20 November 2012, An Overview of Stanford Pre-collegiate Programs, Rick Sommer (Stanford)

Rick Sommer is the director of Academic Programs at Stanford Pre-Collegiate Studies and a lecturer in Mathematics and Philosophy at Stanford University. He will give a talk on Stanford Pre-collegiate Programs.

Abstract

Stanford Pre-Collegiate Studies (SPCS) is a new unit at Stanford University that grew out of the online and residential programs developed by Stanford's Education Program for Gifted Youth (EPGY) beginning in the early 1990s.

The EPGY online courses were built on innovative uses of technology to provide immediate and ongoing feedback, and to guide students through course material in an optimal way. These online courses have a longer history in research in computer-aided instruction under the direction of Patrick Suppes beginning over 50 years ago. A more recent outgrowth of these activities is the Stanford Online High School (OHS), a fully accredited degree-granting high school that emphasizes the social element in the learning process and uses live seminar-style virtual classrooms as the center-piece of it's instructional model.

Additionally, SPCS oversees a range of summer programs that attract students from around the world who come to Stanford for intensive study in a residential setting. These programs originated with the Stanford University Mathematics Camp, and have expanded into a wide range of other summer programs that use innovative curriculum and build academics into residential life. The residential programs are designed for students who demonstrate both academic talent and intellectual curiosity in a particular subject area, and they come to Stanford to for intensive study in a single subject in their area of interest, with an instructional model that includes collaboration, hands on activities, and mentorship.

In this talk, i will give an overview of the programs currently offered by SPCS, touching on the history as well as future directions.