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Projects4ME - Maine's Statewide, Virtual Project-Based Program

 

McMEL is a founding partner of a statewide virtual project-based middle & high school program for at-risk and dropout youth, and other students needing an alternative path to graduation.

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Program Background

McMEL had worked with Maine’s Commissioners of Education Susan Gendron, The Citadel Group, and Auburn School Department to create the program.  In May 2010, Auburn School Department worked with TCG and McMEL to kick off Phase 1. The Program has worked with 15 Edward Little High School students and graduated it’s first student in mid October. Throughout the spring and summer of 2011, the program went through several transitions, including finding a new home at the Maine International Center for Digital Learning (MICDL).

In August 2011, the virtual program was reborn as Projects4ME.  Projects4ME continues to serve Auburn students and is actively looking to add other districts to the program.

Students earn their Maine high school diploma by demonstrating mastery of state learning standards through projects they design and implement themselves. A Learning Coach will work with each student, monitoring their progress and providing support when they need it. There is online curriculum available to insure that students can develop the necessary background knowledge for each project, and basic skills support is provided, as needed (student success is our priority!). 

Rather than regular high school courses (Carnegie Units), based on "seat time," students will receive credit for showing that they have mastered the state standards. The projects will be the evidence (reviewed and assessed by Learning Coaches and backed up with other testing and diagnostic results).

The program is designed to help middle grades and high school students who may be at-risk of not graduating or who might benefit from these program features:

  • Learning through projects

  • Starting with curiosity, rather than a curriculum topic

  • Credit for demonstrated mastery

  • Flexible time schedule

  • A lot of adult attention & coaching

The Program is endorsed by both the Maine Sheriffs’ Association and former governor Angus King.

 

The Need

Maine, a state known for educational innovation (Maine Learning Technology Initiative, Standards Based Diploma, New England Secondary School Consortium, etc.), is challenged by dropout rates above the national average. In 2005-2006, Maine’s statewide dropout rate was 5.4% (3,337 of the 61,593 students enrolled in the state's public high schools), compared to the national average of 3.9%. A recent newspaper article stated that 21 students drop out of school in Maine each day! These young people are more likely to be unemployed, live in poverty, receive public assistance, be unhealthy, divorced, and single parents with children who drop out of high school themselves. 

Maine’s dropout students are in need of an intensive program offering them a non-traditional approach to a high school diploma that is significantly different from the traditional high school programs where they were unsuccessful. 

 

The Program

This program has been developed around the four key research-based needs of this population: 

  • Curriculum that is active and personally meaningful; 

  • Personal connection with a caring adult; 

  • Literacy and numeracy support; 

  • A flexible schedule to meet personal needs. 

Recognizing the importance of multiple pathways to graduation and the diverse needs of our customers, the learners, the mission of Maine’s virtual project-based high school for at-risk and dropout youth is to provide an additional, rigorous, standards-based path to graduation where students do the following:

  • Graduate at a high rate

  • Choose to participate at a high level

  • Accrue credit for learning at a timely pace

  • Develop the basic skills they need to be successful

  • Prepare for life outside of school

To accomplish those goals, this year-round school will be composed of these key components:

  • High-interest, student-designed projects, correlated to state standard and proactive project process management

  • Supported by an online curriculum

  • Focus on strong relationships

  • Individualized basic skills support

  • Flexible schedule

  • Learning managed via data-driven systems

Students work to achieve their learning goals, as set out in their learning plans, largely through proposing and implementing standards-aligned, community-based projects of their own design. On-demand online curricular resources to insure students master the necessary background knowledge for a project support this real world learning. Students work at their own pace, on their own schedule, in regular consultation with the Learning Coach. Students who need it, receive intensive basic skills instruction, providing them the literacy & numeracy skills necessary to be independent learners.

One of the direct points of collaboration between UMF, McMEL, MICDL, Auburn School Department, and other program partners includes the ongoing conversations around creating a UMF graduate course on teaching within a virtual project-based high school.  Not only would the course focus on the key topics of needs of at-risk and dropout youth, project-based learning, and learning progress management, but would be offered using approaches and tools which mirror the approaches and tools used on our virtual high school program (student-designed projects, strong relationship focus, standards-based credit, etc.).