Greenland EAST INSITE Lab
EAST (Environmental And Spatial Technology) — The name was devised by the students of the first EAST lab) was first piloted in 1997 at Greenbrier High School in Greenbrier, Arkansas. Since that time, the program has expanded to over 200 schools in nine states (Arkansas, California, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania).Greenland EAST INSITE students have the unique opportunity to experience an individualized self-directed, service-oriented project-based curriculum that provides value to our school and community.
The EAST program hopes to create an educational environment focused on self-direction and community service, an environment in which students can achieve more and become life-long learners and problem solvers. EAST’s project-based, service-learning oriented curriculum provides students with the most current, high-end technologies available in some of the most progressive fields in the world. EAST is more than a class offering and much more than a “computer class”. At its heart, EAST is a coordinated attempt to provide today’s students with an educational atmosphere that allows them to gain insight into their own abilities to acquire and use information, solve problems, and gain valuable experience in using this technology. The students, working in teams, tackle sophisticated service-oriented projects. In so doing they learn to become creative, intuitive, adaptable learners who can solve unpredictable, real-world problems.
The Seven EAST Student Competencies of Self-directed Learning, Problem-solving Strategies, Collaboration and Teamwork, Research and Evaluation, Communication, Technology, and Self-confidence are based in the EAST philosophy that
All students have value and deserve the opportunity to demonstrate their value to their school and community.
Educational experiences must be relevant, challenging, purposeful, and Student Centered.
The physical educational environment must include state of the art, real-world tools and reflect a work-like setting.
Educators should serve as resource guides, managers, and learner facilitators.
Learning should be self-directed as much as possible and oriented towards real-world projects that engage students in independent and interdependent roles.
High expectations must be individually established and must drive student efforts to achieve their potential.
The above is the ideal. The reality is that EAST is usually a program located in the traditional K-12 environment, meaning that students are in EAST one hour a day five days a week, some twenty hours a month. If it were a full-time forty-hour-a-week job, students would be in EAST two and one-half days a month — BUT we do what we can.
The EAST program hopes to create an educational environment focused on self-direction and community service, an environment in which students can achieve more and become life-long learners and problem solvers. EAST’s project-based, service-learning oriented curriculum provides students with the most current, high-end technologies available in some of the most progressive fields in the world. EAST is more than a class offering and much more than a “computer class”. At its heart, EAST is a coordinated attempt to provide today’s students with an educational atmosphere that allows them to gain insight into their own abilities to acquire and use information, solve problems, and gain valuable experience in using this technology. The students, working in teams, tackle sophisticated service-oriented projects. In so doing they learn to become creative, intuitive, adaptable learners who can solve unpredictable, real-world problems.
The Seven EAST Student Competencies of Self-directed Learning, Problem-solving Strategies, Collaboration and Teamwork, Research and Evaluation, Communication, Technology, and Self-confidence are based in the EAST philosophy that
All students have value and deserve the opportunity to demonstrate their value to their school and community.
Educational experiences must be relevant, challenging, purposeful, and Student Centered.
The physical educational environment must include state of the art, real-world tools and reflect a work-like setting.
Educators should serve as resource guides, managers, and learner facilitators.
Learning should be self-directed as much as possible and oriented towards real-world projects that engage students in independent and interdependent roles.
High expectations must be individually established and must drive student efforts to achieve their potential.
The above is the ideal. The reality is that EAST is usually a program located in the traditional K-12 environment, meaning that students are in EAST one hour a day five days a week, some twenty hours a month. If it were a full-time forty-hour-a-week job, students would be in EAST two and one-half days a month — BUT we do what we can.