Projects4ME is a program of the Maine International Center for Digital Learning.
Projects4ME Director: Mike Muir
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You can earn your Maine high school diploma by demonstrating mastery of state learning standards through projects you design and implement yourself. A Learning Coach will work with you, monitoring your progress and providing support when you need it. There is online curriculum available to insure that you can develop the necessary background knowledge for each project, and basic skills support is provided, as needed (your success is our priority!). Rather than regular high school courses (Carnegie Units), based on "seat time," you will receive credit for showing that you have mastered the state standards. Your projects will be your evidence (reviewed and assessed by Learning Coaches and backed up with other testing and diagnostic results). |
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Imagine if school were a highly personalized program of learning through multiple program components. It starts with an initial intake process which includes transcript analysis, diagnostic testing, interest inventories, interviews and conversations between student and learning coach, all geared toward laying the baseline of data used to drive learning and to generate both an individualized graduation plan (IGP - long term) and an accelerated learning plan (ALP - short term). You would then work to achieve your learning goals as set out in your IGP & ALP largely through proposing and implementing standards-aligned, community-based projects of your own design. On-demand online lessons insuring that you can master the necessary background knowledge for a project support this real world learning. You work at your own pace, on your own schedule, in regular consultation with the Learning Coach (but if you're slacking off, expect to hear from the Learning Coach!). Further, you have access to a 24/7 tutoring system, giving you access to content experts at any time of day or night to help you answer your academic-based questions. Rather than course credits, based on seat time, you receive credit for mastering the state standards as evidenced by the work on your projects (reviewed and assessed by Learning Coaches and compared with other testing and diagnostic results). If you need it, you will receive intensive basic skills instruction, providing you the literacy & numeracy skills necessary to be an independent learner. Learning Coaches, certified teachers whose responsibilities lay more around managing the progress of learning than they do around designing and delivering lessons,will work closely with you, individually. Learning Coaches receive additional and ongoing training around student-directed project-based learning, the needs of at-risk and dropout youth, the technology tools which facilitate our program, and on customer service and building strong positive, mentor-focused relationships with students. Part of each Learning Coach’s job is to create a positive customer service-centered atmosphere focused on your success. You will communicate with your Learning coach in a variety of ways: phone calls, text chats, emails, and videoconferences. In fact, video plays a key role in communications since it can become the closest proxy for face-to-face support within a virtual context. In addition, the Learning Coach will meet with you, and other students, several times a week in advisory. This group of 10-12 students will videoconference in order for you to get to know each other, to talk about what’s going on in your lives, to give updates on your projects, to solicit support from other students to review and critic your work in progress, and to find other students with whom to collaborate on projects. In fact, the advisory meetings are one of the very few scheduled pieces of the educational program. Advisories and the Learning Coach/Student relationships remain in place formally for a year after graduation, so that the you can continue to have that individualized support as you transition to further education or to work. |
