Hendershott Ed Tech

Entering my fourth year of teaching, I have been able to get a firm grasp on different elements that my students are interested in. One thing I know for sure that has high interest for kids is gaming. Even better if it is with friends. I was first introduced to Prodigy my first year of teaching. At the time, it looked like just a game, so I used it more as a reward for my students if they finished all their work. The following summer I really explored it, and what I found really changed how I use this game. First of all, Prodigy is an adaptive math-practice game set in a fantasy role-playing universe, students customize colorful, anime-style avatars and send them off to the Wizard Academy to prepare for battle. Students' characters travel the world; they chat with other wizards through a series of pre-written chat comments, challenge friends to fight in the arena, and brave multiple themed worlds to take on monsters and special bosses. Wizard spells are powered by math problem...

Imagine a classroom where students are engaged, enjoying school, learning twenty-first-century skills, and improving their performance. That is what people want to see in the educational environment. These ideas are more easily said than done and may seem far off, but what if our education system was closer to these goals then people realized. A blended learning environment can help students achieve at a higher, more rigorous level, and learn in a way that is more applicable to the modern world that they currently live in and will be living in the future. The theory behind blended-learning is that it is ideal to best serve the student for their modern and future environments. The twenty-first century is an age with full technology integration within the culture. Our students will be working in a workforce that will be using technology for every current and new future job. Traditional teaching methods were more relevant to a pre-technology era, where it has the teacher lecturer de...

The video embedded above describes in detail the teacher-driven instructional coaching at Albemarle County Public Schools. Within the district, there are 24 instructional coaches who work in 3 different buildings; this means that every coach has 3 different coaches working within their schools.  Their jobs are to support the teachers in any way that the teacher is asking. This means that when a teacher has a diverse set of learning needs, the coaches are there providing materials and ideas to address this. Coaches also promote collaboration within the teacher’s professional development. Teachers can grow from feedback provided by the coaches, and in return, give feedback on some of the successes and areas that need improvement. The biggest success I see in the method that Albemarle School’s coaches do is that they build a huge network and resource pool to best help their district. The coaches are able to gather all their ideas from their schools and share them with other coaches...