february sugar beat
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The Sugar BeatSugar-Salem Schools February 2010
Monthly Highligh
Read Across America - Friday,
March 5 - Central Elementary
Kershaw Book Fair - Monday,
8 through Friday, March 12
Kindergarten registration - Th
March 11 - Central Elementar
Glenn Miller Night - March 26
Sugar-Salem High School
VIRTUAL CLASSROOM PROVIDES OPPORTUNITIES
February ugar-Salem Schools 1
Students at Sugar-Salem High Schoolhave been taking advantage of a uniqueopportunity to gain college credit. Starting
this past January, students are now able totake college courses from professors at theCollege of Southern Idaho in Twin Falls.
The Idaho Education Network (IEN), allowshigh school students to take these collegecourses. Part of IENs mission is to havestudents connect, utilize and interact withonline resources. IEN fulfills this missionby allowing students to sit in a classroomon their high school campus and listento professors who lecture on a webcam.Students are able to see the teacher and fourother classes from other Idaho high schools
on a large screen. When the students aska question, they are able to zoom in onthemselves so the teacher can see them. Theprofessor is able to control what classes showup on the screen.
Senior Jocelyn Ostermiller is taking bothPsychology 101 and English 101 through theIEN program.
Comparing these classes with high schoolclasses, she said they are a lot harder. I haveto take a lot of notes and prepare myselfbetter. It gives me good experience for when Iactually enroll in college.
Because students are given college credit,these courses act like any other college class.Students can access assignments, grades, and
other materials through an online contentmanagement system called Blackboard. Safechat rooms are also set up so students are ableto do group work over the Internet.
Principal Jared Jenks says the virtualclassroom has some benefits that traditionalclassrooms dont.
It is great that one teacher is able to teachfifty kids, he said.
IEN Facilitator Jim Winn was recently ableto arrange for his English class to talk to aHolocaust survivor in New York. For a fee,
teachers are able to contact professionals andother people trained in certain areas to speakto their classes through webcam throughthe Center for Interactive Learning andCollaboration Web site.
Jenks believes that schools are using moderntechnology to expand learning and teaching.
Technology broadens horizons and opens aworld of possibilities, Jenks said. Who knewstudents could interact with people in New
York, or New Jersey, or halfway across theworld? It is just amazing.
vol. 6
By Whitney Hollman, BYU-Idaho I~Comm Agency Photo by Trista Colton
Sugar-Salem students take notes in a virtual classroom.
Inside : Virtual classroom providesopportunities pg. 1
Teachers learn newteaching strategies pg. 2
Fifth-graders presentnational heritage pg. 4
Patriots Pen honors JuniorHigh students pg. 3
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Sugar-Salem math teachers recently got
a new perspective on math education
by taking on the role of students. They
completed the Mathematical Thinking for
Instruction (MTI) course, taught by threeprofessors from Boise State University.
According to the Idaho State Department
of Education Web site, the course offers
professional development for teachers
through the Idaho Math Initiative with the
overall goal of improving math education
in all grade levels. The initiative was created
by the Idaho Legislature in 2007 and is in
its second year of existence.
Third-grade teacher Tammy Gee from
Central Elementary was pleasantly
surprised at the quality of the course.
This class was taught by professors . . .
who regularly go into real classrooms and
teach, she said. They gave us something I
had never seen or heard of before and it was
wonderful information.
Helen Stewart, who teaches sixth-graders
at Kershaw Intermediate, said the course
helped her to individualize her teaching to
her students.
This course has helped me as a teacherto become more aware of the variety of
methods and tools that can be used to
present each mathematical concept, helping
each student understand math better by
appealing to their individual learning
style, she said.
The course was administered over an eight-
day period in six sessions. There were three
full-day sessions (two of them on Saturdays)
and three after-school sessions, keeping
the teachers in class until 9 p.m. The
teachers were grouped into separate classesaccording to grade level.
Even though the course was highly
demanding of time, Gee said it was worth
it to do it during the school year because
we were teaching during the day and could
try out these ideas on our own class and
then go that night and get more insight into
what we did right and wrong during the
day.
TEACHERS LEARN NEW TEACHING STRATEGIESBy Derek Wilcox, BYU-Idaho I~Comm Agency
Photo courtesy of Helen Stewart
The course help[s]students understandthe concepts behindmath, not just get theright answer.
-Central teacher Tammy Gee
The professors presented the latest research
as the teachers discussed how it would
change the way they teach. Teachers
watched and evaluated short videos that
showed new techniques being applied in
real classrooms. Various teaching methods
were demonstrated and practiced to help
teachers better understand how students
reason, which involved doing mathematical
exercises where the teachers had to explaintheir thought processes in solving a range of
problems using ratio tables, arrays, pictures,
short division, diagrams, and algorithms.
Gee said she was surprised to find how so
many teachers had different ways of solving
the same problem.
Stewart has already implemented some of
the new ideas and said that students have
shown excitement after being able to solve
problems in different ways.
Gee said that most of all, the course helpedher to help students understand the
concepts behind math, not just get the right
answer.
Boise State professor Dr. Kim Bunning, shown above, team-taught one o f Mrs. Stewarts math classes.
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Board of Trustees:
Norm Spackman,Board [email protected]
Brian Kinghorn,Board Vice [email protected]
Doug [email protected]
Dwight [email protected]
Mark [email protected]
Alan Dunn,Superintendent
Vern [email protected]
PO Box 150 / 105 W CenterSugar City, ID 83448208-356-8802
Next Board Meeting:
Thursday, March 25
7 p.m.
4ugar-Salem Schools February
On Thursday, Feb. 11, Kershaw fif th-
graders set out to remind the community of
the inspiring American history.
One hundred and twenty fifth-graders,
under the direction of five teachers, have
been preparing since Christmas to present
songs and dances, historic facts and the
Gettysburg Address.
The program has a tradition for Kershaw
near Presidents Day for 20 years. While thebulk of the program is the same from year to
year, there are always tweaks and additions.
Diane Inama was one of the fifth-grade
teachers who coordinated the production.
We couldnt get one part right in a dance
and one of the students came up with an
idea and we used it, she said.
Many of the songs were expressed gratitude
for America, and recognized the heroes of
our nation. Students performed up-beatsongs, such as Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy
and Cotton-Eyed Joe and more relaxing
ones, such as You Are What Makes
America Grow and a traditional
American Indian dance. The program
used music to focus on different periods
of American history.
Superintendant Alan Dunn comes back
every year because he love[s] the way
the kids sing out as loud as they can.
He mentioned that this group sang out
and in-tune very well tonight.When asked why they do the program
every year, Inama said, We do it
because we want the students to feel it
- the patriotic pride.
FIFTH-GRADERS PRESENT NATIONAL HERITAGE
Photo by Krysta LongleyStudents show their colors through song-and-dance.
By Sarah Dighans, BYU-Idaho I~Comm Agency