Sunday, October 26, 2008

Life at the Start-up -- UPSM!

I am now in my 4th week at UPSM and can see how building a rich learning environment has impacted these students in a positive way.  The students here are respectful and excited to learn.  This week I continued helping students in Mr. Dombro's class learn how to measure.  With rulers, pencil and paper the students took a design layout and re-created it.  I taught the students where to start laying out their deign and how to add mixed fractions to determine the length of a line.  The students listen intently to what I say.  I was grateful when Mr. Dombro said that a student I had worked with previously showed improvement in his measuring skills.  

In Ms. Mylor's class I worked with the students to help create the recipes they had converted quartz the week prior.  Their prepared desserts would be tasted and judged the next day, where a winner would be selected.  We had alot of fun figuring things out.  The students did a really good job of following the recipes.  

I am working now to bring the students up to the engineering expo here at U of M on Dec 4th as well as participating in a few of their field trips.  These experiences will help the students see what they can do with their engineering skills in the future.  Plus U of M's campus is amazing so hopefully we can convince these great students early to attend our school;-)

1 comment:

Carol Cramer said...

Rachel,

It seems like the math, adding fractions, etc., is more meaningful to students when it has a practical application.

Let me know how I can help to facilitate the Design Expo trip.

Carol Cramer