High Tech High

As you may know, PLP uses project based learning. PBL uses projects instead of tests for the students to show their learning. In my opinion it is a better way to show your learning because you actually get to show your understanding rather than just memorizing random facts and forgetting them a week after a test. Not many schools teach with PBL yet because it is new and is harder to teach with than tests. Luckily there are some amazing teachers who take extra time out of there lives so they can do PBL. There is a school in San Diego where the whole school uses PBL. It’s called High Tech High and it is an amazing school. While we were in California for out field school we got to spend two days at HTH and it was a great experience.

High Tech High isn’t just a high school. It’s a school for every grade. There are elementary, middle, and high schools on the campus in different buildings. There are also different types of schools. For example there is High Tech High International and High Tech High Media Arts. We spent our two days at HTH Media Arts. At HTH they call their teachers by their first names. We got to visit Anna’s classroom. When we first got there our class was split into two groups, green group and purple group. I was in purple group. Once we got our groups everyone got a partner or partners. I was partnered up with Bryah and Ajok. We talked for a little bit to introduce ourselves and they were very friendly and fun to talk to. After our introductions we went on a tour of the campus.

The campus is huge and there are so many buildings on it. It used to be an army camp so the architecture is a little strange. The ceilings are open and you can see the bars in them. In some of the buildings the classrooms don’t have walls, they just have windows. It’s really cool because it makes the space feel really open and you get to see what’s going on in all of the classrooms. They also have student artwork everywhere. The students there are very talented and their work is amazing. It took us almost half an hour to do a tour and I don’t even think we saw everything. After the tour we headed back to Anna’s classroom. We then went to Trish’s classroom and played some introductory games. After that we participated in Media Monday. Media Monday is when they talk about events that happened and everyone is allowed to voice their opinion on the subject without being judged. It was really cool to get to talk about the stuff that’s currently happening instead of just stuff that has happened in the past. We spent the rest of the day in Anna’s classroom until school was done at 3:30.

The next day we started off by doing some math which was really challenging. We did a really complicated problem and it took us quite a long time to figure it out. After math we went into Anna’s class and discussed different schools and how some schools are better than others and how that might affect the students. We also had a debate on the topic and it was really interesting to here everyone’s opinions. We ended off the day by getting to interview our partners for a podcast. A couple of moths ago we did a project where we had to make Story podcasts. You can read more about those here. We had to make a story podcast with our partners. My partners for this were Bryah and Hanna Maria and they answered all of my questions and were great interviewees. I had so much fun at HTH and I would love to go back and visit there.

When I returned from the trip I got to edit the podcast. I had almost 30 mins of recording so I had lots of material to work with. There were a couple good stories in there and I was hard to decide which one to do. I decided to focus on what it is like at HTH because that’s what I found most interesting. I edited it so it flowed smoothly, added and intro, added some music, and then it was done. I had some of my peers listen to it and got some good critique. I edited it a couple more times and here is my final draft.

I love doing podcasts like these because there is lots of freedom and they are really fun to do. It was cool to get to visit HTH and do this podcast with some of the students there.