New York State Learning Technology Grant

OUR STEM EDUCATION PARTNERS

Accelerate A.H.E.A.D!, is targeting teachers across 27 schools located in District 13 in Brooklyn. The 26 public schools and 1 nonpublic school (Luria Academy), will partner to potentially impact more than 10,000 students across the district. Community School District 13 is composed of almost 20,000 students attending public school, K - 12. Current enrollment shows that 8% of students identify as students of color, 17% identify as while, and 3% identify as multiracial. The district serves just under 1,000 students (or 4% of the student population) as English Language Learners, and 15% of students are classified as students with disabilities. Across the district, 64% f students qualify as economically disadvantaged. The LTG program will serve three schools that fall under the following categories: TSI (Targeted School Improvement) or CSI (Comprehensive School Improvement) schools. All schools are located in an urban setting and serve diverse student populations, inclusive of students with special needs and/or Multilingual Learners.

We will Accelerate A.H.E.A.D! by providing targeted professional development to increase teachers’ ability to incorporate a wide variety of digital resources into their curricular plans. The result will be an improvement in our grades 3 - 8 students’ conceptual understanding of mathematical ideas.

The program seeks to accomplish three main goals, which are aligned to three focus areas:

Teacher Professional Development
- Build teachers’ mathematical knowledge and capacity to use appropriate and engaging learning technologies in the classroom
Curriculum Development & Planning
- Engage teachers in a professional learning community to develop high quality learning experiences that promote students’ conceptual understanding of mathematical ideas, while integrating grade-appropriate learning technologies.
Student Outcomes
- Students in grades 3-8 will increase their use of strategies, learning technologies, and tools that support their conceptual understanding, procedural fluency and application to attain a significant level of achievement in mathematics.

The goals and objectives articulated above are in line with the goals of the District and our religious partner school. We seek to use professional development to shift instructional practices in our classrooms, to focus on the development of students’ higher-level thinking, student agency, and to provide them with opportunities to create authentic work supported by meaningful technology infusion. Most importantly, our objectives are aligned with our mission, which is to increase access to equitable and meaningful college and career pathways, including STEM fields, which traditionally have low minority representation.

More and more occupations in the U.S. depend upon a workforce with a mastery of basic STEM skills. Therefore, it is essential to support new and current teachers, so that they are equipped to provide all students with a strong foundation from which to grow. Students’ mastery of math is integral to success in STEM, as is computational thinking (CT).Educators should have a deep understanding of the mathematical content that they are expected to teach and a clear view of how student learning of mathematics develops and progresses across grades. Professional learning communities (PLC) have shown to be powerful contributors to educators’ professional development.

By improving our teachers’ pedagogical practices aligned to conceptual understanding in mathematics, we will not only close a gap in our students’ math achievement, but we will also establish a foundation that will serve them well throughout their lives.

The lessons and work presented here were made possible through the New York State Learning Technology Grant, provided to select school districts in New York State. We would like to thank our partners - Makeosity, RoboFund, and Educate LLC - for supporting this work across District 13, and all of our participating teachers and students, whose thoughtful and wonderful work is reflected in these resources.