UC Links at UC Berkeley
Kidnet at Castlemont

Program Name:  Kidnet at Castlemont High School 

Location:  Castlemont High School, 8601 MacArthur Blvd., Oakland, CA 94605

Principal Investigator(s):

  • Professor Glynda Hull, Graduate School of Education

Contact:  Adrienne Herd, Project Coordinator, aherd@berkeley.edu

Site Description:

The UC Links Kidnet program at Castlemont High School works with the high school’s cluster of three small schools.  Kidnet provides a variety of formal and informal learning activities, four days per week. For students of all three of the small schools, the program provides both homework assistance and preparation for the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE).  It also offers technology-based activities such as digital storytelling, music and video production, podcasting, and cross-national and intercultural exchanges, which take place both in the Technology School’s computer lab and in a local youth center with a well-equipped computer lab and sophisticated sound and video editing spaces.  Undergraduates participate in the site by enrolling in the Education 140 series of courses in the Graduate School of Education at UC Berkeley.

Course: Education 140AC: Literacy: Individual and Societal Development

Participants (based on 2005-06 data):  

  • Approximately 320 9th-12th grade students
    • 75% African American; 20% Latino; 5% Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander
    • 55% male, 45% female per academic year
  • Approximately 25 undergraduates; 2 graduate students per academic year

Collaborators:

  • UC Berkeley Graduate School of Education
  • Castlemont High School in the Oakland Unified School District
  • The Prescott Joseph Center for Community Enhancement in Oakland
  • Allen Temple Baptist Church in Oakland
  • Youth UpRising Community Center

Goals:

  • Provide safe and healthy places after school for children to learn and develop a sense of self as participants in a global world
  • Promote academic achievement and encourage low-income youth to pursue paths to higher learning
  • Increase technology literacy
  • Improve the quality of graduate and undergraduate education by connecting academic coursework to practicum field experience
  • Encourage undergraduates to explore the possibility of a teaching career in urban, low-income communities

Activities:

  • Homework help, academic tutoring, and writing assistance
  • Activities organized around digital communicative arts such as storytelling, music-making, video production, podcasting

Evaluation:

  • University of California Student Academic Preparation and Educational Partnerships (SAPEP) Annual Performance Report
  • UC Links Reading Assessment
  • Survey of undergraduates’ interest in pursuing graduate or professional school studies
  • Global index for measuring project effects on development of positive attitudes

Research Focus:

  • A sociocultural theoretical perspective on informal learning
  • Effect of site activities on identity formation of learners
  • Socio-cognitive development of undergraduates through tutoring and mentoring
  • Participation in after-school programs across the age and grade levels
  • Sustainability of university-community collaboration through ongoing institutional development