Learning Lab

The Learning Lab is an innovative project that emphasizes the use of technology to improve and monitor student mastery achievement in language arts, math, and science for grades 2-5 at New Market School.

Learning Lab Activities

The Learning Lab will provide Cornerstone language arts and math software through the network at New Market School. This software meets the goals set by Tennessee state curriculum guidelines. The Language Arts program features 175 lessons that help students meet performance standards in four content areas: Capitalization, Punctuation, Usage and Grammar, and Spelling. It will provide reinforcement of the skills students need for high performance on standardized tests and give our teachers, the principal, and parents clear documentation of student progress. The student management aspects of the software will assign only the concepts and amount of practice each student needs through diagnostic pretests to prescribe which lessons students take. It includes three ways to assign content: Teacher assigned, student directed, or computer guided. Several network programs have been evaluated for this project, but Cornerstone best matched the needs of our students and the management system is more user-friendly than other programs we evaluated. These features along with the fact that the program will run on our existing network made Cornerstone our software choice. Teachers from New Market have evaluated the Orchard Writing Assessment and Process Writing software that will also be part of the project. This software helps students develop and edit their compositions which are targeted areas. In addition to the Cornerstone software, the school principal has purchased a classroom copy of CCC language arts curriculum for each teacher. This software does not offer a network site license making it not cost effective for the lab and the classrooms.

To address student achievement in science the Orchard Science software will be added to the network. The science program is highly motivational and provides a multimedia approach to enable students to learn and master key science concepts.

Each class will participate in one Internet project related to skills identified as targeted weaknesses. The instructional technology director will assist teachers in locating projects that will promote student exploration through collaborative involvement in authentic, challenging multidisciplinary tasks by providing realistic complex environments for student inquiry, furnishing information and tools to support investigation, linking classrooms for joint investigations, and presenting data in ways that support mathematical thinking and problem-solving.

The addition of the Classroom Performance System (CPS) and CyberClass software will be another instructional technology strategy that will be part of this project. CPS is a wireless response system that allows teachers to obtain immediate response from every student in their class. Through CPS, teachers can ask objective or subjective questions to their class. Then, every student responds to the question with their individual wireless response pad—providing the teacher instant feedback to determine where the class is as a whole. The system will heighten interactivity and retention and increase time on task for student and teacher. A CPS system will be shared by grades 2-5. Training and the CyberClass software will enable these teachers to create pre- and post-testing of objectives to immediately determine student mastery. The CyberClass program will provide four different report styles for teachers: Instructor's Summary, Instructor Question Report, Student Study Guide, and Student Response Details. These reports will enable teachers to evaluate the effectiveness of instruction toward meeting language arts objective mastery and focus on specific student weaknesses. This system will be particularly effective in the one-computer classrooms at New Market Elementary.

Learning Lab Timeline

August 2001 Train the school’s technology facilitator in the use of hardware and software. Develop an analysis of the 2001 TerraNova scores to identify targeted skills (skills in which students achieved less than 50% mastery). The county testing coordinator will also prepare each teacher a student mastery report providing individual student skill mastery, partial mastery, and non-mastery information. Grade level teachers will develop a yearly plan of action designed to address these student weaknesses.

September-October 2001 Students will pretest using Orchard and Cornerstone software student management programs. Participation in these programs will continue through the remainder of the year. Unique Solutions will conduct a staff development session in the utilization of Cornerstone and Orchard student management programs for the staff at New Market Elementary. Pre-testing will begin to determine student placement in these programs. Student Assessment Reports will be run on a monthly basis.

November-December 2001 The county instructional technology director will provide a staff development session for teachers at New Market Elementary in the use of the Classroom Performance System (CPS) and CyberClass software. The CPS equipment will be used by classroom teachers throughout the project. Teachers will identify an Internet project for class participation that focuses on math, science, or language arts skills. Teachers will complete a semester evaluation of the integration of technology into the curriculum.

January 2002 The county instructional technology director will provide a staff development session for teachers at New Market Elementary in the use of available Internet resources for the student improvement in math, science, and language arts achievement.

February-March 2002 Participants will use Internet bookmarks of web sites that will be useful in the mastery of objectives. The lab facilitator will prepare a comparison of pre- test and post test results from the Cornerstone software.

April 2002 Students will prepare a Learning Lab Showcase for parents and the community. Students will demonstrate skills they have learned throughout the year and present Internet projects. Post testing of students will be conducted through the state’s TerraNova test.

May 2002 This month will be used for final evaluation of the project and conclusion of Internet Projects. Teachers will complete an evaluation of the integration of technology into the curriculum.

August 2002 A final evaluation of the project will be conducted tracking and comparing student skill mastery of the 2001 and 2002 TerraNova test. The results of this analysis will be shared with the teachers and principal at New Market Elementary to determine the 2002-2003 yearly grade level instructional plan. The results will also be used by the Supervisor of Elementary Education and the Director of Technology to determine future technology based instructional strategies.