Silver Creek High School Project Definition

Client
Shelley Wessels
skwessels24@gmail.com

Project Team (Mistico)

CarlottaRhea Clark - Project Manager /Client Liaison
carlottaclark@csumb.edu

Justin Baffico
Bassel El Ahmadieh
Edgar Marin
Wendy Olaveson

Project Overview

In order to prepare students for college and career, they must be provided with opportunities to
participate in a variety of structured conversational situationsas part of a whole class, in small
groups, and with a partnerin order to simulate as many possible real world situations they may
find themselves in such as college/job interviews, business presentations, and legal/social
debates.

They must be able to contribute appropriately to these conversations, to make comparisons and
contrasts, and to analyze and synthesize a multitude of ideas in accordance with the standards of
evidence appropriate to a particular discipline. Whatever their intended major or profession, high
school graduates will depend heavily on their ability to listen attentively to others so that they are
able to build on others meritorious ideas while expressing their own clearly and persuasively.

In order to facilitate the students exposure to these opportunities as well as their ability to master
these skills, our team will create a Google site for a high school accelerated class: Government
in America. On this Google site, students will be able to access learning resources and
assignments provided by our team as well as the instructor, participate in group projects, post
videos of themselves, peer review and critique their classmates work, and submit assignments.

The proposed project will meet the clients expressed need to provide an oral learning
component for each of the 6-10 units of study. The project will support organizational goals to
educate and motivate students to develop their oral presentation skills that will be needed for
their future college and career endeavors. The proposed Google site will serve as a training
resource site and forum to interact with their instructor and peers in a group or one on one
setting The expected outcomes for the project are that learners will be able to deliver persuasive
oral presentations in a group or in a one on one setting. Success for the project will be measured
through assessments of the students presentations by their instructor and peers as well as
measures of engagement and motivation among learners through analysis of learner interactions
with the Google site and a student/instructor satisfaction survey.

Training Need

A student being unable to give a clear and well-planned presentation is a problem that needs to
be clearly addressed. Teachers at every level require students to stand and deliver their ideas yet
no one has taken the time to explicitly train students on this topic. Time and time again teachers
give rubrics and directions and expect students to be able to give good presentations. While this
might work for students who have been taught to speak their mind since they were young, this
does not work for ELLs who have had limited language exposure since they were born.

According to research done in the mid-1990s [it was] found there may be a 30-million-word
gap between the number of words children from poor families hear before they enter
kindergarten and the words children from middle- and upper-income families hear (Schmidt,
2015). Even students who have been taught to do this and are native English speakers still
struggle with the concept of public speaking. A teacher only has so much time in a year that
they can teach and in an AP environment all that teaching has to be dedicated toward core
material. AP students are already expected to have presentation skills but unfortunately most of
them do not. By providing a training that can mostly be accomplished online, in their own home,
it will free up classroom time for them to actually practice presentations by focusing on core
material.

Organizational Goals

Provide equal opportunity and access to all students to receive quality education
Ensure that the learning environment is safe, inspiring, healthy, challenging and caring
Empower students to become critical thinkers, creative problem solvers, and lifelong
learners
Help students to be socially responsible citizens in a multicultural and technical world
Revise and evaluate implemented strategies at the school house
Urge and support the effective partnership with family, community and industry
Ensure the cooperation between parents , students and teachers in advocating for the best
education for all students
Utilize dynamic teaching methods to improve students experiences and opportunities at
the school
Apply the Common Core State Standards

Learner Goals

Providing evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection and
research
Writing routinely for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences
Participating and discussing effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations
with diverse partners
Evaluating and integrating information presented in diverse media and formats
 Evaluating speakers point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric
Presenting information, findings, and supporting evidence, conveying a clear and distinct
perspective
Making strategic use of digital media and visual displays of data to express information
and enhance understanding of presentations.
Adapting speech to a variety of contexts and communicative tasks, demonstrating
command of formal English when indicated or appropriate

Learners (Participants)

The learners' are high school students at Silver Creek High School in San Jose California. These
students are currently taking A.P Government classes. Taking A.P classes will make the learners
high achievers. Demographically, the students are of Asian and Latino descent, with a few
whites. Some may be ESL students and may require some translation. All learners have Google
accounts that they can use to share and collaborate on projects instantly. All the learners are tech
savvy and, at a minimum, have access to the internet via smartphones. These students have
limited or no public speaking skills in the real world. Students are motivated to learn presentation
skills that will prepare them to successfully interview for college or employment.

Deliverables/Logistics

Training will occur over the course of 10 weeks starting in conjunction with the beginning of the
students advanced placement class. The training course will be online asynchronous, and relate
to topics covered in their in-person portion of their class.

Training will be delivered through a Google Site, hosted on Silver Creek High Schools Google
Apps domain. This allows for the instructor to set permissions for each student, opening up the
possibility for students to post their own media and documents. Instructor will open up each
week of instruction at the pace of the class. Students will be able to see the current assignment
pages, as well as previous assignment pages. Google sites allow for users to comment on certain
pages, as long as permissions are set correctly. Below is a draft site map for the training.

Home
Navigation Instructions
Assignment 1
Submission - Individual Access
Discussion - Class Access
Assignment 2
Submission - Individual Access
Discussion - Class Access
Assignment 3
Submission - Individual Access
Discussion - Class Access
Assignment 4
Submission - Individual Access
Discussion - Class Access
 Assignment 5
Submission - Individual Access
Discussion - Class Access
Assignment 6
Submission - Individual Access
Discussion - Class Access
Assignment 7
Submission - Individual Access
Discussion - Class Access
Assignment 8
Submission - Individual Access
Discussion - Class Access
Assignment 9
Submission - Individual Access
Discussion - Class Access
Assignment 10
Submission - Individual Access
Discussion - Class Access
Resources
Class Discussion - Class Access

Students will need to log in to their school Google accounts to be able to post and comment on
the site. They will be able to access the site remotely from many different devices. The instructor
can pull up assignments pages from the site and discuss them in person during school.