Transcript
Technology to Drive Competition Mobi and CPS Add Up to Success for Students Competing in Citywide Math Tournament
October 2014
CHALLENGE Eric Green’s challenge involved finding a way to engage, motivate, and assess his students in the classroom. Green also wanted to come up with a plan to re-energize a citywide math competition, which his students would be taking part in.
SOLUTION Green turned to eInstruction by Turning Technologies’ CPS™ and Mobi™ mobile interactive whiteboard to help prepare his class for the upcoming competition. Instead of filling out worksheets, students used CPS to answer questions. The results are immediately sent to Green’s Mobi and instantly displayed on his screen; allowing him to instantly assess whether the class understands the lesson being taught. “CPS allows me to make out which kids understand the concept I am teaching and which kids do not, “Green said. “I have a better idea about when my students are ready to move on and when I need to re-teach a concept.” Mobi allows Green to move around the classroom and interact with students. His back is never to them and he can be there to assist anyone who needs help without interrupting the lesson. The new sense of excitement in his classroom was enough for Green to try the CPS on a much larger scale. He decided to use the student response devices at a citywide math competition featuring fifth, sixth, and seventh graders from 12 different schools in the district. In the past, students
participating individually were asked to take a written test while their parents and friends sat silently on the sidelines waiting for the tests to be completed. Thanks to CPS, students got the chance to “buzz in” their responses as audience members waited in suspense for the answers to appear on the screen. Participants from other schools who had not previously used CPS were able to pick up on and use the technology very quickly.
CONCLUSION The inclusion of CPS clickers helped the math competition run quicker and more smoothly. “I think everyone really enjoyed the addition of CPS” Green said. “It seemed to bring in some added excitement for the competitors as well as making the competition more appealing to the audience members.” As a result, eInstruction by Turning Technologies donated a set of CPS student response systems to be raffled off at the end of the competition. Even though Green’s class did not take home first place, he could not be more proud of how much his students accomplished using CPS and Mobi. Since incorporating the new technology, Green has seen his students’ test scores rise and their attention spans increase. “Our state [math] scores jumped from 65% to 100% of the students passing” said Green. He’s also been able to greatly reduce the amount of time he spends grading papers. The school is now working to incorporate CPS into all of their classrooms.
Eric Green is a sixth-grade math teacher at Williamsburg Collegiate Charter School, a free public school open to all New York City residents in Brooklyn, New York.
