February Sugar Beat

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The Sugar BeatSugar-Salem Schools February 2010

Monthly Highligh

Read Across America - Friday,

March 5 - Central Elementary

Kershaw Book Fair - Monday,

8 through Friday, March 12

Kindergarten registration - Th

March 11 - Central Elementar

Glenn Miller Night - March 26

Sugar-Salem High School

VIRTUAL CLASSROOM PROVIDES OPPORTUNITIES

February ugar-Salem Schools 1

Students at Sugar-Salem High Schoolhave been taking advantage of a uniqueopportunity to gain college credit. Starting

this past January, students are now able totake college courses from professors at theCollege of Southern Idaho in Twin Falls.

The Idaho Education Network (IEN), allowshigh school students to take these collegecourses. Part of IENs mission is to havestudents connect, utilize and interact withonline resources. IEN fulfills this missionby allowing students to sit in a classroomon their high school campus and listento professors who lecture on a webcam.Students are able to see the teacher and fourother classes from other Idaho high schools

on a large screen. When the students aska question, they are able to zoom in onthemselves so the teacher can see them. Theprofessor is able to control what classes showup on the screen.

Senior Jocelyn Ostermiller is taking bothPsychology 101 and English 101 through theIEN program.

Comparing these classes with high schoolclasses, she said they are a lot harder. I haveto take a lot of notes and prepare myselfbetter. It gives me good experience for when Iactually enroll in college.

Because students are given college credit,these courses act like any other college class.Students can access assignments, grades, and

other materials through an online contentmanagement system called Blackboard. Safechat rooms are also set up so students are ableto do group work over the Internet.

Principal Jared Jenks says the virtualclassroom has some benefits that traditionalclassrooms dont.

It is great that one teacher is able to teachfifty kids, he said.

IEN Facilitator Jim Winn was recently ableto arrange for his English class to talk to aHolocaust survivor in New York. For a fee,

teachers are able to contact professionals andother people trained in certain areas to speakto their classes through webcam throughthe Center for Interactive Learning andCollaboration Web site.

Jenks believes that schools are using moderntechnology to expand learning and teaching.

Technology broadens horizons and opens aworld of possibilities, Jenks said. Who knewstudents could interact with people in New

York, or New Jersey, or halfway across theworld? It is just amazing.

vol. 6

By Whitney Hollman, BYU-Idaho I~Comm Agency Photo by Trista Colton

Sugar-Salem students take notes in a virtual classroom.

Inside : Virtual classroom providesopportunities pg. 1

Teachers learn newteaching strategies pg. 2

Fifth-graders presentnational heritage pg. 4

Patriots Pen honors JuniorHigh students pg. 3


2/4ugar-Salem Schools February 22

Sugar-Salem math teachers recently got

a new perspective on math education

by taking on the role of students. They

completed the Mathematical Thinking for

Instruction (MTI) course, taught by threeprofessors from Boise State University.

According to the Idaho State Department

of Education Web site, the course offers

professional development for teachers

through the Idaho Math Initiative with the

overall goal of improving math education

in all grade levels. The initiative was created

by the Idaho Legislature in 2007 and is in

its second year of existence.

Third-grade teacher Tammy Gee from

Central Elementary was pleasantly

surprised at the quality of the course.

This class was taught by professors . . .

who regularly go into real classrooms and

teach, she said. They gave us something I

had never seen or heard of before and it was

wonderful information.

Helen Stewart, who teaches sixth-graders

at Kershaw Intermediate, said the course

helped her to individualize her teaching to

her students.

This course has helped me as a teacherto become more aware of the variety of

methods and tools that can be used to

present each mathematical concept, helping

each student understand math better by

appealing to their individual learning

style, she said.

The course was administered over an eight-

day period in six sessions. There were three

full-day sessions (two of them on Saturdays)

and three after-school sessions, keeping

the teachers in class until 9 p.m. The

teachers were grouped into separate classesaccording to grade level.

Even though the course was highly

demanding of time, Gee said it was worth

it to do it during the school year because

we were teaching during the day and could

try out these ideas on our own class and

then go that night and get more insight into

what we did right and wrong during the

day.

TEACHERS LEARN NEW TEACHING STRATEGIESBy Derek Wilcox, BYU-Idaho I~Comm Agency

Photo courtesy of Helen Stewart

The course help[s]students understandthe concepts behindmath, not just get theright answer.

-Central teacher Tammy Gee

The professors presented the latest research

as the teachers discussed how it would

change the way they teach. Teachers

watched and evaluated short videos that

showed new techniques being applied in

real classrooms. Various teaching methods

were demonstrated and practiced to help

teachers better understand how students

reason, which involved doing mathematical

exercises where the teachers had to explaintheir thought processes in solving a range of

problems using ratio tables, arrays, pictures,

short division, diagrams, and algorithms.

Gee said she was surprised to find how so

many teachers had different ways of solving

the same problem.

Stewart has already implemented some of

the new ideas and said that students have

shown excitement after being able to solve

problems in different ways.

Gee said that most of all, the course helpedher to help students understand the

concepts behind math, not just get the right

answer.

Boise State professor Dr. Kim Bunning, shown above, team-taught one o f Mrs. Stewarts math classes.


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Board of Trustees:

Norm Spackman,Board [email protected]

Brian Kinghorn,Board Vice [email protected]

Doug [email protected]

Dwight [email protected]

Mark [email protected]

Alan Dunn,Superintendent

[email protected]

Vern [email protected]

PO Box 150 / 105 W CenterSugar City, ID 83448208-356-8802

Next Board Meeting:

Thursday, March 25

7 p.m.

4ugar-Salem Schools February

On Thursday, Feb. 11, Kershaw fif th-

graders set out to remind the community of

the inspiring American history.

One hundred and twenty fifth-graders,

under the direction of five teachers, have

been preparing since Christmas to present

songs and dances, historic facts and the

Gettysburg Address.

The program has a tradition for Kershaw

near Presidents Day for 20 years. While thebulk of the program is the same from year to

year, there are always tweaks and additions.

Diane Inama was one of the fifth-grade

teachers who coordinated the production.

We couldnt get one part right in a dance

and one of the students came up with an

idea and we used it, she said.

Many of the songs were expressed gratitude

for America, and recognized the heroes of

our nation. Students performed up-beatsongs, such as Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy

and Cotton-Eyed Joe and more relaxing

ones, such as You Are What Makes

America Grow and a traditional

American Indian dance. The program

used music to focus on different periods

of American history.

Superintendant Alan Dunn comes back

every year because he love[s] the way

the kids sing out as loud as they can.

He mentioned that this group sang out

and in-tune very well tonight.When asked why they do the program

every year, Inama said, We do it

because we want the students to feel it

- the patriotic pride.

FIFTH-GRADERS PRESENT NATIONAL HERITAGE

Photo by Krysta LongleyStudents show their colors through song-and-dance.

By Sarah Dighans, BYU-Idaho I~Comm Agency

Documents

February Sugar Beat