Academic Support
Fund Code 625-B Summer Enhancement Grant FY08
Community Service-Learning Project Outline
Summer 2008
District/Organization: Central Berkshire Regional School District
Teacher(s)/Instructor(s):Deb Kowalczyk and Dawn Sickell (math)
Stefanie Wondriska-Clark, John McComish and
Kathy DiNicola (ELA)
Community Partner(s): Recording for the Blind (ELA)
Holiday Farm (ELA)
I.
Community Service-Learning Project Description
a. The identified need and proposed project (service to be
provided);
“Give and Take”, CBRSD’s summer academic support program for 9 th
and 10th graders incorporated content remediation, credit recovery,
MCAS prep and service learning. The participants determined the
identified need(s). The math participants focused on creating a math
camp for younger kids (Math-a-Magicians) to support younger
struggling students in math while the ELA participants interviewed
various community organizations, individuals, and groups to write and
develop story script for individuals who cannot access print at our local
Recording for the Blind.
b. The anticipated academic connections (include MA
Frameworks learning standards and guiding principles
utilized); and
Guiding Principle 1
An effective English language arts curriculum develops thinking and language together through
interactive learning.
Effective language use both requires and extends thinking. As learners listen to a speech, view a
documentary, discuss a poem, or write an essay, they engage in thinking. The standards in this
framework specify the intellectual processes that students draw on as they use language. Students
develop their ability to remember, understand, analyze, evaluate, and apply the ideas they
encounter in the English language arts and in all the other disciplines when they undertake
increasingly challenging assignments that require them to write or speak in response to what they
are learning.
Guiding Principle 2
An effective English language arts curriculum develops students’ oral language and literacy
through appropriately challenging learning.
A well planned English language arts instructional program provides students with a variety of
oral language activities...and opportunities to work with others...
Guiding Principle 4
An effective English language arts curriculum emphasizes writing as an essential way to develop,
clarify, and communicate ideas in persuasive, expository, narrative, and expressive discourse...as
students attempt to write clearly and coherently about increasingly complex ideas, their writing
serves to propel intellectual growth. Through writing, students develop their ability to think (and)
to communicate ideas...
Guiding Principle 5
An effective English language arts curriculum provides for literacy in all forms of media.
Multimedia, television, radio, film, Internet, and videos are prominent modes of communication
in the modern world..
Guiding Principle 10
While encouraging respect for differences in home backgrounds, an effective English language
arts curriculum nurtures students’ sense of their common ground as present or future American
citizens in order to prepare them for responsible participation in our schools and in civic life.
Language Strand
Standard 1: Discussion
Standard 2: Questioning, Listening, and
Contributing
Standard 3: Oral Presentation
Standard 4: Vocabulary and Concept
Development
Students will use agreed-upon rules for
informal and formal discussions in small
and large groups.
Students will pose questions, listen to the
ideas of others, and contribute their own
information or ideas in group discussions or
interviews in order to acquire new
knowledge.
Students will make oral presentations that
demonstrate appropriate consideration of
audience, purpose, and the information to be
conveyed.
Students will understand and acquire new
vocabulary and use it correctly in reading
and writing.
Composition Strand
Standard 19: Writing
Students will write with a clear focus, coherent
organization, and sufficient detail.
Standard 20: Consideration of Audience and
Purpose
Standard 21: Revising
Standard 22: Standard English Conventions
Standard 23: Organizing Ideas in Writing
Standard 24: Research
Standard 25: Evaluating Writing and
Presentations
Students will write for different audiences and
purposes.
Students will demonstrate improvement in
organization, content, paragraph development,
level of detail, style, tone, and word choice
(diction) in their compositions after revising
them.
Students will use knowledge of standard English
conventions in their writing, revising, and
editing.
Students will organize ideas in writing in a way
that makes sense for their purpose.
Students will gather information from a variety
of sources, analyze and evaluate the quality of
the information they obtain, and use it to answer
their own questions.
Students will develop and use appropriate
rhetorical, logical, and stylistic criteria for
assessing final versions of their compositions or
research projects before presenting them to
varied audiences.
Media Strand
Standard 27: Media Production
Students will design and create coherent media
productions (audio, video, television, multimedia,
Internet, emerging technologies) with a clear
controlling idea, adequate detail, and
appropriate consideration of audience, purpose,
and medium.
Math
Number Sense and Operations
Students engage in problem solving, communicating, reasoning, connecting, and representing as they:
10.N.1 Identify and use the properties of operations on real numbers, including the associative, commutative, and
distributive properties; the existence of the identity and inverse elements for addition and multiplication; the
existence of nth roots of positive real numbers for any positive integer n; and the inverse relationship between taking
the nth root of and the nth power of a positive real number.
10.N.2 Simplify numerical expressions, including those involving positive integer exponents or the absolute value,
e.g., 3(24 – 1) = 45, 4|3 – 5| + 6 = 14; apply such simplifications in the solution of problems.
10.N.3 Find the approximate value for solutions to problems involving square roots and cube roots without the use of
a calculator, e.g., 32  1  2.8 .
10.N.4 Use estimation to judge the reasonableness of results of computations and of solutions to problems involving
real numbers.
.
Patterns, Relations, and Algebra
Students engage in problem solving, communicating, reasoning, connecting, and representing as they:
10.P.1 Describe, complete, extend, analyze, generalize, and create a wide variety of patterns, including iterative,
recursive (e.g., Fibonnacci Numbers), linear, quadratic, and exponential functional relationships.
10.P.2 Demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between various representations of a line. Determine a line’s
slope and x- and y-intercepts from its graph or from a linear equation that represents the line. Find a linear equation
describing a line from a graph or a geometric description of the line, e.g., by using the “point-slope” or “slope yintercept” formulas. Explain the significance of a positive, negative, zero, or undefined slope.
Geometry
Students engage in problem solving, communicating, reasoning, connecting, and representing as
they:
G. 3 Recognize and solve problems involving angles formed by transversals of coplanar lines. Identify and determine
the measure of central and inscribed angles and their associated minor and major arcs. Recognize and solve problems
associated with radii, chords, and arcs within or on the same circle.
G. 5 Solve simple triangle problems using the triangle angle sum property and/or the Pythagorean theorem.
G.6 Use the properties of special triangles (e.g., isosceles, equilateral, 30º–60º–90º, 45º–45º–90º) to solve problems.
Measurement
Students engage in problem solving, communicating, reasoning, connecting, and representing as they:
10.M.1 Calculate perimeter, circumference, and area of common geometric figures such as parallelograms, trapezoids,
circles, and triangles.
10.M.2 Given the formula, find the lateral area, surface area, and volume of prisms, pyramids, spheres, cylinders, and
cones, e.g., find the volume of a sphere with a specified surface area .
c. The anticipated duration of the project (including students’
researching, planning, implementing, and demonstration of
the project).
Both programs were two weeks in length running consecutively as
many of the students participated in both. Math Camp went from July
7th through July 18th and ELA camp started on July 21st and continued
through August 1st. Each program ran from 8-2 for a total of 60 hours.
These sixty hours were divided into content instruction, research,
planning, implementing, and reflecting on service.
Week
7/7/08 – 7/11/08
7/14/08 – 7/18/08
Week
7/21/08 – 7/25/08
7/27/08 – 8/01/08
II.
“Give and Take” - Math
8:00-11:00
11:00 – 12:00
Math instruction
What is
& remediation
Service
Learning
Math instruction
Reflection
& remediation
“Give and Take” ELA
12:00 – 2:00
Plan and
create Math-AMagicians
Running MathA-Magicians
8:00-2:00
Instruction, Field Trips & Interviews
Instruction, Writing & Reading
Assessment
Student Assessment:
Guidance counselor recommended each student participant to the program
either for failing courses (retention) and/or low MCAS scores. No additional
assessments were completed prior to enrollment.
Math students took practice MCAS tests to determine individual skill deficits
and ELA students completed writing samples to be graded according to
MCAS standards.
All students will be assessed using M.A.P. (Measurement of Academic
Progress) during the fall of 08.
Program Assessment:
The goal of this program was to create a summer school model, which
incorporated a service component along with instruction and remediation. In
addition, the program aimed to target at risk students for retention or MCAS
failure in order to reduce dropout rates and MCAS failure.
The program originally aimed at selecting 12 students for each program. The
math program initially registered 14 students with two dropping out and one
dismissed (for attendance) and the ELA program registered 12 students and
all students successfully completed all requirements.
Therefore, this program met its goals.
III.
Materials Needed
Math:
1. Cuisenaire rods,
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Side walk chalk,
Sheet protectors,
Dry erase markers,
Pens, pencils, colored pencils,
Graph paper,
Decks of playing cards & die.
MCAS study books
ELA:
 Individuals interviewed for stories to be read at the Talking Chronicle (Officer
Deanna Strout (Dalton PD); State Rep. Denis Guyer; Holiday Farm (various);
Professor Magnus Bernhardsson (Williams College History Dept.); Talking
Chronicle personnel)
 Access to computers and the internet
 Transportation
 Recording device (for interviews)
 Word processing program
 DVD Player
IV.
Next Steps
CBRSD is planning to apply for Academic Support monies for fiscal year 09 to
continue providing additional instruction and service opportunities to
struggling math and ELA students. CBRSD will be able to identify students
based on 08 MCAS scores, M.A.P. scores and student grades.