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**Benjamin Rush Slept Here **

 * Established, in 1744, [|West Nottingham Academy] is the oldest boarding school in the United States. We are a 9-12 grade co-educational boarding and day school located in Maryland near the picturesque Chesapeake Bay, an hour's drive from either Philadelphia or Baltimore.**



Many notable figures have attended WNA including signer of the Declaration of Independence, [|Benjamin Rush]. Though he probably did not board on school property, he must have fallen asleep at some point during class, right? (-8

__**Project Idea:**__ At our school we have trimesters and we are required to have one of the three final exams be "alternative," so *not* a standard math test or English essay, depending on the subject. For example, we did indirect measurement in DC for my geometry final exam, and physics-related commercials on video for my Physics 9 alternative assessment.

We also have a 9th grade class that combines music, art, and history, with all three teachers working together on each time-period to make the ideas in each subject become more integrated in the minds of the students. These have been very successful for us and all of our teachers love the ideas.

Our project is to combine the two ideas to create a grade-oriented, cross-curricular alternative assessment-type project. We are not necessarily looking to fine tune the specifics, but instead set up an outline somehow of how this might work in our school. What it would look like and what sorts of difficulties and successes we might have... We have teacher/administrative buy-in on the general idea but there might be resistance when it comes to asking teachers to spend more time planning.

//Culminating Event and Celebration://
 * //** AIMS ** When 5/7/12 Where: [|Garrison Forest] //

Our Short-Term TO DO list:

Create/update WNA new project wiki - Rebekah/Libby Create 2 minute teaser video about project - Josh/Glen Create/plan 10 minute PPT/presentation for culminating event - Cassidy/Trish

1) create a sample project ex. Using the DC Mall for 9th grade - math (this year's alt asses), English - write paper, History - do research, Art - sketching a building, Physics9 - calculating energy needs or water footprint, Spanish/French - historical connection with DC? Music?) Could we use the upcoming Phy/Calc field trip as an example? 2) create a set of ways/suggestions for teachers to include their class in a grade-level project (no idea what this would look like - a list? A wiki with links and documents?) 3) create a set of 'what ifs' and a list of possibilities/things that could change (like having the English portion of the project be the trimester final exam for English while the physics 9 portion is a small problem they work on for homework when they get home) (deciding what the project would look like if the languages and arts were not required to participate) (figuring out how much time this would take out of the year's schedule) (if all the students in the whole school do their projects at the same time or at different times of the year) (culture credits?) etc.
 * Where do we go now? **

Our Long-Term TO DO List (from PLP): We have done blue, we are working on green , we will work on red next, and then eventually black)
 * Meet with team/coach either f2f or in Elluminate to finalize action plan for action research project
 * Share final draft plan ideas with community for feedback (webinar)
 * Meet with team either f2f or in Elluminate to work on action research project and consider suggested refinements
 * Meet with team either f2f or in Elluminate to work on action research project implementation and discuss learning showcase plan
 * Gather data from action research and make inferences as a team- determine success
 * Begin developing teaser of your PLP experience and/or project for Learning Showcase
 * Start refining the template for sharing the details of your action research project (found on your team page on the http://plpwiki.com)
 * Fine Tune Learning Showcase presentation and teaser
 * Meet with team either f2f or in Elluminate to determine format for Learning Showcase
 * Finalize Teaser and post on Wiki
 * Finalize Team page on wiki
 * Google yourself and compare to what you documented last fall. Has your digital footprint grown?
 * Write reflection of year long experience
 * Attend Culminating f2f Celebration
 * Take final evaluation survey