School district creates unique ways to teach students during Remake Learning Days
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — Remake Learning Days start May 4 and continue for almost three weeks with educational family activities all around our region.
One local school district is creating some unique ways to teach students as they remake learning.
Learning about the solar system is a lot more fun when racing your friends on the floor to arrange the correct order of planets. The seventh graders at Northgate Middle School are using a computer projection, SmaLLab , to do this.
Seventh grader Evan Carson, said, "It keeps you engaged for the whole day and makes you more energetic and want to learn more."
Student Tristan Weaver said, "I love being able to move around and do all this really crazy stuff."
Malaya Pearson said, "I like to get up more so we don't just have to sit in the same chair every day."
The Northgate School District is trying to break the mold that most of teaching has looked like for at least 100 years. Technology has created all kinds of opportunities to learn in new and interactive formats.
Jeff Evancho, director of partnership and equity for Northgate Schools, said it is, "Finding ways to engage kids to understand what they're interested in and help them become the creators of knowledge rather than the consumers of knowledge because I think that's the big difference between the way that we learned and the way that they're learning."
Middle School science teacher Stephanie Francis, who uses the SmaLLab tool, said, "Every student learns differently, and so while some students definitely learn with traditional book, pen and paper and taking notes, a lot of students like that interaction and different ways of learning the information."
Northgate School District, which covers Avalon, Bellevue in the North Hills, is a small district but is resourceful. It seeks out grant money and donations.
The district transformed one floor of a former hospital to house after-school programs, using recycled furniture, restaurant booths, and free leftover paint.
BotsIQ teaches robotics and coding using LEGOS and offers apprenticeship programs for older students.
Northgate School District fifth grader Ryan Gannon loves the Bots IQ program and says, "You get to use your imagination and making robots."
Third grader Eliza Piccirilli says, "I like seeing how they can move around and how a whole bunch of things can work," and sixth grader Noah says, "I just really love that you can be creative and show your thoughts through builds, and I think that's really fun to do."
Construction just started on what's going to be a greenhouse for horticulture therapy. In addition, the science and life skills classes will use the greenhouse for lessons using plants.
The high school also has a CHILL room for social and emotional learning and emotional support for students who need it at school, and the elementary schools have makerspaces: one with new LEGO-focused programming for both students and the community using hundreds of dollars worth of donated LEGO bricks.
Evancho explains, "Makerspaces are spaces where teachers have resources beyond textbooks and computer screens projected in front of the classroom, where they can give students opportunities to make meaning and prove their understanding of the bigger ideas which is the purpose of education."
Northgate Schools and lots of schools, libraries and communities are hosting Remake Learning events so families can have fun learning together during Remake Learning Days, May 4-23, 2023.
You can find the list of more than 200 events and what's in your neighborhood here. And for ideas of things to do with your kids all year long, check out the Kidsburgh website.