tools, tightly aligned with scientifically established milestones in reading development, to follow student progress. The Urban Education Institute’s predecessor, the Center for Urban School Improvement, developed STEPTM over the last nine years and has worked with the Chicago Public Schools and others to study its impact. STEP is most appropriate for districts and schools that are practicing balanced literacy and are interested in the use of formative assessment data to inform instructional improvement.
Click here to order STEPTM kits.
More Tools for Teaching, Learning and Leadership
Professional Development Support System (PDS2)
PDS2 is a professional development tool developed in partnership with other universities for literacy instructors. It is a web-based system of video cases, related sources, and communication tools. It extends the capacity of professional development providers to engage teachers in sustained, evidenced-based learning, and collaboration.
Contact:
Clinical Case Management System (CCMS)
Bringing together wide-ranging data on students, CCMS allows school leaders to have a more complex picture when evaluating student performance. It helps intervention teams in schools identify student needs and design appropriate social and academic supports. CCMS is designed to be used in connection with the Urban Education Institute’s Academic and Social Support System (AS3), in which a team of academic and social support teachers and staff identify and work with struggling students.
Contact , director of innovation, and , director of national engagement, for more information about the Urban Education Institute’s unique solutions for schools.
