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E-mail Contact
Peggy Renfranz mrenfranz@aol.com
Teacher Bio
For over 25 years, Peggy Renfranz has taught Adaptive Daily Living
(ADL) skills to students with severe disabilities. Soon after
moving from New York City where she was named a Teacher of
the Year, she joined Hyde Park High, a School to Career School.
An active member of the school's accreditation review committee,
she also contributes to its Instructional Leadership Team. With
the current emphasis on standards based learning, Peggy is identifying
ways to combine the familiar ground of ADL instruction with the
unexplored regions of biology and math. Her students recently
won first place at the school's Science Fair in the category of
Teacher Assisted Projects. This teacher reformer views adapting
Massachusetts Curriculum Standards to meet the needs and capabilities
of her students as Rubrics Cued.
Subject Areas
Biology, Math, Independent Living Skills
Grade Levels
10 - 12+ (15 - 22 year-old students)
Students
High school youth and young adults with multiple handicaps (limited
communication skills, physical and medical disabilities, behavioral
disorders, developmental disabilities including autism and cognitive
functioning, visual impairments, and/or cerebral palsy) in substantially
separate classroom program.
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GardenWorks
~ Cultivating Academic Standards for Non-Academic Students
| Authenticity |
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Key Question
How can students with multiple handicaps
feel they belong to the larger school community?
Overview
GardenWorks lets high schoolers
from an occupational skills program contribute to the school
community in meaningful ways. As they design and build terraria,
begin a window side habitat and observatory, and donate plants
to school areas and fund raisers, participants not only recognize
they've enhanced their campus, but also understand that the
entire school values their efforts. By applying concepts and
skills to domestic, vocational and recreational activities
common to families and sheltered employment facilities, the
young gardeners fulfill a continuum of activities that address
science and math standards in academic as well as career competencies.
Adaptive computer software allows teacher and students to
complete a variety of alternative assessment tools. Working
with plants produces not only a healthy crop of vegetables
and herbs but creates healthy attitudes toward skills that
will serve a lifetime.
| Active
Exploration +
Applied
Learning + Adult
Connections |
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Classroom
Activities
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Community
Activities
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Career
Activities
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Invite
parents & school community to expo. |
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Plant
& maintain small schoolyard window
habitat with vegetables & herbs. |
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Invite
parents & classmates to view schoolyard
habitat progress. |
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Recycle
organic & inorganic materials. |
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Maintain
school weather
bulletin board. |
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Plant
& maintain container gardens in teachers'
& students' courtyards. |
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Donate
plants to school scholarship fundraiser. |
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Make
presentations to school community during expo. |
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Practice
vocabulary
& communication skills
(Word Document, 284 Kb) needed for
life skills. |
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Complete
domestic, vocational & academic responsibilities
within a given amount of time. |
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Follow
plant & courtyard maintenance schedule. |
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Complete
activity
from beginning to end. |
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Search
Internet for pictures & information on
gardeners. |
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Follow behavioral rules beyond classroom. |
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Academic Rigor
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Learning
Standards
Access
& entry skills for Biology:
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Students
understand role of observation & experimentation
in the scientific process & the development
of scientific theories. |
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Students
have a (deep) understanding of key concepts, principles,
phenomena, & basic factual material included
in biology. |
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Students
understand how humans use technology & design
process to respond to the natural world & solve
everyday problems. |
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Students
understand humankind's interactions with nature
over time, technologies developed, benefits &
consequences of our actions, & impact of science. |
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Students
connect study of science & technology to a variety
of (career) opportunities. |
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Access & entry skills
for Math
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Relate
mathematical language & symbolism of operations
to problem situations. |
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Develop
operation sense for real numbers. |
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Describe,
extend, analyze & create a wide variety of patterns. |
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Represent
& analyze relationships, using tables, verbal
rules & graphs. |
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Model
real-world phenomena with a variety of functions. |
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Engage
in problem solving, communicating, reasoning &
connecting to: situations using discrete structures,
such as finite graphs, matrices, sequences and recurrence
relations. |
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School to Career Competencies
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Practice
Communication & Literacy Skills. |
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Organize
and Analyze Information. |
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Problem
Solve. |
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Use
Technology. |
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Complete
Entire Activities. |
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Interact with Others. |
Assessment |
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Students
and teacher use Self-Evaluations,
Rubrics,
Checklists
for Task Completion, Tasks
& Communications Skills Assessment (Word
Document, 284 Kb) to assess performance
and participation. Teacher assists students and
parents to evaluate performance on initial and
final products. Students maintain color-coded,
easily identifiable portfolios of daily, weekly
and monthly projects--always accessible for parental
and administrative review.
Software
or Materials Used For
computer and Internet: SonyMavica digital camera;
Custom Land Designer by Broderbund; Boardmaker:
the Picture Communication Symbols by Mayer-Johnson,
Inc; PrintShop Broderbund Software, Inc;
Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint & Word;
ArcSoft Photo Studio, version 2.0; for
gardens: garden tools, household tools, lots of
recycled plant and food containers, seeds. paper
materials for weather displays, etc.
Teacher
Developed Materials Steps
in Planting Corn Inside - Pictorial Directions,
Growth
Chart, Invitations,
Self-Evaluations,
Rubrics,
Checklists
for Task Completion, Tasks
& Communications Skills Assessment (Word
Document, 284 Kb), Computer
Slide Show on Caring for Plants.
Student
Developed Materials Mini
Terrarium, Weather
Bulletin Board, Bird
Feeder, Individual Project Portfolio
Web
Sites GardenWorks
Web Sites
Final
Words GardenWorks
provides verbal and non-verbal students with experience
in
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Planning
for long range activities, |
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Anticipating
the needs of other living organisms, |
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Evaluating
success and failure, |
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Plotting
strategies to address a variety of events
and problems, |
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Contributing
to common household and community activities |
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Working
with Boardmaker and Picture Communication
Symbols challenges students to communicate
on many levels
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Teacher
Tip Forget instant
gratification--these are life skills! Though it
may be difficult (at least, it was for me), let
students learn from spills and stains, dead and
missing plants and folders, non-compliant animals,
unwanted pests, and a persistent cold, north wind.
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