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Site Visit: Fremont High School |
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I recently visited Irene Perez at Fremont High School in Sunnyvale. Irene has been teaching desktop publishing and is transforming her curriculum to include multimedia. Irene collaborates with Patrick O'Hara of Palo Alto High School to share ideas about multimedia and curriculum. Irene has engaged a small (about 5 people) advisory panel of industry professionals, HR professionals, and software trainers. Irene convenes the panel annually to review this year's achievements and her plans for next year. I sat in on the advisory panel meeting, which was brief and to the point. It's clear that by bringing together the perspectives that she has, Irene is getting good feedback about how her curriculum relates to the needs and expectations of employers as well as to the educational needs of her students. Irene's students develop brochures and other promotional materials. She says that making a presentation is very different from giving a speech. One student-made brochure is for a class that Irene offers to other teachers and their classes--the STARS class (Success in Technology Accessing Resources for Students). In the STARS class, Irene collaborates with academic core teachers to help students complete projects. Irene teaches the technology aspects, and her colleagues focus on content learning. In the STARS class, Irene is very flexible--teachers can sign up with a project in hand, or Irene will work with teachers from the first brainstorming session. Part of the success of the STARS class is that Irene's advanced students work with beginning students. This benefits all the students while allowing the teachers to focus on assessment and follow-through work with students. Ralph Manak |