May 8, 2009

Dear Friends,

The beginning of May signals that we can see the finish line of another school year. 

This is not to say that there is not a lot of work to be done–by our students to be sure, but also by teachers and staff, trustees and volunteers. Succeeding in all our ventures between now and June 30 will not be easy or automatic. Our story to date, punctuated lately by the brilliant Bay Splash, suggests that we will reach our goals.

For me, of course, this is a period of transition. Since 2001 I have been the public face of the Bay School, a venture which has flourished beyond any reasonable expectation. I know, none better, how small a part I have played, and how much credit I have received which belongs to others. I know also what a privilege it has been at this stage of my life to lead a team of creative, committed and colorful professionals, all of whom have enriched my life in so many ways. I have been truly blessed.

The school now enters a new phase with new leadership and new challenges. We do not know what the future will bring in terms of financial resources in a difficult time. All have made sacrifices to keep the ship afloat. Neither do we know, but we can guess, the place a school committed to science, technology, religion and ethics will have in a new era for the United States. We do know that the human capital here is wide and priceless, that we will meet our challenges with grace and courage.

And, and, and...

2040 is inexorably becoming 2045 and 2050. My hope is that we never lose sight of this fundamental truth: schools are about the future which the current students will claim. The need for wise leadership is critical now, but will be no less critical when the current students take their place at the helm. Keeping their eyes on the prize is our first and ultimate responsibility.

Many thanks for all your kindnesses to the school and to me personally.

God bless you all!

Technology Takes Collaboration to the Next Level

Consider some familiar communication challenges in classrooms:

* Eighty students have just completed separate trials of a Science experiment. What's the most efficient way for them to share their data across classes?
 
* Before launching into a discussion about last night's reading, a Literature teacher wants students to review each other's written reflections. How can that be accomplished without a flurry of emails?
 
* Small groups of Humanities students are working on separate research assignments that are to be assembled into a classroom-wide project; but only one student is able to work on the document while others sit idle. Is there a better way? 

The Bay School has always placed special emphasis on clear communication and collaborative efforts–both in the short-term (as a way of supporting student learning), and in the long-term (in addressing the multifaceted problems facing our communities and our planet). A key new development this year in our efforts to promote both the process and spirit of collaboration has been the adoption of Microsoft OneNote as a productivity tool and communication forum. Working with OneNote, Bay teachers are demonstrating wonderful creativity and innovation in deepening and enriching collaborative learning experiences across the curriculum.

What is Microsoft OneNote?

It's partly a sophisticated filing system, partly a virtual space for a learning community, partly a high-tech replacement for the old-style spiral-bound notebook. In simplest terms, OneNote is a computer application that provides a very fast, flexible, transparent electronic format for students and adults to exchange information, share ideas, respond to postings by others, and work collaboratively on projects. The application allows a classroom teacher (or any student, for that matter) to create a virtual notebook (perhaps titled "Chemistry 1A" or "Shakespeare") containing named sections (e.g. "Periodic Table Project" or "King Lear"), with each section subdivided into individual pages (e.g. "Tungsten" or "Shared Class Notes from Friday"). Pages may contain virtually anything–text, tables, images, entire documents, web links, etc., and additional content is added simply by dragging and dropping multimedia items onto the page. A key feature is that notebooks are able to be fully shared–all members of a class can access them to post new material or edit existing material–and all changes and additions are updated instantly on everyone's version of the notebook. Rather than being limited only to one's own notes and ideas, a student may now have access to everyone's contributions, including those of the teacher. OneNote notebooks share some of the open-source characteristics of a Wiki or a blog, but with much greater flexibility of content and ease of use.

Having learned about OneNote during last summer's faculty institute (with special thanks to Dave Wang for giving us all a brief tutorial), Bay's teachers are showing impressive creativity in taking advantage of this new tool; they are altering the kinds of assignments they give to emphasize collaborative projects with ever-increasing effectiveness.

Here are three examples:

* Students in this winter's Biology 2 class had a single shared electronic space to post their data from an enzyme kinetics experiment. The instantaneity of sharing allowed for a much greater depth of data analysis than was feasible before–less energy is now spent in exchanging data, and more in interpreting similarities and differences between different groups' results.

* Nic Fiszman had his Physics 1 students write their reports for their "physics of sound lab" as shared documents, with all students working on the report simultaneously on different computers. "This also eliminated the problems of students who were absent or who claimed they never got the data from their partners," he said, since OneNote automatically updates everyone's pages.

* Bill Brown's Humanities 1 class will use OneNote extensively as part of their major Africa Project in the coming weeks. Students will research a specific country and post the results of their research in a shared notebook; everyone can observe the collective progress, and everyone can compare their work to models posted by Mr. Brown. Then other students, charged with exploring region-wide themes (e.g. natural resource issues in West African countries), can synthesize ideas posted across several country-specific pages.

Enthusiasm for OneNote has caught on among Bay students; ask most kids in the hallway and they'll offer a ringing endorsement. A large number of students are now taking all of their classroom notes this way.

* Freshman Ben Libbey appreciates the fact that a teacher or student can insert an entire electronic file in a OneNote page simply by dragging the document into an open page and dropping it there. Once inserted, the document becomes part of the narrative structure of the notes–accessible at any time, in context, without the need to navigate the computer's more traditional filing system. Ben's Chemistry notebook is now full of annotated PowerPoint slides, homework assignments, other students' notes on specific chemical elements, and his own contributions to a shared resource.

* When asked to point out her favorite feature of the program, Rachel Cohen-Sidley ('12) enthusiastically replied, "the fact that it saves automatically. I never lose notes or other documents anymore." She also pointed out that the program offers benefits for students with learning differences–automatic highlighting and color-coding features are built into the application. Notes are also easily searchable, and pages can be cross-referenced to limit any problems with duplication.

* Sophomore Frank Driscoll described an assignment in Sharon Brock's Biology 1 class where some of OneNote's collaborative power was put to use effectively. Student teams researched various eras in geological time and contributed their notes and images to a shared notebook page. Without any cutting and pasting on the part of a teacher, the entire class was able to assemble, review, and edit a comprehensive evolutionary timeline - with everyone participating. "I don't have a folder on my computer for Biology files anymore; I keep everything in OneNote."

Analysis of Functions: A Gateway to College-Level Math and Science

After completing Bay's core Mathematics curriculum during their freshman and sophomore years, students who are considering the study of advanced Mathematics or Science in college have the opportunity to enroll in Analysis of Functions. A two-trimester course, Analysis is designed, like Bay's other math courses, to focus on problem-solving and inquiry-based learning. The Analysis course gives students access to the mathematical objects they will see in advanced courses: logarithms, inverses, polynomial and rational functions, complex numbers, and trigonometric identities, to name a few. Perhaps most importantly though, students in Analysis learn to think mathematically in deeper, more sophisticated, and more creative ways through the study of open-ended, more abstract, and more demanding problems. The Analysis course offers students a rigorous, deductive, symbolically-rich, and multi-modal view of Mathematics. 

The Analysis Capstone Project

Analysis of Functions, like other Bay Math classes, ends with a Capstone Project.  This year, students are spending the last four weeks of the term working to solve two problems from a list of 'elegant' problems selected by their teachers, who define elegant problems as those which "take only seconds to state, but require many hours to solve". Each problem requires a significant conceptual leap; none are recapitulations of problems seen previously during the course of the year. Some problems ask a challenging question which the students answer through extensive calculation and experimentation; other problems simply provide a new avenue for exploration, asking students to broaden their mathematical knowledge by investigating an open-ended question. The project is intended primarily to assess students' ability to solve novel and foreign problems, using the mathematical and cognitive tools they have developed during their time at Bay.

Examples of Analysis Capstone Problems (PDF)

Students know, as they begin work on their Capstone Projects, that they will have little direct mathematical support from their teacher. Since the goal of Bay's Math Program is to teach students to actively participate in mathematical discovery, rather than to observe and repeat their teacher's demonstrations, the students are ready for this Capstone challenge. During the course of the year, and indeed their Bay School career, their daily work in class has come with less and less 'scaffolding'–the guiding questions that help students focus their thinking as they solve problems and consider new ideas. Working individually or in groups, they delve into the project questions, aware that their teacher will be checking in on their progress–but knowing that when it comes to mathematical discovery, they are ready to do the heavy lifting on their own.  

The process of solving the Capstone problems takes students on an emotional ride, through anxiety, confusion, curiosity, frustration, discovery, excitement, and finally elation. In keeping with the goal of simulating true mathematical research, the project frames these emotions as valid parts of the intellectual process. As an expression of the school's spiritual and whole-student approach, teachers help our students to acknowledge, process, and move past each emotion.

At the culmination of the project, students document and communicate their work through papers and posters, practicing that final state of authentic research: clearly and elegantly sharing their ideas with others.

In Bay's early years, the school's math teachers set forth the goal of creating a mathematics program which would have students approach mathematics as true mathematicians. The Analysis Capstone Project represents continued and successful efforts along this line; positioning students as budding, legitimate mathematicians, involved in true inquiry and mathematical discovery.

Note from the Author:

Working at a groundbreaking, innovative school means that one is always involved in experimentation. The current incarnation of the capstone project described above was tested by two sections of students who completed the Analysis course this past winter. The experiment was a success thanks to those students' hard work. Several more sections of the Analysis class will tackle this project in the upcoming weeks. Despite my desire to show off all my students' work on this project, I cannot publish work which might compromise the efforts of those who will undertake this project in the weeks to come. However, in several instances students chose to invent their own Capstone questions, or to rework the existing questions so as to pursue a tangent which they found more interesting. The links below provide examples of those projects.

Quartics Capstone (PDF)

The Bay School Peer Tutoring Program

The Bay School's Peer Tutoring Program was launched during the 2007-2008 academic year as a senior project by Angelina Gomez, a student in the founding Class of 2008. As part of their senior precept, the Class of 2008 wanted to cultivate a climate of intellectual and academic achievement and curiosity at Bay and saw a peer tutoring program as a key means to achieve this goal. The mission of the Peer Tutoring Program is "to foster academic curiosity and to create mentoring relationships between Bay School students committed to academic excellence".

"The tutoring program has given me a chance to give back to my community and to help my fellow students succeed. It has created a network of people who are willing to give help to anyone at any time and to be supportive of their peers. I think that the tutoring program is a strong part of the Bay School community and will become even stronger in coming years."
–Eliza White ('10)

While the structure of the program has expanded and strengthened during the 2008-2009 school year, the program's goal remains the same: to provide academic help to students who are in need and to give upperclassmen the opportunity to learn through teaching. Our nearly thirty tutors are upperclassmen who have been approved by their teachers and trained in effective tutoring skills. They have talents and knowledge that span the wide range of classes offered at Bay, ensuring there is a tutor for every class at every grade level. So far this year more than forty students have taken advantage of the program as tutees.

There are many benefits for both tutors and tutees. Tutors gain from the opportunity to teach the information and skills they have learned in the classroom–reinforcing and strengthening their own comprehension. Tutoring also introduces upperclassmen to underclassmen with whom they might not otherwise come into contact, forging bonds between members of different groups and grades. For students looking for help, peer tutors are an important resource. While teachers at Bay are always available to help students, peer tutoring can provide more frequent one-on-one attention and input from a fellow student who has gone through the process of mastering information themselves. Underclassmen can also benefit from the wisdom and experience of their peer tutors, all while practicing skills and learning concepts that will help their performance in the classroom.

"Working in the tutoring program has been a rewarding experience. It has broadened my perspective and introduced me to people who are different from me in everything from how they learn to what they want to do with their lives. Not only that, but tutoring has also strengthened me academically and enabled me to learn the subjects that I tutor even better."
–Lydia Kim ('09)

Peer tutoring is available to all Bay School students at the request of the student, teacher, or parents, and the program strives to fulfill each student's unique needs. Tutoring schedules are flexible ranging from a one time session to regularly scheduled meetings based upon the students' needs and availability during the school day. Additionally, students seeking help with editing an essay can email WritingTutors@bayschoolsf.org with their essay and our team of specially trained writing tutors will promptly edit and comment on their essay.

"I have immensely enjoyed participating in the tutoring program. Not only was I able to help my tutee improve her overall grade, but we formed a tight bond, and she is now one of my best friends. I am going to miss her next year when I am in college, but I told her she can still send me her work!"
–Camille Lendormy ('09)

Bay Splash 2009 - A Big Hit

On April 18, 2009 more than three hundred friends of the Bay School gathered at the 3rd Annual Bay Splash Blues, our annual fund raising extravaganza. The event was once again a huge success, breaking all fund raising records for the school. 

Bay Splash, for the second year in a row, was co-chaired by parents Alison Mattoon and Jane Vaughan. These women bring very high professional standards and a wide range of superb organizational, sales, and design skills to their volunteer work for Bay. 

Professional broadcast journalist Jan Yanehiro again donated her considerable talent as an auctioneer at the event. A highlight of the evening included the raising of bidder paddles in tribute to founding head of school, Malcolm Manson;  bidders pledged over $90,000 to a fund for faculty professional development that will be named the Malcolm H. Manson Fund. This amount was matched by another $75,000 in gifts from three Bay School trustees.

The event is the culmination of hundreds of hours of work by dozens of dedicated volunteers coordinated through the efforts of Janette Englert, Bay development associate, and reflects the generosity of several hundred corporate underwriters, auction item donors, and in-kind supporters. 

Thank you to all who helped Bay take an important leap forward with this event.

Spring Athletics Headlines

With the start of May comes the wrap-up of spring athletics as regular season play comes to a close and Bay Counties League playoffs begin. Bay School teams have achieved remarkable success! In the school's first-ever year with a tennis program, sophomore varsity player Will Topham finished the Bay Counties League West (BCL West) season undefeated in league play and won the BCL West Singles Championship on Wednesday, April 29th. He will move on to the North Coast Section Championships on Friday, May 8th at Saint Mary's College.  Congratulations Will!

Freshman varsity golfer Conner Mattoon has qualified for the North Coast Section Golf Tournament. The Tournament will take place at The Meadow Club on Monday, May 11th. Congratulations Conner!

Varsity Baseball Update:
The boys' varsity baseball team is currently 10-2-1 overall and 5-2 in BCL Central play. The Breakers are currently tied for first place with three more league games remaining. Playoffs begin on Tuesday, May 12th at Big Rec. Field in Golden Gate Park at 4:00pm, and the championship game will be played on Friday, May 15th at San Francisco State University, game time TBA.

Varsity Soccer Update:
The girls' varsity soccer team is currently 7-3-3 overall and 6-2-3 in the BCL Central. The Breakers are currently in second place with one more league game remaining. Playoffs begin on Tuesday, May 5th at Kezar Stadium, game time 4:00pm. If we win on Tuesday, we will advance to the championship on Thursday, May 7th at Kezar 7:00pm.

Varsity Softball Update:
The girls' varsity softball team is currently 6-5 overall and 5-3 in the BCL Central.  The Breakers are currently in third place with two more league games remaining. Playoffs will be on Tuesday, May 12th at College of Marin, time TBA. The championship is scheduled for Thursday May 14th at College of Marin.
A complete schedule and information about these upcoming games and matches are available online at: https://home.bayschoolsf.org/podium/default.aspx?t=52293.

Please join us and come out to root for Bay!

Happy Spring from the Bay School Admission Office!

We are feeling happy and excited these days in our office, as we have recently finalized enrollment for fall 2009–what we know is an immensely talented and diverse Class of 2013. We are especially grateful to the many Bay School parents, current students, and members of our faculty and staff who worked together to welcome prospective students and their parents, and communicate the value of a Bay School education. The result was that in a year characterized by economic uncertainty and turmoil, our enrollment continued to grow and prosper. In fact, admission numbers have never been stronger. Not only is our new freshmen class the largest one yet, but we have also maintained our commitment to keeping Bay accessible to a talented and diverse group, offering 38% of our new students financial assistance.

Additionally, next year's freshman class is textured and varied. We have, among our newest members of the class of 2013, cartoonists, pre-professional snowboarders, burgeoning engineers, ballerinas, and published authors. The class is wonderfully diverse–37% of the class is comprised of students of color. In terms of geographic diversity, we are pleased that the number of students from the East Bay has almost doubled from last year. Students from San Francisco represent a little more than half of our incoming freshmen.

I would like to especially welcome our incoming students and families. We look forward to being with you at our upcoming Freshman Welcome Event on May 17th, from 2-6pm on campus. Please mark your calendars and plan to attend! The afternoon event will be a great opportunity for new students to meet one another and get acquainted, as well as to meet many of the teachers and advisors they will come to know well in their time at Bay. Congratulations to the class of 2013 once again–we are delighted to welcome you to the Bay School.

Annie Tsang, Director of Admission

Fond Farewells

With all the excitement and anticipation of graduation before us in early June, we also begin to think about bidding adieu to five esteemed members of the Bay School faculty and staff who will be leaving at the end of this school year to begin new phases in their lives.

Shellie Banks joined the Bay School faculty in its first year and has played a central role in the development of the foreign language program ever since. Shellie is the ultimate example of a life-long learner. She began to study Mandarin Chinese while at Bay and her interest and enthusiasm have paved the way for her move to live in Manila where she will be teaching languages at the International School of Manila–in the midst of Asian cultures, a stone's throw from China and other Chinese speaking countries. Shellie has also played an active ongoing role in the athletic program at Bay having served as a track & field coach and currently as the interim director of the afternoon activity program.  She will be dearly missed! Bon Voyage, Shellie.

Peter Olrich will long be remembered and saluted for his pioneering efforts in launching the Bay School college counseling program. Peter joined the faculty in summer 2005 and spent much of his first two years traveling to introduce the brand new Bay School to colleges and universities across the country. At Bay, he helped to establish the sophomore Research and the Community course and worked closely with academic dean Ryn Fleischer to successfully petition for UC approval of the school's curriculum. Peter has laid the foundations of a college counseling process at Bay that is thoughtful and intentional, truly focused on the abilities and interests of each student as an individual. The outstanding college placement record of the classes of 2008 and 2009 are a testament to him. Peter and his family will be returning to the East Coast where he will assume the position of director of college counseling at Brooks School near Boston. We will deeply miss him.

Meisa Salaita joined the Bay faculty in fall 2006 following her doctoral studies in Chemistry. While at Bay she has taught Chemistry (serving as our resident Chemistry expert!) as well as several different fine arts classes such as 3D Foundations and sculpture. Her creativity is renowned. Meisa has also served as the founding advisor to the Arts and Crafts Club, and has played an important role in the hiring and mentoring of new teachers. Meisa and her husband will be moving to live in the Atlanta area where Khalid will be teaching at Emory University as an assistant professor in the Chemistry Department. Meisa plans to transition into the field of informal science education. We wish her the very best!

Bay Honors

Congratulations to the following members of the Bay School community for their recent achievements and accolades:

Bay Students Willie Caldwell and Tom Mitchell (Class of 2011) qualified for and attended the Vex Robotics World Championship in Dallas on April 29th -May 2nd. They placed 107th in a field of more than 300 teams from around the world at the end of six qualifying rounds. They competed with teams from China, New Zealand, Nebraska and Georgia and met student engineers from across the world while honing their code programming and mechanical design skills. It was a fun and successful trip.

Peter Nowell, Class of 2009, served as a youth judge on the San Francisco Film Society's panel of jurors for the youth-made films program, the Golden Gate Awards, on May 2nd at the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas in San Francisco. Peter joined one other student and two youth media professionals in selecting the winning film. Information is available at: http://fest09.sffs.org/films/film_details.php?id=102.

Robin Workman, Bay School Mandarin, Humanities, and advanced level Social Studies teacher, has been asked by the director of the CAIS (California Institute of Independent Schools) Institute to serve on a working committee charged with developing standards for the teaching of Mandarin Chinese in California in grades 9-12. "It is our sincerest hope that by creating the CA Chinese language standards for learners, that we will be able to collectively elevate the teaching of Chinese language and culture in CA, and other states," said the director. Being asked to serve on the committee is a significant honor and recognizes Robin's expertise and many years spent in teaching Mandarin. The group's work is scheduled to be completed during the summer.

Charles Roth

May & June Events Calendar