BB teachers did some activities to adapt the PLTW mindset and they actually worked through apps, Canvas, and more. Jared and Harris had assembled training notebooks for them. We brought in snacks. We enjoyed 90 minute lunches. We incorporated real teacher planning time into the day. Thanks to our Lead Teachers, we had two low stress days that really got us to GO! We are now ready to kick off our year!
Jared and Harris did their turnaround training with the staff on July 15th and 16th. Almost all students were already rostered. (A shout out to my husband Jeff Hayes for calling out names and such to me as I rostered, whew!)
BB teachers did some activities to adapt the PLTW mindset and they actually worked through apps, Canvas, and more. Jared and Harris had assembled training notebooks for them. We brought in snacks. We enjoyed 90 minute lunches. We incorporated real teacher planning time into the day. Thanks to our Lead Teachers, we had two low stress days that really got us to GO! We are now ready to kick off our year!
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So the fourth grade teachers Angie Harris, Christy Zuck, and Kelly Meadows teamed with Kim Jared to roll the program out to fourth graders.
Their Task: Create a vehicle restraint system. When they finished, teachers felt better about the PLTW steps, but they also saw the opportunities to easily layer-in even more standards. And Harris said they soon learned that, just like in the regular classroom, some students finished sooner. So they tweaked the assignment. In this case they tweaked it to, "Now that you have successfully tested your system, try to reconstruct it using fewer materials. In industry, constructing an equally safe product at a lower cost is a big deal." And the students began again. This links you to an animoto of their experience: https://animoto.com/play/lM9VXCGfvjPqgkdsi4CADQ?auto# When the stuff started coming in, Brother did it ever come in. SHOUT OUT: BB Custodian and General Genius Melinda Shaddrix inventoried EVERY TINY PIECE of the PLTW modules. She unpacked, numbered with a Sharpie, recorded, typed and laminated lists, bought bins, taped the inventoried lists to the inside bin lids to make sure all was stored properly, and more. BB will serve every K-4 student, so there was much to inventory. We decided to store the modules in our Science Lab. Next Step: When we really get ready to use the modules, we want to have a protocol for replenishing the consumable portions of the modules. Like a shopping list with a plan for once-a-month shopping. And a few things need to be replenished directly from PLTW. This one must begin with a SHOUT OUT: Thank you to BB teachers Kim Jared and Angie Harris for your willingness to attend Project Lead the Way training in Tuscaloosa, AL during what should have been your Spring Break.
Though I did trade some days with them, they lost the continuity of a full week off. Not just any teachers would do such! So March 2015 and Angie and Kim were being trained as Lead Teachers. They had waited months for the opportunity. They came back beaming with excitement and immediately set about planning the logistics of a roll out at BB. We ordered the modules and waited impatiently for them to arrive. We made a decision in August 2014 that we would host a STEM Family Night. We didn't have a complete vision of what that would look like, but we wanted students to be able to walk around with their parents and talk about science/engineering projects and how they arrived at their conclusions.
Bonus: Could the parents and students actually DO something together? If not: Could the students DO something in front of the parents? If not: Could there be an iMovie or something similar that shows the work being done? Maybe an animoto? Something the students would make.... So teachers set about finding an activity and working with their students on the activity. And the snow began to fall. And fall and fall. And did I mention that our school is in Alabama? We're not equipped! NUTSHELL: Two Family Nights were cancelled due to ice or snow and then we began to bleed into another activity time frame... we couldn't make it happen. So teachers had done the work, but the showcase was off. GOOD NEWS: We saw first hand how our students responded to non-Project Lead the Way STEM activities and got a feel for how our classrooms would have function with PLTW. It was a good learning experience, but it was definitely frustrating in the moment. Another "happenstance" of the 2014-15 school year was that our school district created a supplement for each school to have an Instructional Technology Facilitator (ITF). At Barkley Bridge we chose to have two ITFs and allow them to split the supplement. These two ITFs, Amanda Godsey and Kim Hargett, were instrumental in some foundation tech training/ app training that proved helpful to teachers.
Project Lead the Way relies heavily on iPads or Minis, so we needed to order several. (On the Project Lead the Way website they provide guidelines for how many a school will need based on student population: www.pltw.org) So we first worked to purchase the iPads, and we then worked to become more familiar with them and with the many available apps on the market that lend themselves to STEM education. Many were very simple. For instance, K and 1 teachers found that students loved a Ten Frame app they found. This app aligned perfectly with instruction and created a center to better acquaint our students with the iPads, too. (Though, quite frankly, we all know that few of them were strangers to Apple products. Even in K.) November 2014
PLTW Conference Hartselle City Schools' teachers with BB's Kim Jared and Angie Harris to the right of the sign.... We started something else at BB that nicely complemented the STEM launch. Looking back, I'm not sure how the idea evolved to exactly what it became. I think it was a combination of ideas and comments. We began something we called Putting Parents in the Equation. We had a group of parent volunteers who came in once a week and worked, usually two to a grade level, with students. Teachers determined which students would go out in small groups each week. Number sense was the parents' focus. So they weren't really helping with homework or class work, they were playing math games that required some problem solving. The games were designed or discovered by the classroom teachers, and three teachers were the appointed "trainers" of the parents. The teachers and students certainly benefited, but the parents benefited more than I would have anticipated. They enjoyed the time with the kids. BONUS RESULT: We had a small group of parents who understood and actually saw the power of number sense and the end goal of the new math standards. They helped spread the good word, and our community benefited! In September we held our yearly Open House. Project Lead the Way was part of the presentation. We hosted a Coffee with the Principal on September 19th with a topic of School Improvement. Project Lead the Way and the value of STEM was part of that conversation. Our PTO held a Tiger Dash fundraiser on October 7th. The money raised here was earmarked for technology. We also worked as a faculty to step up our efforts generally in the areas of questioning and problem solving. We received ongoing assessment training (OGAP) from our local AMSTI team (Alabama Math, Science, and Technology Initiative). All of this training, and the fundraising, was getting us ready. Shabaka McKey and his wife Tania came to visit us on a Monday afternoon after school. Shabaka told us about PLTW and let us work through an activity or two as an intro. Some teachers were completely sold, but some were more skeptical. (That's the way it should be, really. It makes for a better plan in the end.) Two teachers were particularly sold. Fourth Grade teacher Angie Harris and Gifted and Talented teacher Kim Jared. They agreed that, with the backing of other BB teachers, they could spearhead the STEM/ PLTW effort. NEXT STEP: Lay some foundation. One of the first things we needed to do was buy more iPads and iPad Minis. That became a goal for our PTO. |
Author: Susan HayesPrincipal, Barkley Bridge Elementary School Archives
March 2016
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