Having finished their training just a week earlier, the two middle school teachers who waited for us in Léona were extremely excited about showing us their progress. In the past two weeks, both Ndao (a seasoned math teacher) and Kane (a first-year English teacher) had already led 2 lessons each in which the SmartPen was integrated, and had each prepared one more for us to observe today.
After a quick and efficient distribution of the SmartPen kits by students, Kane began his English lesson, on prepositions and their usage. He instructed the students to use their SmartPens to record both the rules for each set of prepositions and also the example sentences he provided. A dot here, a word there, and 15 minutes later, the “delivery” of the lesson was completed. Now, in the practice portion of the lesson, the students were asked to take out their earphones, listen to the rules and examples in their work pairs, and create their own sentences using these prepositions.
Leaning toward one another and listening with a tightened face, students looked at first frustrated and then illuminated as they tapped on their “bookmark” dots – marking the beginning of a recording – again and again. Some pairs listened to the rule three times, and to the example sentences even four times, before going about their own sentence creations.
When the work period was completed, students were called on to share their sentences, and Kane wrote them on the board. Surprisingly, the sentences given were markedly different from the examples! Instead of substituting just one word, students changed at least half of the sentences they were given when creating their examples – a noticeable progress in an educational culture of dictation and repetition. Was it the oral component that permitted this evolution? Possibly. There is rarely an activity in middle school that favors the auditory student over the visual learner.
This lesson quickly coming to a close, Ndao stepped up to transition into math, with a lesson on calculating the absolute value of relative numbers. He deftly wrote a circle, two vertical slashes, and a square on the board, and wrote under them an “r,” a “p,” and a “s”; this was to be his way of communicating to the students when they should be r-ecording, p-ausing, and s-topping with their SmartPens. Wonderful!
After reviewing some SmartPen norms and symbols, such as any rule being started with the “bookmark” symbol of a circled R, Ndao picked up a piece of chalk and rapped on the record symbol, snapping a few students to attention. “Rule!” he declared, and the students tapped decisively on the record button at the bottom of their notebooks.
He stopped just after a few rules and dictated a series of three equations to the students, complete with plus, minus, parentheses, and all, and then instructed them to solve these equations using the calculators integrated into the SmartPen notebooks. Eagerly turning to the back of their notebooks and gingerly tapping on the printed keys, students took a little less than a minute to solve all three equations.
Of course, this was not enough for Ndao. As the use of the calculator in the classroom was rather new to the students, he felt the need to review its functions together as well. Calling up a timid girl to the blackboard, he asked her to repeat the process she had gone through on the calculator, using the calculator keypad he had just drawn on the board. She followed his lead and tapped away at the drawn number keys with a piece of chalk, as the rest of the class observed. Is it this one? Where do the parentheses go? And finally? Ndao coached her through.
“Now,” Ndao explained, “it’s time to find the rule. What happens when we add a positive number to a negative number? What about two positive numbers? What about two negative numbers? Look at your equations and their results to figure it out.”
And so, for once, the students were left on their own to deduce the rules. They stared at their three equations, the difference between them, and periodically tried out another equation on the calculators to test their theories. What a start of critical thinking! Slowly, hands began to raise with rules to suggest, but the deduction was not enough for Ndao, no. He wanted to work their oral skills, too!
“Who can say aloud the rule, for us all to record with our SmartPens?” he asked the sea of unsure faces in front of him. When no one volunteered, he picked a boy sitting up front. “What is the rule?”
Thinking frantically, holding his SmartPen, and darting glances at the scribbles on the notebook in front of him, he offered up a rule, aloud, gaining confidence with each word. “When … adding … two … positive numbers … the – the sum, the sum… will always? … be positive.”
“Correct!” Ndao congratulated him, “and very well explained. Who’s next?”
And so the other two rules of the day were offered up and recorded down with students and their SmartPens. The lesson ended in a fury of orally given equations for the students to solve in pairs and then check with the notebook calculator.
Sitting down to debrief with Kane and Ndour later, I asked them what they thought about their SmartPen-integrated lessons. They agreed that, without a doubt, the lessons are delivered more quickly, are more fun and motivate the students much more.
Kane explained that, when using the SmartPen to capture information, he can complete a lesson in two-thirds the time it would take him were he to dictate each rule and example in the traditional way. He delivers the information, students record it with their pens, and then they review and take notes at their own paces. So far, this approach has not had a negative impact on their ability to correctly answer questions and complete exercises in class.
The motivational level is also notably higher now: “Students who are late, or don’t do their homework, or can’t give correct answers in class are sent outside or sent home. And usually these students just don’t care,” they explained. “But when they’re part of the SmartPen class, they feel horrible being left out of an integrated lesson! And they work even harder the next day to make sure that they are able to stay in the classroom and use the fun pen.”
This motivation, and even a type of fame, has extended past the targeted 7th grade classroom and into the entire school.
“Students in other grades tell us that they want to use the SmartPen! They ask us how and when they can get a chance to work with us and the pens in our classrooms. In fact, because we are the teachers heading up the project here in Léona, they’ve even given us a new nickname; now, people call us ‘Mister Smart’.”
Quite a compliment!
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