As I wind down my first semester as the Tech Instruction Coordinator, I am feeling good about going into the next semester with a solid plan of action for our study hall students. After completing the seven steps of the "Learning Specialist/Instructional Specialist Proposal," I am confident that my plan of having students spend two days a week practicing math on Khan Academy will end up being something that really helps these students. One of the reasons I was hired to do this job was because of the success my students had from using technology, and I can credit a lot of that to Khan Academy. Now that we will have all of the study hall students dedicating at least an hour of their week to the site, we will be able to hopefully make the same positive impact on nearly 400 students. This process allowed me to develop a plan that received support across the board, at least from the adults in the building.
There have certainly been some challenge from the students. A few of them have even threatened to start a petition to show their displeasure, but never followed through. Their negativity is not going to deter me from my plan, though, as I truly believe this can help our students gain more opportunities later on in life. One reason I liked teaching middle school is that students are still able to develop academically without many real consequences, such as a poor GPA or test scores that will effect college and scholarship applications. I am constantly preaching to kids that this is a crucial time for them to decide that they want to take school seriously, because once they become a freshman everything starts to really count towards their future. Students know I have their best interest in mind, which is why I think they will eventually just accept the fact that they can't have complete free time in study hall five days a week. Even if there are only one-third of the students in each study hall that really take their time on Khan Academy seriously, then at least we will have made a difference for those students. After presenting in the study halls, some students have spent over 1,000 minutes practicing skills on the site in less than a month! I love being able to use my math background in my role as the Tech Specialist, and I am eager to find more ways to reach all of the students in our school.
