We are an inner-city public high school with all the issues one might expect of lower income inner-city students. However, more than 80% of our students go to college! And we have an educational environment that promotes growth and learning. This may be because we are the only all-International Baccalaureate inner-city public high school in the United States.
Our students have decided to accept academic rigor in an urban public school and have achieved remarkable success.
Our program began six years ago with 60 students. Most of them are now Juniors in college. In the fall, we began our seventh year with over 1000 students. We are changing the paradigm in our state.
We are located in the oldest high school building in our state and have become the flagship high school for the largest school district in our state. The stakes are very high, but we know that all students can succeed in a rigorous college prep program. So far, it has worked and we are only getting better.
My Project
I am a high school math and science teacher. Current research shows that struggling with problems helps develop the brain pathways necessary to learn higher level math and be strong problem solvers later in life. It is called "Productive Struggle" in the education field.
We are currently in the golden age of board gaming, which is an excellent opportunity to develop problem solving skills.
So, I started a board game cub at my high school and have had students playing games in my classroom every Monday after school all year long. In May, we will have a week of school where students choose a weeklong activity. Twenty-four students chose a week of board gaming. They will learn to play strategy games and then will go out to our feeder schools and teach these games to middle school students. In addition to developing their problem solving skills, they will learn social skills and also get to be leaders and teachers.
In order to do this, we will need multiple copies of a few games that are well designed and grade-level appropriate for 6th grade and above. These three games were chosen because they are high-rated, strategic, relatively easy to learn, and fun to play.
Next year, these games will continue to be used in our high school and will help develop a board game library for middle school board game clubs.
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