Westport in Brief!
EverythingWestport.com
Sunday, June 5, 2016
photos/EverythingWestport.com except as
noted
Westport Community Schools capitalize on
incorporating technology into their curriculum.
Haight and Tripp in book discussion at Partners.
|
Westport Community Schools capitalize on
incorporating technology into their curriculum. The Skype is the limit! EverythingWestport.com Friday,
June 3, 2016 Article
provided by Ms. Betty Pinto, Middle School STEM Technology Teacher. Technology
has become a major focus in education and has changed the way students learn.
Technology provides a multitude of approaches to engage diverse learners and
it has been proven that students prefer courses with a strong technology
component. Westport Community Schools has capitalized on incorporated
technology in their middle school, providing all seventh and eighth students
with technology in their supplemental math course. Students engage in
accessing their grade appropriate, common core aligned math content through
the free online math-based game called Prodigy. Prodigy features
over 45,000 math questions and covers over 1,000 common core skills.
Students are highly engaged when using Prodigy; they remain focused with
hands-on learning, and work both independently as well as collaboratively
with fellow students. It is an amazing tool to help students learn and
practice their math skills, and it has been very well received by Westport’s
seventh and eighth grade students. Prodigy
is the creation of Rohan Mahimker, who is the
Co-CEO of Prodigy located in Ontario, Canada with an online presence at www.ProdigyGame.com.
Westport’s Math Technology Teacher, Ms. Pinto, met the creators of Prodigy at
a professional development seminar, and they created a wonderful working
collaboration which has positively impacted her students. In fact, Prodigy
was so impressed with the achievements of Westport students that they agreed
to sponsor a Prodigy Assembly via Skype to honor their
achievements.
Skype
is a free software program that allows one to make a free voice and video
call to any other computer in the world via a high speed internet connection.
Technology tools like Skype allow students and teachers virtual educational
opportunities, and foster a sense of community further than just the
classroom. Superintendent
Ann Dargon began the assembly by addressing her
excitement for the innovative way the assembly was able to be performed,
stating that this is an opportunity for the school and for our students
to witness the utilization of new technology in education. Once the Skype
call began the Prodigy team displayed the big screen on stage, and the students
in the audience were able to see a picture in picture view of themselves in the lower right hand corner. Prodigy
was so impressed with the achievements of Westport students that
they agreed to sponsor a Prodigy Assembly via Skype to
honor their achievements. Prodigy
recognized and rewarded the efforts of Westport’s dedicated students.
Students were asked to submit questions for the Prodigy team to answer.
Alexias Correia, Robbie Rapoza, Daniel Swain and brothers, Max and Charlie Powers
each received a one month membership for the best questions for the
team. In
addition, Prodigy held a contest for students to enter where they would offer
suggestions in two different categories for the company to consider. Those
categories were: enhanced gameplay
and more user-friendly. Over
fifty suggestions were submitted, and the Prodigy Educational Team picked the
winners. Maeve Leary was chosen for requesting reflective learning be
implemented into the game so students can understand where they made an error
if they answered a problem incorrectly. In the
category of Enhanced Gameplay there was a tie: Jessica Carney won for
suggesting the top three players on the liter board each week should receive
an extra heart as a prize, and
Matthew Castro suggested that players’ birthdays should be recognized with a cupcake pet. All
three winners received a one month membership to Prodigy. Honorary
Achievements were awarded to two amazing students for their dedication to
improving their math skills: (1) Jace Medeiros
invested 496 minutes and solved 774 math problems and was awarded a Prodigy
T-Shirt; and (2) Maeve Leary played Prodigy
for 279 minutes in one term, mostly on her cell phone, because at the time
she did not own a computer. Mauve was awarded a one month free
membership. The
students who were recognized for answering between 500 to
749 math problems in one term were awarding a three-month
membership. Those students were:
Students
who answered over 750 math problem in one term were recognized and awarded a
one-year free membership to Prodigy. These students were:
Special
recognition was given to the following students as they achieved over 750
math problems in both term1 and term2. These students
are:
Above: a sample Prodigy screen. As an added
bonus, Prodigy acknowledged all seventh and eighth grade students by awarding
every student with a free one month membership. Memberships are
available from Prodigy which provide additional benefits for the player, and
can make gameplay more enjoyable; however purchasing a membership is an
option, not mandatory, to utilize the benefits of the game. “The
Prodigy company was extremely generous to our school and our students” shared
Ms. Pinto. “They are a wonderful group of people to work with and they truly
have student’s learning for mastery at the heart of their mission,” She highly recommends schools and parents
to take advantage of the free online learning tool so all students can
benefit to improve their math skills by filling in any learning gaps. From a
teacher perspective, it is extremely helpful that the math content is aligned
with the common core by grade level, and the game is self-paced to a
student’s individual grade level and ability. There are reporting features
that report on students’ progress and struggles, allowing a teacher to create
customized assignments for any student to align their game to their learning
needs and work on filling in specific learning gaps. The
game is perfect for grades 1 through 8, and Prodigy does make math fun with
collaborate engagement and competitive game play. Students have shown improved confidence in
their math abilities, and most students have improved their math scores, some
by more than a letter grade. From a
student perspective, students believe that Prodigy has helped them to improve
their math skills: ·
Derek Nowicki shared, “I like how the game
puts Pokemon and school together. It is a fun way to do math.” ·
Logan Silvia shared, “Prodigy has helped me a great deal, I have improved my math grade from a C to an A. I hated
math, now with Prodigy I really play all the time.” ·
Maeve Leary shared, “I think it is great that the company wanted our
opinion. It is really cool that we meet the owners and had the opportunity to
recommend our suggestion for the game on how we thought it could be
improved.” Ms.
Pinto believes that, “Prodigy has the ability to reach all learning styles,
which is one of its’ hook that is able to gets student
excited about learning. It is well documented that students learn in many
different ways: visual, auditory, tactile, kinesthetic, and social. Hands-on
learning obviously engages students who are tactile or kinesthetic learners,
as they need movement to learn best. Auditory learners talk about what
they’re doing and visual learners have the opportunity to see what everyone
else is creating. For social learners, the time spent in small group
conversation will strengthen their knowledge.” Ms.
Pinto shared that, “In my classroom I witnessed how hands-on learning has
empowered students to assist their fellow classmates, and students have
become their peers’ teacher. I
encourage this collaboration, for when a student demonstrates knowledge and
assists another student they are validating their understanding of the
material. That
is a student’s growth at its finest and evidence of mastery. For a teacher, this is very rewarding to
see. Haight and Tripp in book discussion at Partners. EverythingWestport.com Sunday,
June 5, 2016 Please
join Partners Village Store and Kitchen on Sunday, June 26 at 2:00 p.m. for
an engaging discussion between Dawn Tripp and Jennifer Haigh about Haigh’s
bold new novel, Heat and Light, as a part of our ongoing Partners
Village Store Writers Series. Books will be available for signing
at the conclusion of the talk. Please call Partners to reserve a seat. Garnering
the highest praise from critics for her previous work, PEN/Hemingway award
winner Jennifer Haigh has been deemed “an Forty
years ago, Bakerton coal fueled the country. Then
the mines closed, and the town wore away like a bar of soap. Now Bakerton has been granted a surprise third act: it sits
squarely atop the Marcellus Shale, a massive deposit of natural gas. To drill
or not to drill? Prison guard Rich Devlin leases his mineral rights to finance
his dream of farming. He doesn’t count on the truck traffic and nonstop
noise, his brother’s skepticism or the paranoia of his wife, Shelby, who
insists the water smells strange and is poisoning
their frail daughter. Meanwhile
his neighbors, organic dairy farmers Mack and Rena, hold out against the
drilling — until a passionate environmental activist disrupts their lives.
Told through a cast of characters whose lives are increasingly bound by the
opposing interests that underpin the national debate,
As The
New York Times stated in their April review, “Ms. Haigh is an expertly
nuanced storyteller long overdue for major attention. Her work is gripping,
real and totally immersive, akin to that of writers as different as Richard
Price, Richard Ford and Richard Russo. They are part of the stellar literary
lineup of her admirers. With this book, she moves one big step closer to
being in their league.” (Janet Maslin, The New York Times, April 2016) Jennifer
Haigh is the author of the short story collection News From Heaven and
four critically acclaimed novels: Faith, The Condition, Baker Towers
and Mrs.Kimble. Her books have won
the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Massachusetts Book Award and the PEN New England
Award in Fiction. Her short stories have been published in the Atlantic, Granta, The Best American Short Stories and many
other places. Born and raised in Pennsylvania, she studied at the Iowa
Writer's Workshop and now lives in Boston. © 2016 Community Events of
Westport. All rights reserved. EverythingWestport.com |
