Middle School math team shares our success with iPads in math at CAIS!

Krista McKeague, lead math teacher in the Middle School, writes:

Brooke Gelber and I recently presented at the CAIS Math Professional Day at Drew School in San Francisco. The day focused on the use of technology, mainly the iPad, in teaching math. The event attracted over 60 teachers and administrators from about 25 private independent schools in Northern California. We represented one of a several schools with a one-to-one iPad program, and there were a handful of other schools piloting programs this year, as we did last year. Most of the participants had some experience with iPads and were anxious to learn how they were being used in one-to-one programs.

We were asked to present our experience using the HMH FUSE Algebra 1 textbook app, and we also gave a thorough overview of the ways we are using the iPad for note-taking, homework, projects, workflow (Box), augmenting instruction and skills practice engaging apps and games. Apps highlighted in our presentation include Paperport Notes, Noteshelf, Socrative, Khan Academy, Algebra Touch, Easy Geometry, Math Snacks, Slice It, Rocket Math, Factor Samurai, and MMR Calculator. We were very well received and fielded many questions that I remember having a year ago. It felt great to be able to not only share our experience teaching with iPads, but also to share our iPad challenges, decision making and parent and student education and management throughout this school year.

You can select the following link to see our presentation and others from the day: http://drew.us/cais

Some Take-Aways from the Day!

The Drew School, also a one-to-one iPad school, has integrated iPads across the curriculum, and we picked up some great new ideas from their math teachers as well:

• Teachers and students are sharing their work using a notebook app Clibe (http://myclibe.com), which allows students and teachers to share (read) each other’s notebooks quickly and easily in one app, without using Box.
• Math teacher and student(s) collaborate in real time on math problems on a SyncSpace Shared Whiteboard document. This whiteboard is zoomable and the images can be emailed, sent, or saved for later editing.
• Teachers are sharing short video tutorials on Educreations (similar to ShowMe) in order to support “flipping” the class and to help students navigate homework problems outside of class.
• Teachers are enhancing their curriculum with texts from The National Repository of Online Courses.

Brooke and I are looking forward to presenting again on iPads in Math at San Domenico’s iTeach workshop this summer!

Still haven’t registered for iTeach 2012? There’s still time! http://www.sandomenico.org/iteach

Innovation in Leading Schools

Recently, our Head of School, Dr. David Behrs, and our three division heads attended the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) annual conference in Seattle, WA.  Primary School Division Head Carole Chase shared these reflections with us on some themes coming from the conference:

NAIS celebrated its 50th year of providing services to over 1,400 private schools in the United States. The conference enabled us to exchange ideas with colleagues on a national level. Above all, the conference offered all attendees numerous opportunities for professional learning and growth.

It is impossible to summarize a comprehensive 3-day conference that included 15 featured speakers and a choice of 100 workshops to attend. That said, I wanted to provide you with a brief sample of a few of the general sessions and workshops which I attended, using the theme of this year’s NAIS conference: Innovation - Imagine - Invent - Inspire - Dream

Innovation

Bill Gates provided a wise perspective on 21st century education:  the formal content of what we teach has not changed, but the classroom has changed dramatically with the introduction of 1:1 “tablet” devices.  Bill Gates emphasized that the 1:1 tablet device enables teachers to personalize and customize instruction, thereby drawing students into the formal content of instruction. Kudos to San Domenico for being well ahead of the curve and implementing the 1:1 iPad program in grades 6-12 this year and grades 4-12 next year.

Imagine

The “Design Thinking” workshop in which I participated truly confirmed that in education you “begin with the end in mind.” Given the access to technology, students can actually imagine, design and build a curriculum related project.  No doubt, access to technology increases project based, relevant learning for our students and cross grade level modeling, collaborating, and sharing of ideas.

Invent

John Medina in “Brain rules for Education” focused on current behavioral research which indicated that the less stressed and more harmonious and supportive the adult environment for children, be it at home or at school, the more receptive the child’s developing brain will be to processing, learning, and ultimately producing original, creative thought.

Inspire

John Hunter, a self-effacing, modest teacher, was one of our most inspirational speakers.  Inspired by Gandhi’s teachings and the principles of non-violence, and accepting the fact that violence is a reality in the world, he designed a classroom “World Peace Game” that can be played by students as young as fourth grade.  As a class, students participate in the game on teams learning world geography, the power of finance, military strategies and political negotiations.  Peaceful resolutions must be attained in order to win the game.  Watching students play “World Peace” you understand that their learning extends far beyond game concepts and provides strategic lessons for life.

Dream

NAIS President, Pat Bassett, outlined 10 school initiatives for the future at the President’s Breakfast and Annual Meeting.  These initiatives ranged from individual character development and critical thinking to the globalization of independent schools.  Without exception, I can confidently tell you that San Domenico has already identified each of these 10 initiatives in our current planning before they were addressed by the NAIS president.

The national conference affirmed that San Domenico is truly in a leadership position in its direction and planning for the future. The conference also reminded us that continued hard work and much effort is needed to carry out these essential initiatives for your children.  The opportunity to be able to step away from the daily life of school restored perspective and enabled us to realize how much we are truly accomplishing at San Domenico.

Carole Chase