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THE ORGANIZATION High Tech High began in 2000 as a single charter high school launched by a coalition of San Diego business leaders and educators. It has evolved into an integrated network of schools spanning grades K-12, housing a comprehensive teacher certification program and a new, innovative Graduate School of Education. All High Tech High schools are project-based and share four key design principles: personalization, adult world connection, common intellectual mission, and teacher as designer. Responding directly to the needs of students, all four principles connect to the broad mission of preparation for the adult world. Moreover, all four call for structures and practices that schools do not now routinely employ. The design principles permeate every aspect of life at High Tech High schools. A central feature of all schools in the High Tech High Organization is the project-based structure. Students are not issued textbooks and, instead, student and teacher created projects dictate the school curriculum. The school schedule and building itself are designed to foster collaboration and cross-disciplinary work. Students are organized by grade level teams and team teachers share prep time to encourage collaborative curriculum design.

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High Tech High North County High Tech High North County (HTHNC) is one of the eleven schools in the larger High Tech High Organization. The school has approximately 500 students across grade levels 9-12. Students must apply to become a student at the school and admission is based on a zip-code lottery system in an effort to fairly represent the demographics of the surrounding areas. Below is the most recent demographic information for the school:

% African Amer.

% Amer. Indian

% Pac. Island. 1 1 0 1 1

% Hispanic

% Sp. Ed.

% White

9 10 11 12 All

59 52 58 54 56

41 48 42 46 44

25 30 21 21 25

1 3 2 1 2

21 18 17 10 17

64 55 70 57 62

4 4 2 9 5

23 23 16 18 20

0 3 2 0 1

Students in each grade level are placed on one of two/three grade level teams of students. Teams of students usually have no more than 60 students total. Each team is then divided into two/three classes of about 25 students each. Unlike many other schools, the ! 32!

% Asian 8 14 11 15 11

% Girls

% Boys

% FRL

Grade

% EL

classes of students rotate through their core classes together. As a result, students on the same team get to know each other very well and teachers are able to collaborate in designing cross-curricular projects. Tracking, or grouping students by traditional ability levels is absent at High Tech High North County. Instead, the school has inclusive classrooms that are grouped by grade level only. There is inclusion support staff to work and help students in the population that have Individualized Education Plans (IEP) or 504 Plans. These staff members come into classrooms to support specific students but also to offer support to all students. The school schedule also has an advisory period on Mondays and Fridays. Each staff member hosts an advisory of about 15 students. Advisory consists of preparation for college, support and service in the local community, creation of school culture, and support in preparing students for potential career paths. Mathematics at High Tech High North County High Tech High North County has adopted an integrated approach to mathematics. Instead of the traditional, compartmentalized approach to teaching, each year students are exposed to a variety of different areas of mathematics. The National Common Core Standards strands of Number and Quantity, Functions, Algebra, Geometry, and Statistics and ! 33!

Probability run through all grade levels and each is explored in every year through a different context or at a different level of depth. Despite existing as a local charter school, High Tech High North County is still required to take the California State Testing for Mathematics and other subjects. As a result, the school is still held to specific standards in terms of performance on those tests and annual performance measures. MY CLASSROOM Classes I Teach I taught three sections of 10th Grade Integrated Mathematics 2 during the research period. There were about 25 students in each section. The course was intended to be an integrated, standardsbased experience for students. Because our schools do not have textbooks to drive the curriculum and work with students, we have a standards document that provides suggested topics for that grade level. Those topics are coordinate geometry, quadratic functions and equations, similarity, circles and conics, probability, and geometric modeling. There are a number of more specific standards under each strand, but I have chosen here to simply report the larger ideas. I chose to respond to the textbook-free, project-based environment by designing problem-based units that I anticipated would engage ! 34!

students in thinking about the big ideas outlined in our standards documents. Each unit started with a large central unit question. Students attempted to make sense of that question and played a central role in deciding how we should conduct our investigation. However, at various points throughout the unit we would take several detours to explore big ideas that came up during our investigation. The unit structure and design was very closely modeled after the approach taken by the Interactive Mathematics Program textbooks. The diagram below shows an example of what one of our units from the year looked like:

I also taught one section of a 12th Grade Mathematical Thinking elective course. There were about 25 students in the class. I intentionally left the course description rather open to allow for us to pursue different things that students were interested in. However, the general description was that we would explore and discuss mathematical curiosities and puzzle as well as extend those ! 35!

by posing our own questions to pursue. There were no content requirements or expectations for the course. The structure of our work in the 12th Grade course was somewhat different than the structure of the 10th Grad course. Although it varied depending on the circumstance, we generally operated by exploring a problem/puzzle that I would bring in for the students and then taking detours from there based on the extensions they created or their own curiosity. The diagram below illustrates a typical structure:

Both the 10th and 12th Grade courses are represented in this study. Room Layout and Group Structures One of my central beliefs is that students need to be talking about and sharing their ideas with others in order to learn. As a result, I have arranged my room to facilitate collaborative group work. ! 36!

Tables are arranged in groups of four and the classroom layout stays relatively constant. On the following page is a diagram of the classroom layout:

Because it has been shown through research that status issues are actually heightened in group work situations unless the teacher takes intentional measure to offset them (Cohen, 1994), I established some structures early on to attempt to alleviate this. Each desk has a small playing card on it and cards are grouped by ! 37!

table (ex. all kings together, all queens, etc.). Suits are then used to assign group roles or to elect a spokesperson/representative for the groups ideas when needed. Early on in the year, students worked together to set their own norms for group work. They decided that all group members should: contribute their own ideas listen closely to the ideas of others explain your reasoning use each others strengths get everyone involved

Student seating would change with every new unit. In an attempt to create a sense of community and comfort, we would do group team building and norm setting activities with each seating change. Throughout the year, students were asked to reflect on their role as a group member in relation to the norms they had established. Typical Day Days did not always look the same and there were some small differences in lesson structure across the two different grade levels that I teach but, in general, a typical lesson would progress through three phases:

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1. Launch This is the phase when the problem for the day would be posed (either by students or myself). As mentioned in my Understandings, it is worth noting that these were almost always large, open questions with a high level of cognitive demand. 2. Explore During this phase, students would work in groups to make sense of the problem for the day. My role was mostly to ask groups questions, look for and mediate status issues, and listen to ideas that I heard from students. I would also take notes about ideas students were talking about and make plans about how to select students to present their thoughts for the summarize phase. 3. Summarize The lesson would generally end with presentations from, and discussion among, students. The goal here was to elicit student thinking, challenge them to justify ideas, to make connections, and to areas for rich discussion. !

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