Simon Middle School students have a new tool in tutoring.  The campus recently started using Study Island in Math and Science to improve student engagement and success.

SMS students are getting extra math help through a pilot with the Help Math program.  The pilot runs through April.  Students can log on to the site from home and practice on their own.  This interactive math site uses real world situations that students can relate to, such as figuring out which cell phone plan works best for them, and then walks through the math steps needed to solve the problem.  “Our students love the program because it puts math in a real world perspective,” 6th grade math teacher Victoria Ciernia said.

Kristyna Brewer’s classes created Wikis after reading “Tears of the Tiger.”   Each student Wiki discussed the main points of the story and had pictures illustrating the student’s interpretation.

Jacob Villalobo’s English class created blogs that included each student’s original short story.  Class members then read their cohorts stories and commented on the stories in the blog.

Kristyna Brewer uses a Classroom Performance System to engage students, gather data, and make learning fun.  Each student uses a clicker to respond to questions.  The class then discusses the correct answer, and learns from the incorrect responses, all while preserving enmity.

Dahlstrom Middle School students in Mrs. Urista’s Native Spanish Speaker class wrote short stories in Spanish, created books using PowerPoint and then shared their stories through video conferencing technology with Simon Middle School students in Ms. Keith’s Native Spanish Speaker class.  Since the students already know how to speak Spanish, they were focussing on grammar and writing skills as they created their stories.