This has been a year of excitement for YPP Chicago. We have a new office location located in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood, have successfully piloted the Algebra 1 Labs in the Woodlawn community, and are completing another great session of Math Literacy Workshops with our students from Wells High School and Perspectives Calumet Charter.
Algebra 1 Labs, one of our newest initiatives launched in the summer of 2010. We are currently working with students out of the University of Chicago-Woodlawn Charter School (UCW), the Woodlawn Children’s Promise Community, and Dr. Charles Payne of the University of Chicago. Students from the UCW high school are trained in YPP’s model and provide Algebra 1 workshops to students in the 6th-8th grades. The main goal of this program is to increase the amount of 8th grade students who take and pass the City of Chicago Algebra 1 exit exam, allowing these students to take higher-level math in high school and beyond.
YPP Chicago is currently doing Math Literacy Work with students from two area high schools: Wells Community Academy and Perspectives Calumet Charter school. Students participating at these schools are trained by YPP staff in YPP math curricula, goal setting, facilitation, and reflection to work with their elementary peers after school, introducing and reinforcing pre-algebra and algebra concepts.
In partnership with the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) math department, YPP is aiding in the development of an after- school cryptography (the art of encrypting and decrypting secret messages) curriculum by piloting Crypto Club Materials utilizing the YPP peer-to-peer facilitation model.
Launching in the spring of 2011, this National Science Foundation (I-TEST) supported program will utilize the YPP model while focusing on computer technology. Students will be trained in YPP math curricula and basic computer programming, then charged with the task of creating computer games representing the YPP curricula they experienced as well as their own real life experiences.
Takesha (l) and Krystal (r) pose with Adam Welton, host of Radio Disney in Chicago. The students were invited to participate in an interview about the work they do with YPP in Chicago.