Satellite Center at the A.W. Beattie Career Center
Allison Park, Pennsylvania
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The A.W. Beattie Career Center serves high school students from Avonworth, Deer Lakes, Fox Chapel Area, Hampton Township, North Allegheny, North Hills, Northgate, Pine-Richland, and Shaler Area high schools, offering advanced technical training, career development, business ethics and career-related employment opportunities in 16 technical areas.
"A.W. Beattie Career Center is proud to be participating in the Confucius Institute Program in cooperation with the University of Pittsburgh. Utilizing the expert instruction provided by the Confucius Institute and the resources available at the University of Pittsburgh's Asian Studies Center, we are able to provide Mandarin Chinese classes to middle and high school students across the region. Thanks to the latest in video conferencing technology, students are able to participate in classes either at A.W. Beattie or through the video network from their local schools. This innovative use of technology allows us to maximize our resources and bring high quality Chinese language instruction to a wide geographic area. Our goal is to raise awareness and interest in Chinese language and culture and to prepare our students for employment in the 21st century of the global economy."
Photo by A.W. Beattie Career Center
Confucius Institute's High School Chinese Program
The 2007-2008 pilot year for the A.W. Beattie Career Center Chinese Language Program has met with great success. At the Beattie Center, students from nine area high schools have elected to study Chinese language and culture with a Confucius Institute teacher from our sister institution, Wuhan University. Currently, 117 students from participating school districts are involved in this class, either participating in the course at Beattie or taking the course via video conferencing and distance learning centers at their regular high school.
Confucius Institute instructor Dr. Yancheng Zhang, who helped to develop the pilot program at Beattie, was an integral part of the success of the program. Student feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, and student enrollment is expected to increase as the program continues.
Benefits to Beattie Center Students and Partner Schools
- To increase employability and provide a global perspective for Beattie students in high-tech fields
- To increase matriculation rates of students to higher education institutions
- To provide a service to area high schools that would normally be unavailable due to lack of student interest or budget restrictions
- To increase student enrollment in Beattie Career Center Technology Programs
The A.W. Beattie Career Center is working very closely with the Confucius Institute and the Asian Studies Center at the University of Pittsburgh on instruction and curriculum development:
- Texts and learning resources have been provided by China's National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (Hanban) at no cost to the students.
- Students at Beattie benefit from the expertise of a highly trained, highly qualified instructor in Chinese as a Second Language.
- Distance learning technology is being effectively used to teach students through the region via live video uplink, thanks to our partnership with the Allegheny Intermediate Unit.
- The Beattie Center's Program Coordinator is working with the National Consortium for Teaching about Asia (NCTA) at the University of Pittsburgh to develop curriculum and resources for program development.
- The success and progress of the program has been reported in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, a regional newspaper with a circulation of 213,352
Contact
For more information about high school Chinese classes at the Beattie Center, please contact:
Robert Havey
Academic Principal
A.W. Beattie Career Center
9600 Babcock Blvd
Allison Park, PA 15101
Telephone: (412) 366-2800
Email: RHavey@beattietech.com
Website: http://www.beattietech.com
