Having hosted more than 500 visitors for going on three years now, Rochester New Tech High School chiefs are no stranger to guests.

They've welcomed professors, lawmakers, parents, business whizzes and lots of other teachers.

But Principal Dan Ronk's opener Wednesday was unique. It drew an appreciative chorus of smiling "ahhs."

This is what he said: "An-YOH HASHim-ni-kah." 

That's Korean for "welcome." The 25 visitors teach middle and high school math in South Korea. They are spending a month at Indiana University, Bloomington, studying project-based learning. Project-based learning is at the heart of the New Tech method, so they came to Rochester to see how it's done.

"Let me tell you about the challenge we are trying to deal with," he said, pausing as tour member Jinsoe Choi translated to Korean. "American students are bored with traditional school. And when they sit in class and learn, they don't retain what they learn. So, we are trying to teach 21st century skills that colleges and employers say they want our students to have.

"American students are spoiled," Ronk told his visitors. "They don't understand how hard they must work to compete with students from all over the world. We want to use project-based learning and technology to give our students the skills they will need.

"We measure written and oral skills, collaboration and work ethic."

Ronk told the teachers it is harder to teach math in the project-based format than other subjects. "Our students say, 'When will I ever use this?' We have to convince them that they need to learn it. There is no magic answer. We are trying to change things and give our students the skills they need.

The visitors toured Joel Lowe's Project Lead The Way engineering class, where he peppered students with encouragement and worked a big white board full of various shapes. "Keep trying," he told his class. "It's all going to be squares." (It wasn't too long ago that the venerable John Howkinson used that same space to teach wood shop and common sense with basic tools and a pencil.) 

Lowe said the kids were laying out their papers for the rest of the year. "Then the kids will create their own ideas and own problems," he said.

In the back of the room Ronk said: "We are training (our) teachers. They are transitioning from traditional to project-based. What we like is that the students are assessed more responsibility for their work. They are more responsible."

Jinsoe Choi noted the emphasis on problem solving - "process instead of product," he said. "Process is very important."

Next door Clint Gard and Kimi Fellers teach a combined class of physics and Algebra II to juniors and seniors. Their SMART Board wowed the Koreans.

It included a list of the students who had mastered each lesson, and to which degree they had succeeded. So far there was one student who rated 100 percent in the properties of real numbers. That would be Sam Thomas, who got a big kick out of having his picture taken with a bevy of smiling Korean teachers. "This is like one of the scenes in Hollywood," Jinsoe Choi said with a smile. "Everyone taking pictures."

At the SMART Board, Gard zipped through grading rubrics and class topics before an appreciative gaggle. "Just because they have shown mastery, that is just for right now," he said. "Just because they are done doesn't mean they are done. They'll have to show mastery all year. It's not multiple choice. You have to solve the problem. You can't guess. You have to solve the problem."

The next stop was American studies, where Tony Stesiak and Dan McCarthy teach American literature and American history. Stesiak was telling the kids about how it had been 100 years since President Roosevelt opted for the Lincoln penny over the old Indian head coin.

On McCarthy's desk at the other end of the double classroom was a beat-up fedora containing slips of paper. On each slip was a phrase from the Declaration of Independence. "Soon we will do research into the Declaration of Independence," he said. "We're going to translate it into modern English." 

Afterward, Ronk reported that the visitors asked surprisingly few questions, and noted that "the Korean school year is 220 days, 40 days longer than ours." In Korea, students stay in the same room and teachers move to them each period, he noted. "That tells me that the rooms are not specialized to subject areas."

Said Ronk: "Our master schedule baffled them. They could not comprehend that we offered all the classes that we do."

The visitors ate at The Streamliner before heading home.