The Grandview Preparatory School Curriculum

Carnegie Mellon University Senior Year in E-Business and Internet Technologies

Designed by faculty at the top Computer Science university in the country, this intensive yearlong curriculum lets students experience first-hand how Internet technologies are transforming the way businesses are run. Students, working in teams, play the role of a newly formed e-business technology task force at Moffett Foods, a fictional company with real-world problems. Their mission is to help Moffett Foods leverage technology across their entire business. But they have a long road ahead of them: Moffett is in the dark ages technologically, with only a simple web site.

Students learn HTML and Java programming, enabling them to tackle a number of projects, including: studying the flow of goods, money and information on a global level within the global food service industry, and within Moffett Foods itself, and recommending improvements; designing and building a new e-business website including the system and database design models, and user interface for product purchasing; developing a database-driven catalog application; and conducting user testing of the completed site.

 

University of Chicago Senior Year in Writing

In this dynamic curriculum developed with experts from University of Chicago’s top-ranked writing program, students divide into groups and play the role of an editorial committee responsible for producing a monthly online magazine focusing on pressing social issues. Topics for the periodical include the social, environmental, and economic consequences of transportation policy; the effects of the Cuban revolution on American policy and identity; the ethics and logistics of natural resource protection; and the escalating tensions between civil liberties and security concerns in a technology-enabled world. Students approach these topics with a multi-disciplinary and multi-media sensibility, building their stories from research drawn from newspapers and journals, as well as from interviews with experts in the field, field trips, and sources in literature and the arts. As they explore their questions and consider the needs and expectations of their readers, the students will expand and integrate their learning in science, government, law, history, philosophy, ethics, and aesthetics.

Each student will contribute two topic-relevant pieces to each issue, as well as publish a monthly column of his/her own design. The students are responsible for both the content and the production of the magazine – they consider questions of design and accessibility of written materials on the Internet as they hone their writing for a critical public audience. After brainstorming ideas for articles in an editorial committee, the students engage in critical discussions of key sources recommended by experts. These discussions, and subsequent writers’ workshops, inspire on-going research and revision to strengthen the articles as they are written. This dialogic input serves to focus the students on the role of writing as a communicative medium, with the capacity to inform, expose, persuade and enlighten. A public forum in which representatives from each student magazine argues their editorial position in front of schoolmates, teachers, and parents follows the publication of each issue.

 

Eighth Grade Year in Writing and Web Application Development

The eighth grade curriculum transforms students from passive classroom learners into active participants in designing, programming, and publishing a monthly web magazine. Each issue of the magazine focuses on a different issue, including self-image, US foreign policy in Cuba, environmental protection of the Everglades, MP3s and intellectual property rights. Students are divided into teams; each team is responsible for all facets of publishing their own magazine including writing literary reviews of related literature, doing fieldwork and interviews, conducting research for investigative articles, and writing editorials. Students not only must grapple with the underlying scientific, mathematical, cultural, and historical issues, but they learn to organize their work and thinking and communicate it in both written and oral formats. Following the publication of each issue, students present their editorial positions in a town hall meeting format in front of schoolmates, parents, and teachers.

To enable students to publish their magazine on the web, they spend half of each day learning HTML and Java programming. Using Java to connect to a database, students create web interfaces for increasingly complex features such as displaying scores and schedules of school sports teams, a calendar displaying important dates and birthdays, and ultimately a mechanism for storing, indexing, and searching back issues of their magazine.

The year concludes with a final issue of the magazine that each student publishes individually on an issue of his or her choice.

 

Fifth Grade Year in Science, Technology, and the Law

Fifth grade students in this curriculum are not just elementary students ­ they are scientists, lobbyists, lawyers, writers, researchers, documentary producers, and web designers.

During the first half of the year, students undertake an intensive course of study of environmental issues facing the Everglades and South Florida using an integrated set of research-based curricular units developed at major universities. Over the course of the semester, students are assigned to one of three groups: Developers, Farmers, and Environmental Activists. Through research, scientific experimentation, and interviews, students develop rich, deep understandings of their own group’s point of view as well as the others. These understandings become the basis for a video documentary and a website that the students produce themselves. Students are responsible for all aspects of production, including storyboarding, writing, shooting footage, and digital post-production, as well as web programming. At the end of the semester, the students present a well-argued solution for how to use and protect the Everglades to a visiting official from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

In parallel with their work on the Everglades, students are commissioned to evaluate the curriculum they are participating in. Through this work, they reflect on their own learning, and learn to demand the best possible learning experience for themselves. At the end of the semester, they present their curriculum evaluations to a school curriculum design committee.

During the second half of the year, in a curriculum designed with experts from Harvard Law School, students take on new roles as lawyers. They research and argue both sides of a landmark case in which an indigenous tribe from Papua New Guinea sued the US government for patenting genetic material allegedly stolen from members of the tribe by visiting US scientists. Through the process of investigating the underlying biological issues and writing and presenting a legal brief, students will have the opportunity to learn about the legal process and how it works; basic biology of cells and genes; ethics; cultural imperialism and politics; the pharmaceutical industry; and the nature of federal government. At the end of the semester, students participate in a mock trial adjudicated by practicing attorneys, legal experts, and scientists.