WISE

WISE overview

WISE stands for the Wise Individualized Senior Experience. During the school day, evenings, and weekends students devote significant time to work in the internships, research their topics, maintain written daily journals, discuss their topics with one another and meet with their mentors to explore and reflect upon project issues. Upon completion of the project, students submit their daily journals for evaluation and give oral presentations before a panel of students, teachers, and community members.

Goals

The WISE program modifies the senior year curriculum to provide enrichment of the academic experience of seniors at Saugerties High School. In doing so students will:

apply their high school knowledge and skills
develop an intellectual focus
extend their thinking beyond the classroom
manage time
develop self-direction, self-reliance and self-confidence
personalize student/teacher relationships
research and exchange ideas

The purpose of the WISE program is to allow students the opportunity to apply and broaden their knowledge and skills in an area of personal interest. Its goal is to encourage students to develop their independence, confidence and sense of responsibility.

Seniors, under the guidance of faculty members, who are the students' mentors, will complete an educational experience determined to be worthy in scope and content.

Student Eligibility

WISE provides an opportunity for self-motivated and independent students to excel. All students are welcome, but all students do not always succeed. This success depends in part on the involvement, participation and effort of the student as well as the involvement of the mentor. Students who chose to participate will sign a program contract, along with their parents/ guardian, which specifies the requirements of the program. Students are required to be enrolled in Economics or Government and/or English for the first three weeks of the semester. In addition, they are expected to fill out a program proposal prior to the start of the project.

Mentor Meetings

All students are required to meet with their mentors at least once per week. Meetings should be arranged at the convenience and availability of both the mentor and the student. Meetings should be at least 40 minutes long or longer if necessary. At meetings students and mentors should discuss journals, successes, difficulties, future plans, research and site or project related topics.

Final presentation preparations and approaches can also be discussed. Weekly mentor meetings are required and mentors should maintain attendance and brief notations of each session. If the mentors observes any exceptional difficulties in any of the above or other areas he/she should report these to the WISE Program Coordinators ( Mrs. Brennan and Mrs. Ortlieb) who will arrange a conference. These meetings are in no way intended for the mentor to be doing the work for the student, but only to offer guidance and assistance.

Requirements

Minimum Research requirements are:

3 interviews: these must be written up in your outline as well as referenced in your journal. If you perform site work you only need to conduct three interviews. If you do not perform site work you need to have a total of five interviews.

Annotated Bibliography consisting of at least 10 sources. Your sources should be a variety of sources i.e.: books, internet, articles, etc.

Economics or Government needs to be addressed throughout the journal and at the presentation. If other credit is being granted, the information required for that subject should be given. Both Social Studies courses have specific areas that need to be addressed. This information is given at the Mandatory Workshop.

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