Henrico Staff Development

Mr. River’s Math Magic is a blog site he uses to present a Standard of Learning concept math problem each day. Students demonstrate their knowledge of the math concepts by  showing their work when solving the problem. They often realize that there is more than one way to solve a problem, as long as they can show how they arrived at the answer. This is how Mr. River describes his site.

[flv]http://teachers.henrico.k12.va.us/mt_vernon/mayo_s/MrR.flv[/flv]

The 8th grade students in Ms. Cosby’s World History class became news anchors for WRMN Channel XII news for a day.  Students formed small groups from the students in their class and collaborated on ideas of ways they could present the information they researched about a topic from Roman history. They were challenged to use their creativity and problem solving skills to communicate what they had learned about their topic and present the information in a way that was not only informative, but also entertaining.  The groups then wrote scripts based on their ideas and video taped their presentations as if they were broadcasting the news live.  The footage was then imported into iMovie where the groups worked together to edit and fine tune their final product.

Through this project, the students became more connected with the information they researched and learned how to work with others in an highly productive way.

Mrs. Newman’s Science class worked on a project where they sketched and built skyscrapers that could with stand the elements. Students discussed what helps the building stand and how a foundation is important.  They looked up talk buildings they knew of and estimated the height in meters, then compared that to what they measured the Eiffel Tower to be.  They then explored different forces of nature on skyscrapers and how to avoid catastrophe using the PBS website http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/buildingbig/lab/loads.html.  Students then used graph paper to sketch out their own skyscraper with the intention of building them and testing wind and earthquake against it. After sketching on paper, students used Google Sketchup to draw and gain a better perspective of what the building would look like in 3-D.  They discussed within their groups improvements and then built the skyscraper out of toothpicks and marshmallows.  Students then tested each building to see which withstood the elements best.
This lesson exhibited what students are capable of when they are engaged and able to exercise creativity.  The final product, a marshmallow-toothpick skyscraper, was tested again wind from a fan, and an “earthquake.”  Students had a great time with this experiment and our Principal Mrs. Cooper even came to watch the students in action. Click here to watch a video of the lesson.

Mrs. Thompson’s 6th grade class used Garageband to create podcasts to share their writing assignments on their favorite holiday.  Students worked on expression, enunciation, speed of reading, and volume while reading their work. When students discovered their work would be shared with a broader audience, they were self motivated to make further revisions to improve the quality of their work. To listen to Mrs. Thompson’s students work visit The Spoken Word.