Here's a post I did about STEM and 100's Day over on my classroom blog.
Celebrating 100's Day
Friday, February 24, 2017
Mid year Review
As part of the SET project that I am a part of, we had a mid-year check in to talk about goals and expectations for the project. Really a revisiting of what my original goals were going into the project and what I'm going to do going forward.
My main focus/ inquiry question was; will the daily use of Classroom Suite templates in math increase the students' understanding and fluency with mathematical concepts? Another goal was having the students be more comfortable with technology as a tool. Many of my students see technology as entertainment only.
My students were very excited to have the laptops as part of their daily learning at first, but by Christmas I saw a drop in motivation to use them especially in math. I believe this was because Classroom Suite was the only thing I was allowing them to use at that time. I had assigned activities to them, and they were not progressing as quickly as I had expected them to. I noticed that the length of the assignments were too long for the amount of time they had to practice and then to do the challenge. This was causing frustration for some of the students. I wasn't able to change the length, but I have given them more time and multiple opportunities to do the assignments. I have also allowed them to go to ABCya.com at least every week, so they can do something else on the computers.
My class is a high needs class. I have many ESL learners and many students that struggle with reading, writing and math. Overall, this year, math is not strong with many of my students and I have many that cannot transfer the learning from class to the practice in Classroom Suite. For example, I have 2 students that need to use physical manipulatives while completing an assignment in CS. They don't understand that the manipulatives on the screen are the same. That was interesting to discover.
I am pleased to see the ease with which they navigate the technology. I have very few students now that panic or can't find their way to CS or Raz kids. We have also been using the laptops to work with coding on Code.org and they have been really enjoying that.
Looking ahead to the next 4 months, I want to use the tech for writing and some basic research. I just don't know what that is going to look like yet.
My main focus/ inquiry question was; will the daily use of Classroom Suite templates in math increase the students' understanding and fluency with mathematical concepts? Another goal was having the students be more comfortable with technology as a tool. Many of my students see technology as entertainment only.
My students were very excited to have the laptops as part of their daily learning at first, but by Christmas I saw a drop in motivation to use them especially in math. I believe this was because Classroom Suite was the only thing I was allowing them to use at that time. I had assigned activities to them, and they were not progressing as quickly as I had expected them to. I noticed that the length of the assignments were too long for the amount of time they had to practice and then to do the challenge. This was causing frustration for some of the students. I wasn't able to change the length, but I have given them more time and multiple opportunities to do the assignments. I have also allowed them to go to ABCya.com at least every week, so they can do something else on the computers.
My class is a high needs class. I have many ESL learners and many students that struggle with reading, writing and math. Overall, this year, math is not strong with many of my students and I have many that cannot transfer the learning from class to the practice in Classroom Suite. For example, I have 2 students that need to use physical manipulatives while completing an assignment in CS. They don't understand that the manipulatives on the screen are the same. That was interesting to discover.
I am pleased to see the ease with which they navigate the technology. I have very few students now that panic or can't find their way to CS or Raz kids. We have also been using the laptops to work with coding on Code.org and they have been really enjoying that.
Looking ahead to the next 4 months, I want to use the tech for writing and some basic research. I just don't know what that is going to look like yet.
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