When Richard Rust first became principal of Jere Baxter Middle School six years ago, there wasn't a single color television to be found, let alone any of the wealth of technology modern schools depend on.

Today, Jere Baxter's 435 students have access to 144 state-of-the art computers - including at least one in each classroom - and dozens of laser disc players. The high-tech tools are part of the interactive learning now integral to the school's overall curriculum, Rust said. Much of the credit for the school's leap into the 21st century goes to the innovative programs developed at Peabody College and the partnership between the university and school system.

Known as the Learning Communities Project, the effort currently encompasses more than 60 joint projects between the university and local schools.

The university's dedication to advancing knowledge and its cutting-edge approach to educational instruction, assessment and curriculum are an invaluable asset to all of Nashville, said Esther Swink, director of K­p;12 Program Resources for Nashville Public Schools.

"Our schools have been greatly enriched through our close partnership with Peabody's professionals. Their encouragement has allowed us to become more progressive. Currently, we have at least 60 projects underway which are linked to research at Peabody," she said.

The wide-ranging projects address such issues as maintaining a classroom environment that minimizes discipline problems, integrating students with disabilities into regular-education classrooms, improving writing and literacy skills, assessing the role of particularly family-related stress on adolescents, the transition to the working world for students with disabilities, helping students at-risk for failure improve their chances of academic success, improving the education of future teachers through the use of technology and assisting principals to refine their leadership skills.

In addition to the Peabody initiatives, a number of other Vanderbilt schools and departments are involved in partnerships with the schools.

"Our work with Metro schools is truly a collaborative activity," said James Pellegrino, dean of Peabody College. "Metro's principals, teachers and students influence enormously our ability to understand what works and doesn't work with different learners and, most importantly, why that is so. The Learning Communities Partnership is essential for support of Peabody's ongoing research, development and implementation efforts."

One excellent example of the benefits reaped in the kind of cooperative relationship Vanderbilt shares with the local community occurred last year, when Nashville Public Schools received a $5.1 million federal Challenge Grant for Technology in Education. Winning the highly competitive five-year grant was the culmination of intense collaboration within The Learning Community, an alliance of Nashville educators, business leaders and Peabody administrators and faculty members.

To earn the grant, dozens of local and national companies, educational institutions and consultants collectively offered the school system more than $14 million in funds, products, services and support.

The Challenge Grant is used to fully implement Schools for Thought, an inventive classroom approach pioneered by Peabody's Learning Technology Center (LTC). During this school year, Nashville had 22 Schools for Thought classrooms in place at the middle school level and nine pilot classrooms at the first-grade level, with plans to move the program through all of the lower grades on a magnet school basis. Nashville Schools for Thought is part of an international project designed to emphasize active and integrated ways of learning in the context of in-depth study of important issues. Students are encouraged to build community within their peer groups and, as Swink describes it, "get in there and dig out information and answers on their own."

"The first time I heard about the Schools for Thought project at Peabody, I knew immediately that this was what I was looking for as an educator," remembers Rust. "When I presented the idea to the teachers, a large number showed up at the first trainings to learn what it was all about. They were all really excited about learning how to use the technology and curriculum with their own students."

Even after becoming fully trained in the program's approach, teachers can count on continuing support from Peabody faculty members. Swink said classroom practitioners are in frequent contact with the program's developers, earning high marks from parents and students exposed to the Schools for Thought environment.

Pleased to see their children learning to use technology in a meaningful way, many parents report that they enjoy the in-depth student assessments provided by the program's teachers instead of the traditional letter grading system. Additionally, students who have experienced difficulties in previous placements can make tremendous progress in an SFT classroom.

"We have many at-risk students at our school and they seem to do much better in a Schools for Thought setting," Rust said. "I have seen children with Attention Deficit Disorder discover a real outlet in the hands-on learning taking place here."

Swink has seen similar results in other schools across the socioeconomic spectrum. She points to one sixth-grade student who was in full-time special education classes prior to being placed in a Schools for Thought classroom. "He became a really successful student in that setting. The focus on community there and the lack of the competitiveness often found in more traditional classrooms seemed to really nurture his ability to learn."

In addition to the increasing body of anecdotal evidence concerning the success of Peabody's SFT program, students' test scores are now demonstrating just how effective these classrooms can be. Analyses of 1995 scores on the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) have shown that Nashville's sixth-grade SFT students scored as well as or significantly better than comparison classes on all subtests and that the reading total scores of SFT students were consistently higher than those of other sixth-graders in the same schools. The rate of student transfer and withdrawal from SFT programs is markedly lower than other Nashville Public School classrooms that have been studied.

"The Schools for Thought approach is based on cognitive research of the last two decades," said Teresa Secules, senior research investigator for the LTC.

One SFT component which is also used as a stand alone program is "The Adventures of Jasper Woodbury," a mathematics problem-solving series. The Jasper Woodbury program is presented to students in a CD-ROM or laserdisc format. Children are guided through attention-grabbing adventures containing a series of real-life mathematical problems that must be solved. Working together for up to several weeks, the students brainstorm solutions to the problems.
The program's motto is: "It's not just a movie, it's a challenge." Students also use Peabody's World Wide Web site in learning to use and manipulate information.

Metro students needing help with their reading skills can be enrolled in Peabody's PALS (Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies) Reading Comprehension Program, developed by researchers at the John F. Kennedy Center for Research on Education and Human Development. Used at every grade level, this unique instructional method relies on one-to-one teaching between the students to boost reading skills and confidence. Because children sometimes learn best from each other, the system has produced excellent results. The students who act as mentors for their classmates may also experience enhanced reading performance. PALS offers a computerized component in which students use testing software to assess their own improvement.

In discussing Peabody's many collaborative projects with Nashville Public Schools, Esther Swink said, "Something that impresses everyone who works with Peabody researchers is that when they try something new, they try it in real classrooms with real teachers. This makes a positive difference for all of the students in our community."

Katie Allison Granju