My school is a public school in Chicago where ninety-nine percent of the students receive free or reduced price lunch. This year, our primary classrooms are made up of twenty-five to thirty eager learners. We've recently created an intervention program that is going to be providing extra academic support to struggling learners using various resources.
Our students are considered high-needs and have many stresses compared to the average five to eight year-olds.
Because of this, I work very hard to make sure the students at our school receive the learning, resources and exposure they need to surpass what some statistics may say. With new technology resources, we will be able to provide even more opportunities for students to feel successful and overcome challenges. It will allow us to modify learning to meet the needs of students performing above grade level. Furthermore, it will provide opportunities for research based intervention programs (i.e. Lexia). Students will not feel the anxiety of not knowing what to do in a classroom which has students that perform at a wide range of academic levels. They will also not feel the frustration of boredom because they have more knowledge of a subject.
My Project
At our school, we use mClass to assess our K-3 students' reading and math skills/growth. With this program, a teacher uses an iPad for individual student testing. It is a very useful program and does not require teachers to use paper to assess the students (like many other programs) which helps the environment, saves the school money and supports organization. Students are assessed three times a year in reading and progress monitored every two to four weeks depending on their assessment results to inform instruction. In math, they are assessed/progress monitored even more frequently.
The results are uploaded to the mClass website for teachers to analyze the data and then plan for future instruction.
Teachers then use this program to print various reports to help inform whole-group/small-group instruction, create flexible grouping, explain data to parents, use as evidence for an IEP referral, etc. The best way to view and use the data is on a laptop or computer. It is possible on iPads, but they aren't as user friendly when viewing and using the data gathered from the assessment. Our school currently does not have enough laptops for each teacher in the building. We are short a few this year which is why this project includes a Chromebook in order to assess/progress monitor students consistently, teachers need to work one-on-one with students while the rest of the class works independently in differentiated centers. One of the centers that we use is a technology center, but it becomes limited while students are being assessed and progress monitored (which happens at minimum every two weeks) because teachers and other staff members need the iPads to assess students. With extra iPads, teachers will not have to limit student technology use during their differentiated center time.
More than three‑quarters of students from low‑income households
Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education. Learn more
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