Executive Summary - Year One
In 1999, the U.S. Department of Education awarded a five-year Technology Innovation Challenge Grant (TICG) to the Oakland Unified School District in Oakland, California. The Oakland TICG, Urban Dreams, targets high school students in Social Studies and Language Arts classes through the development and implementation of innovative technology strategies, enhanced content and increased use of computers in the home that will result in significant gains in Language Arts and Social Studies Achievement for Oakland Unified School District High School Students. The primary focus of this performance report is to provide information regarding the progress in planning and implementation during the first year of the grant.
A Discrepancy Model Evaluation (DEM) plan has been created by project staff and the evaluation team that includes program narratives, component maps and input, process, and output (IPO) statements for each of the main program components (management, professional development, curriculum and community/parents) on three increasingly detailed levels. This plan will enable all stakeholders to examine the path of the project as it progresses though the five years of implementation to reach the identified goals. The plan is available on the evaluation Web site maintained by The Center for Evaluation and Research - http://californiaschools.net/ud/ and will be updated to reflect not only original resources, goals (outputs) and processes, but will reflect discrepancies in intended outputs (which can be positive or negative in relationship to the original intents) and elaborate on the nature of those discrepancies and other formative data contributing to project staff decisions for change grounded in that data. Since this method of evaluation provides a line of information that shows original goals and explains changes based on formative data, it helps in creating an accurate audit trail for the evaluation.
In order to obtain baseline data on teachers and students involved in the Urban Dreams project, surveys were created to establish a baseline of attitudes, technology skills, technology availability and use. The surveys were developed, collected and analyzed by project staff and evaluators from the Center for Evaluation and Research. Sixty-one English and social studies teachers from the 10 high schools completed at least part of the survey. Teachers at Bunche Second Chance High School did not respond to the survey. One thousand three hundred and fifty-eight students from 11 high schools responded to the student survey. Both surveys were made available in paper (scannable) form and via the Internet. Baseline results will be used to guide professional development activities.
During this first year of implementation, the primary focus of Urban Dreams has been to:
 |
Create the DEM plan including Narratives, Component Maps and IPO statements (Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3), |
| Put in place appropriate management and evaluation components, |
| Identify, procure and install instructional media at sites, |
| Identify teachers, students and other participants who will be involved initially and gather baseline data in regard to current resources and practices of teachers , students and parents through the use of surveys, |
| Identify innovative teaching practices that develop historical thinking skills, expository writing skills, project based learning techniques, and technology skills in the context of content. |
| Plan and begin professional development activities for teachers in curriculum, teaching strategies and technology skills, |
| Collaborate with partners to develop innovative tools, pilot projects, techniques, content enrichment and begin providing professional development on the use of those elements and, |
| Plan Summer Institute 2000 incorporating the knowledge gained from teachers and pilot projects. |
© Copyright 2001 Center for Evaluation and Research, LL
