STEM
Use Google Drive as a “Stepping Stone” to 3D Learning
Craig Roberts, assistant director of education at the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences, believes his students learn better when they explain things visually. So, he has them build fruit fly brains out of Play-Doh, and construct human brain cells out of miscellany from The Scrap Exchange, a local nonprofit creative reuse center. More often, he sends them to the whiteboard to illustrate core concepts using a splash of color and lots of lines.
High School Wind Energy Project Inspires College Careers in STEM
Wind is the fastest growing source of renewable energy in the world today and the students at Camden Hills Regional High School in Rockport, Maine, have learned that first hand. Six months after the commissioning of the school’s NPS 100 wind turbine, the students, teachers and community have grown accustomed to the 121-foot-tall, sleek white tower that stands next to the athletic fields.
Blended Learning Program Helps 35 LAUSD Schools Nearly Double Math Gains
Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) schools showed significant gains, nearly doubling their growth in math proficiency between 2010 and 2012, with MIND Research Institute’s ST Math®, a visually based instructional software program featuring the animated penguin named JiJi, which fits naturally into a blended learning environment.
NCTAF Learning Studios: The Future of Learning
Every once in awhile, we see pictures of the future -- a graphic image, a set of relationships, new tools at work, the buzz of a culture that feels remarkably productive. For me, site visits to Big Picture and Edvision schools were really influential 12 years ago -- and why I'm still enthusiastic about flex school models that engage and empower students.
SMARTtech Roundup: Common Core and More
Blended Schools & Tools Duncan on Digital. Education Secretary Arne Duncan called Tuesday for the nation to move rapidly from printed textbooks and toward digital ones, citing global competition among the chief reasons for doing so. The New Frontier. The Center for Digital Education and Converge released…
Game Change: How Game-based Learning Helps Common Core
One of the exciting things that leaps out to me when reading the new Common Core standards for Mathematics is that the spirit of inquiry and curiosity is back, hardwired into a document that will likely form the basis for mathematics teaching and learning for a long time. My attention is drawn for example to the Standards for Mathematical practice where it emphasizes that students need to become persistent problem solvers, plan solution pathways, and ask themselves, “does this make mathematical sense?”
SMARTtech Roundup: Blended Learning, Common Core & STEM
Check out who’s blending. Our friend Marina Ballantyne Walne published a summary of blended models and school profiles—a mix of familiar and new comers. It’s worth a look.
Google Ventures Backs Math Education Startup Desmos
Google Ventures joined investors Kapor Capital, Learn Capital, Kinder Capital, and Elm Street Ventures today in funding more than $1 million for hiring, growth, and expansion of Desmos, Inc., an education technology company devoted to inspiring and engaging the next generation of math students.
Math Software Unleashes the Power of Touch Devices to Improve Student Learning
This week, the education non-profit MIND Research Institute announced that its ST Math® instructional software is now available to students and teachers using tablets in the classroom. MIND Research has re-engineered its research-based software games to capitalize on the powerful learning capabilities of touch technology.
Wiley & Knewton Partner to Offer Knewton Math Readiness Course
Global publisher John Wiley & Sons, Inc., announced a partnership with the learning technology company Knewton to offer the Knewton Math Readiness course throughout Australia and New Zealand.