Had a great day yesterday at CELL.  Heard some great discussion from the panel on Education Reform in Indiana with Dr. Tony Bennett-Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction, Mark Gerstle-Vice President of Community Relations for Cummins Inc., Dr. Wendy Robinson-Superintendent of Fort Wayne Community Schools, and Nathan Schnellenberger-President of the Indiana State Teachers Association.  Lots of good ideas were presented, for those of you on Twitter you can see some of the better ones by following us on twitter (schlofinquiry) as we retweeted some of the best comments by the panel and by audience members.  The highlight for me was getting to meet Dr. Bennett after the panel discussion and share with him what we are doing with the School of Inquiry, and get a very positive response from him-more details to be released at the Marshall County Economic Development Corporation Community Conversation on Wednesday.

Today we get to hear from Will Richardson, the Chief Learning Officer of Powerful Learning Practice.  He will be speaking about learning in a networked world, so I am very excited to hear what he has to say to us.  Then after some morning sessions-I am attending ones on Schooling for the 21st Century:  Unleashing Student Passion with Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach of Powerful Learning Practice and PBL Meets STEM which is lead by Michael Gorman the Technology Integration Professional Developer from Southwest Allen County Schools-we will get to hear from Charlotte Danielson, of the Danielson Group, on Assessing Teacher Effectiveness.

I am in Indianapolis today and tomorrow for the annual CELL Conference on Indiana's Future.  This year's conference title is Choices, Challenges, and Change and will focus on education reform in Indiana.  With the New Tech Network being such a prevalent part of education reform, and CELL being s supporter of the network, a lot of the sessions are being conducted by New Tech Directors from Indiana, and I am looking forward to attending some of those with Jen Felke and Mr. Tyree.  

In addition to the conference, I am also attending a New Tech Network director's meeting this morning prior to the conference.  It is a great opportunity to meet some of the other directors from around the state, and listen to how the year is going for their schools.  While at this conference the following data was shared about the New Tech Network in Indiana:

• Indiana New Tech Schools have a 95.6% attendance rate compared to the comparison average of 94.6%
• Indiana New Tech Schools have a lower suspension/expulsion rate than comparison schools (Suspension Rate 11.4% vs. 17.2%, Expulsion Rate 10.0% vs. 13.1%)
• In 2010-2011, a greater percentage of New Tech students passed their ECAs than students at comparison schools. 
• In 2009-2010, New Tech students out-performed both comparison schools and all high schools statewide in both Algebra I and English 10 ECAs, with a greater percentage of New Tech students passing these assessment.

Two different New Tech Network schools were featured in local newspapers this week.   Lincoln New Tech, in Jonesboro, Arkansas was featured in the LogCabin Democrat in a story that highlighted the schools transition to become a New Tech school.  Click here for article.

In the second article, The Republic of Columbus, Indiana reported on the expansion of Columbus Signature Academy, a New Tech High School, to the local junior high school.  Click here for article.

On Friday I traveled to Eagle Tech Academy in Columbia City to visit  with Director Brady Mullett and learn about the courses offered at Eagle Tech and see the design of their building.  In their first year, Eagle Tech has 5 teachers and roughly 100 students.  They offer classes in BioCom (Biology and Communications) Current Events/Speech, Health Marketing, PE,and Algebra.
During my visit I was able to watch students in BioCom as they created a children's book about the parts and functions of a cell.  In addition to having to write and produce a book that appealed to small children and educated them about the various parts and functions of a cell, the students also had to have a central theme in which they created analogies about the cell for their story.  For example, one group that I spoke with had students who were involved in cheerleading, so their theme was cheerleading and they related the parts and functions of the cell to cheerleading.  For example, the nucleus is to the cell as a coach is to a cheer team.
In the Current Events/Speech class I was able to watch students have a seminar on speech technique in the commons area of the school, while other students worked on presentations in the classroom.  

My visit to the Algebra classroom was especially enlightening as I got to visit with Brett Eberly, the ETA Math Teacher.  Mr. Eberly uses problem based learning to engage students in a variety of challenging projects.  For example, on the walls of his classroom where large sheets of white paper in which students had written equations calculating costs, mileage, and travel times for a vacation trip.  Additionally, he talked about how he uses cumulative tests to help students retain and rework core concepts throughout the year.

Had a great visit to OD New Tech with PHS Ag teacher Kelli Hoffman.  We got a tour from Director Greg Briles, and were able to watch students in their Chemistry/Food Science course, which we are considering bringing to the School of Inquiry in year 2 of our implementation.

The course, which is one of the only ones combining science and agriculture this way in the New Tech Network, combines an agriculture based food science course with chemistry to engage students in real world projects.  On the day we visited, students were working on a tutorial for junior high students to help them learn the elements of the periodic table.

Mr. Olson, Director of the School of Inquiry, and Mrs. Felke, Business Teacher and Director of Professional Development, spent Monday evening at Lincoln Junior High School meeting parents and prospective students who were attending Lincoln's Parent-Teacher Conferences.  

While there they answered questions, helped parents to enter information in the website contact form, and showed a video about their recent trip to Viking New Tech in Huntington, IN.  

Starting in November, they will be answering questions and meeting parents and students at Lincoln basketball games and during homeroom meetings with the students.  Check the blog for information on these future dates and opportunities.