Engage Your Students K-12

Fabulous, Fantastic, Exciting

Today Priscilla and I visited Frost Elementary School in East Brunswick to observe their learning lab. We can do this! A spare classroom was used to create a lab with six centers. The tech pieces consisted of IPods, IPads, PCs, and a Promethean Board. The non-tech pieces can be as versatile as your imagination! Erasable white boards, educational board games, scrap paper, pencils and manipulatives of all sorts. Teachers sign up for 45 minutes to use the room, students enter and a routine is established. Students were instructed to certain stations, which they rotated amongst as the teacher directed them to change. Students knew exactly what to do, were engaged and were able to convey what they were learning. The apps we saw in use were Math Bingo, Park Math HD and Computer Math. While the students were engaged at the centers each teacher we observed was able to instruct students who needed extra help. Adhering to NJCCCS, differentiating instruction, infusing technology, this learning lab becomes a model for future 21st century student learning. We would love to be able to implement this learning lab in any one of our schools. Expenditures would be at a minimum being that most materials are already at the schools. With a bit of creativity, and re-appropriation we can implement this learning lab model. Judith Drake