Wednesday December 19th

Today groups had project time. Many groups have yet to put their project into action, but many have also already finished! Just because their action phase is over, doesn't mean their whole project is! Students have to reflect on their project, deciding what went good and bad. 
 

Yesterday Michelle Kennedy from the Dale Carnegie training program came in to talk to the students. She talked about various things that could help them improve in leadership and be an overall better person. Students learned how to strike up a conversation and how to begin to be respected by adults. They also got the challenge to have a conversation with somebody everyday for the next month using their new conversation fillers. To find out more about the Dale Carnegie program you can go to their website: http://www.dalecarnegie.com/. 

 

Monday December 17th

Today, students got to participate in a celebration raffle. They had the chance to win a wide variety of prizes including a giant candy cane, Starbucks gift card, and other items.
Students also got to speak to the entire group about how, their project went or what they are planning on doing and what they need from the group. One group went to a school at lunch and gave kids mangoes to fight against childhood obesity. Another group had a food drive and collected over 300 pounds of food. One group has an event on Thursday called Ornaments for Autism. It will be from 4:30 PM to 7:00 PM in the North cafeteria and will cost $3 to get in. People can come in and make ornaments and color coloring pages. There will be free food and fun holiday music.  
They also had project time, honors English had a chance to meet, and they had workshop time as well.

Blog for December 7th

On Wednesday, we had Brenna Root from the Winnebago County re:TH!NK program talk to us. re:TH!NK is about benefiting the community's health through providing resources and educational programs. She talked to us about how FACT (Fight Against Corporate Tobacco) about how tobacco products are marketed towards children and teenagers using bright colors and flavors similar to those of candy. For more information about re:TH!NK or FACT, you can visit the rethink Winnebago at http://www.rethinkwinnebago.org/ or FACT's website at http://www.fightwithfact.com/.

  

Brenna Root presenting in front of communities.

Lately we have been continuing with the workshops and our projects of  how the body breaks down. On Monday, we will finish the prepare and plan stage of our project. This means that the brainstorming stage is over and we are moving forward with the projects, starting to get a better idea of what we want our project to be.

Monday Student Blog

Monday, December 3, 2012

Today at communities students continued on with the recently added block schedule. In the block schedule, students spend time learning as a class, instead of the normal project groups.  The blocks are all part of the investigation stage of the current project "How The Body Breaks Down." This will be the second week of this investigation stage. One may think this is to long of a time period if all that is being accomplished is simply finding a project topic, and researching the means in which the project will be presented. This is not true. The investigation stage is the most vital stage of a project. It is essential for creating a firm foundation, which can be thoroughly researched and well presented. Last unit, many students found there was no introduction to the project. These two weeks of investigation will eliminate that problem. Students will also, later this week, be contacting a partner. The initial contact is done by a teacher. This is because a call from a teacher is a much more professional way to attempt partnership. The success rate of actually acquiring a partner is also much higher when a teacher talks to the potential partner before the student. The rest of the week will be fairly similar to today. It is not the average week in the life of a student at communities, but the things done this week will help the students when the schedule is back to normal.

Blog for November 30th

Today we continued our project of "how the body breaks down". We are going to give a brief video blog of what we plan to accomplish with our project and why the topic is important to us. We are also considering community partners that we can contact to help with this project and continuing  to find out if there is a real need in the community.

When the Body Breaks Down

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Today, in Communities, we are continuing our unit "When the Body Breaks Down." This unit has us learn about how the human body responds when it fails. For example, some of us are researching diseases, cancer, obesity, and even psychological issues.

The teachers are helping us by giving workshops. One of the science workshops was a lesson on digestion. We watched a video that gave us information that we needed to complete a study guide. Later, we took a short quiz in class after the teacher reviewed what we needed to know. Understanding the Digestive System is important, even for the students whose projects do not involve this system.

Another workshop that was held involved English. Mr. Weber talked with one group about how fictional stories can allow the reader to see life from different perspectives. He gave us a short story that talked about a small family that was tragically affected by a deadly sickness. The story had us see the perspective of the father. The father was told he would die shortly, and since the mother was already dead, the father was forced to find a new family for his daughter to be adopted into. It was very moving and well written.

History was incorporated into this unit as well. We were taught about pandemics, such as the Bubonic Plague, and their effect on society. For instance, when the Bubonic Plague occurred in Europe during the Medieval Ages, food became much more expensive due to the fact that many of the workers died.

Be sure to check out the Communities website as well as our Facebook Wall!

 

Bria Lattery (a Communities student)

The Start of a New Unit

Monday, November 26th 2012

School this week for students at Communities will be quite different compared to previous weeks. Instead of being free to research and investigate, with minimal guidance from teachers, students will see the more traditional learning approach.  Benchmarks will be taught, instead of researched.  Today students were introduced to a new schedule. This schedule is part of the investigation and plan/prepare stage of their new unit, which focuses on how the body breaks down. Compared to last unit, students have much more freedom when choosing their topic.  However, this freedom will be much more structured, and it is this new schedule that will give the unit its structure. The new schedule breaks the three hours into two advisories and two blocks. During the blocks, students are grouped by their current science level. The different groups are put with individual teachers to learn in depth benchmarks, that will help guide them through their unit. The blocks are very similar to a the previous method of teaching benchmarks, however they are all within the investigation and plan/prepare stage of the unit  in hopes that students will be able to connect this information to their project topic before any real action takes place. In other words, this is to make sure the students don't get to far into their projects, before making sure the projects are doable. This is one of the many ways communities is continually improving, helping communities students learn the same things as other students, just in a different way.