New Tech’s Backstory: How YNT Came to Be The first New Tech High School was started in 1996 in Napa California. The founders wanted to create a school that would graduate students ready to becoming a well-fitting piece of the workforce. The founders of the first New Tech High also had in mind the goal of making the school environment encourage the students to beome more self-relient- an environment “There are no bells telling them when classes begin and end and no hall passes required to go to the bathroom. It's more like college, or even a workplace, than a high school” (quote from http:// www.newtechhigh.org/about-NTHS.html). The founders also wanted an environment of trust- backpacks are routinely left in the rooms, even backpacks containing laptops, without fear of theft.
Facilitators Katherine Fisk - Cory McElmeel - Carli Pacheco - Matthew Perry Mark Salzar Paula Sizemore - Hans Sowder - Patricia Thomas
Brochure Created by Kate Butchart
After this, the NTFoundation (New Tech Foundation) was created to fund the Napa New Tech and help start New Tech High Schools in other communities, including ours, creating Ypsilanti New Tech (YNT).
N e w T e c h High School Y p s i l a n t i
New Tech High School Ypsilanti Behavior Standards at YNT
Technology at Y.N.T.
Instruction styles
Y.N.T. believes that there are character values that will help people succeed in the workplace. Therefore, Y.N.T. coaches students in the 3 essential principles and the 21st Century Skills.
At Y.N.T., each student is assigned a school-owned laptop. This practise: • shows trust between administration and students, both in that students are lent expensive machinery and in that they are trusted to use it wisely. • helps modernize the school system (public schools have stayed fairly similar for over 100 years). • assures that students have enough technological proficiency to make it in the contemporary workplace.
What PjBL is
Echo
Classes at YNT
The 3 Essential Principles
• Trust- Students are instructed to be trustworthy and trusting of others. • Responsibility-Students are taught to take ownership of their actions. • Respect- Respect ought to go both ways; e.g.; students should respect students, students should respect and be respected by staff, and staff should respect staff.
A sample of 21st Century Skills
• Work Ethic- Students should be motivated to put effort into their projects. • Collaboration- Students learn how to work together. • Personal Capacity- Students should know their own limits. • Technology Use- Students are taught some of this, but students should also pick up things as they go along.
Echo is a website employed by YNT in an attempt to help students stay on top of schoolwork. Echo allows students to view their grades, check for homework, collaborate easily, and look at the day’s schedule if they are out sick or if they are just curious so they can get a basic idea of what’s going to happen at school. Each student at YNT has an echo account. YNT also has a website, so visit us at http:// www.ypsd.org/schools/newtech/
PBL (commonly called PjBL to distinguish it from Problem Based Learning) stands for Project Based Learning. One of New Tech’s goals is to employ PBL techniques to teach students. New Tech is so very enthusiastic about the PjBL approach because PjBL is a way to coach students in independence. PBjL also teaches students how to learn, and how to find information, as apposed to traditional methods that only how to memorize arbitrary facts and figures. Student schedules at YNT are currently set up so that everyone has the same six classes (combined into three classes) albeit at different times. These classes are Geo-Art (a blend of Geometry and Art), His-Tech (History, Geography, and Technology mixed together), and BioLit (Biology and Literature combined). Students also take one elective at Ypsilanti High School at the end of the day. These options include foreign languages (French and Spanish), drama, band, choir, gym, and health classes.