School Type: Public	School Setting: Suburban
Level: Middle	School Design: Traditional
Content Presented By:
The Education Alliance at Brown University

Background Context

Demographics

Frank Lloyd Wright Middle School in West Allis, Wisconsin serves students from both urban and suburban neighborhoods. The community has a strong German and Polish heritage. The school population consists of 744 seventh- and eighth-grade students who come from low-income, blue-collar, and middle-class families. Approximately 19% are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, and 2% are English language learners. Most of the staff members at Frank Lloyd Wright Middle School are veteran educators, predominantly Caucasian.

• 1.6% Native American
• 2.4% Hispanic
• 2.6% Asian
• 4.6% African American
• 88.8 % Caucasian

Background

In 1997, at her principal's suggestion, language arts teacher Janis Friesler was given a fully equipped computer lab as a classroom. Friesler had experimented with technology in the classroom before, but she suspected that more systematic technology integration could greatly enhance her eighth-grade students' engagement and learning and provide them with marketable, real-world technology skills. She was especially concerned about improving the quality of their writing and hoped technology might help her with this as well. With the help of her colleagues at Frank Lloyd Wright Middle School in West Allis, Wisconsin, Friesler re-invented her curriculum to meet these goals, creating a series of technology-infused, multidisciplinary units built around cooperative, project-based learning.

The structure of Friesler's school makes it easy to implement multidisciplinary, project-based learning in technology classrooms. Because of its use of academic teams or "houses" and common prep periods, there is open communication among teachers and a willingness to collaborate. Also, each house within the school has flexible scheduling to accommodate the time requirements of project-based learning. For example, since two of Friesler's units are integrated with science, the science teacher and Friesler frequently block their classes so the students can work for two periods (88 minutes) instead of just one. With these organizational supports, Friesler was in a good position to begin transforming the learning experience for her students.

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This resource is developed and maintained by The Education Alliance at Brown University. Seed funding was provided by the U.S. Department of Education. Send comments to: loom@alliance.brown.edu