On Friday, May 17, 2013, Rob Granger chair for teacher mini grants, introduced David Vannasdall, Assistant Superintendent, Arcadia Unified School District and a fellow Rotarian, who introduced three of this year’s recipients of a grant for educational purposes from Arcadia Rotary. Preliminarily, Dave noted that Arcadia Rotary has been funding mini grants to AUSD teachers for innovative classroom projects since 1989. To date, Rotary has given out 367 mini grants totaling over $100,000.00. This year, Arcadia Rotary Club has funded 18 mini grants for a total of $3,457.90.
The first recipient introduced was Teresa Hecht-Oakland, a teacher on Special Assignment at Holly Avenue Elementary School. Her mini grant is titled, Moby Math. The purpose of this program is to assist or intervene on behalf of students are struggling in school at present. It is a research program to help those students who are behind and need help. If a student utilizes this program for a 40 hour period, the typical result is that the student advances the equivalent of One and One half years. To date 250 students in the K through Eighth Grade level has utilized the programs to advance their skills. The program evaluates the student and the results are passed on to the student’s teacher, who can evaluate what assistance the student needs. The initiation of the program began with Mathematics and has now progressed to language arts. The program shows the standards by which a teacher will be able to judge student accomplishments. The use of this program will allow students who are underachieving to work on their academics during the summer with an expected equivalent increase in capability for one and one half years.
Lindsay LaPorte teaches math to 7th and 8th graders at Dana Middle School. Her mini grant is entitled, Flipped Classroom. The grant allowed her to purchase an IPod, which allows students to watch a video of their homework assignment, work on it at home and then to class and review and participate with other students in understanding the lesson. The students utilizing this IPod obtain 45% higher results than their previous work activities. Needless to say, parents of the students participating in the program are very excited with the results and are more willing to invest time with their child on one to one in after school studying. The video helps students to catch up with other students on their curricula. Use of the video has resulted in definite student improvement.
Kim Sobieck teaches mathematics and geometry at Arcadia High School. He mini grant is Teaching Geometry with the Geometer’s Sketchpad. The program she purchased has allowed her to place charts on a screen and thereby move the chart or graph to illustrate geometric angles. Lines can be shifted to illustrate a change in an equation. It shows why things works graphically.
All of the teachers expressed their appreciation to Rotary for bettering the classroom experience and helping to students to better themselves.