STEM and Collaboration

This week I read Elementary Schools participate in STEM.

This article focused on a public school that has monthly STEM programs for every grade level. Each grade is designated a day (ex: 1st Thursday of each month is 4th Grade's Day). The program takes place after school. Students are completing projects using a variety of "tools" such as plastic spoons, rubber bands, cardboard, popsical sticks, etc. Students are broken up into group and are given a goal or objective to work on. This month students were building a catapult to try and shoot plastic golf balls into a net. The theme was March Madness.

The ESL teacher attends the programs in order to assist her L2 students. I think this is fantastic that the teacher is spending additional time outside of the school day to help her students succeed.

Many of the articles I have read during this course have emphasized how beneficial group work can be for ESL students. Anxiety lessens, and the L2s can learn from their peers. They are also able to practice their speech and have peers correct them in a low stress environment. There are also learning important group work habits and skills. This program is no exception to any of this. I love that the school is promoting collaboration.

My district is planning on starting a variety of after school programs next year. I think a STEM centered one would be a great addition.

Digital Parent Night

This week I read: Strategies for Supporting ELL Students in Math 

The title caught my interest, however the article was getting pretty dry and wasn't providing any "new" information. The strategies were very basic; "if students are engaged they'll do better". While that is true, I wouldn't say it is a ground breaking revolution.

I was about to hit the back button to look at other article suggestions until I read this:

"...Compton Unified (the school in the article) has digital parent nights to help familiarize families with the technology being used to support their children."

Wow. What an incredible, yet simple idea. How helpful this could be in getting parents involved, and really closing the gap between home and school. It could be overwhelming to look at a teacher's website list and try to decide how each one works, what the login is, why it is used, etc. Compound that with that limited English proficiency. Yikes! The easy option would be to leave the websites at school. Have a "Digital Parent Night" would be beneficial to ALL parents.

The end of the article mentioned that this school Compton Unified also has a great set-up for professional development. The PD is ongoing all year, and teachers chose what sessions they are interested in, and pick times that best fit them. This gives the teachers more accountability and motivation for the technologies they are choosing to be trained on.

So, although this article didn't provide any helpful math strategies...it still did give me two great ideas for how my district could better meet the needs of teachers and parents.