by Cynthia McIntyre
 he Concord Consortium has recently been awarded three grants to expand the reach of the Virtual High School; to evaluate and disseminate the Hands On Physics project; and to link models and experimental data in the study of weather, climate, and global change.
Virtual High School
The Noyce Foundation, based in Palo Alto, Calif., has generously agreed to support the Virtual High School (VHS) project in order to create a nonprofit business that could be funded entirely from fees for services, royalties, and other income. Currently funded by a U.S. Department of Education Technology Innovation Challenge Grant, VHS offers online courses for high school students across the country, in a cooperative exchange program in which for each teacher offering a VHS course, 20 students at the participating school can enroll in a VHS course. The Noyce Foundation grant will allow VHS to restructure its operations, thus reducing operating costs and costs to users; to expand its potential audience; and to develop curriculum materials and proprietary software.
VHS will develop short modules in high-demand technical multimedia areas. These modules, taken sequentially, could form a course; they may also be offered in self-study mode or for teacher-authors to incorporate into their own courses. Administrative functions, such as registration and grade reporting, will be streamlined with software to be developed. The grant will also allow additional sites and individual, high-ability, disadvantaged students to participate in the VHS.
Hands On Physics
The Hands On Physics (HOP) Evaluation and Dissemination project is made possible with funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The materials and curriculum development for the HOP project were originally funded by NSF. HOP is an inquiry-based approach to physics instruction for high school and college students. The curriculum has been used by INTEC, Concord Consortium¹s online professional development course for math and science secondary teachers, and in the Virtual High School. The HOP Evaluation and Dissemination project will create a complete implementation package of seven HOP units and supporting materials to be delivered over the Web. The Concord Consortium will also update the HOP project web site and provide teacher assistance in implementing a new approach to their physics curriculum. To date, project evaluations have been formative, intended to guide materials development. Funds from the new NSF grant will allow a broader summative study, to evaluate the educational effectiveness of the HOP curriculum.
Models and Data in Science Education
The National Science Foundation has also funded a new project entitled Linking Models and Data in Science Education. The Concord Consortium will collaborate with faculty members from Boston University and Boston College to implement this project. Seventh and eighth grade students in Boston and Maynard, Mass., will work with computer models and experiments in the context of the variation of temperature in solids, liquids, and gases. Students will use temperature probes to produce real-time displays of the data, and compare these to the output of computer models that they themselves have constructed. As the experiments become more complex, the students will be forced to make their models more sophisticated. Eventually, they will apply their knowledge to improve their understanding of such real-world phenomena as weather patterns, seasonal variation, and global climate change. Longitudinal studies are planned to assess how students who have participated in the program succeed in their later science classes.
Foundations and individuals have made significant contributions to these and other projects of The Concord Consortium. If you are interested in supporting the work of The Concord Consortium, please contact us at info@concord.org.
Cynthia McIntyre is project coordinator for INTEC.
cynthia@concord.org
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