Sixth Grade Pilots Tablet Program to Promote Engaged Learning

The start of the new school year brought more than the typical dose of excitement and anticipation for this year`s sixth graders with the introduction of Hawken`s one-to-one tablet program. The new program, which is being piloted in the sixth grade this year and will expand to all middle and upper school students over the course of the next couple of years, is just one example of how Hawken`s forward-focused curriculum development is designed to promote real-world skills, collaborative learning, optimal use of class time, teacher effectiveness, and student understanding. Tablets are ideal for educational purposes because they offer all the functions of a standard laptop - and then some. While they open like a regular laptop, the screen can be swiveled and then locked into a tablet mode, which, with the aid of the stylus tool, enables students to draw and write directly on the screen. This has powerful implications for the study of any disciplines utilizing symbology, including math, science, Chinese, and art. At the training session offered the day before school opened, Middle School Director Steve Hopkins told students, "You are the first group of students to receive these tablets, which makes you special. But with that privilege comes responsibility, and we expect you to take proper care and ownership of this fragile and expensive piece of equipment." Developing that sense of care and responsibility is a big part of this initiative, but it is only the beginning. Students began their tablet instruction with Dr. Ryan Wooley, Hawken`s director of technology, who reviewed the physical features of the computer and the basics of tablet operation. Training will continue throughout the year, guided by teachers who will instruct students in the programs and applications and software that they will be utilizing in their various disciplines. One such software application is called DyKnow, an interactive teaching tool that enables teachers to deliver content in new ways, for example, broadcasting information through outlines, power points, textbook images, etc. Students, less encumbered by and preoccupied with note taking, can focus more on comprehension; teachers, through DyKnow`s polling feature, can better and more quickly gauge student understanding. Moreover, the student response feature on Dyknow enables teachers to post questions on the student tablets and then poll students for feedback, enabling every student to become engaged in and answer the question instead of just one or two. Teachers can also monitor student screens and send individual messages to get distracted students back on task, if necessary. Immediate feedback of this kind enables teachers to immediately assess student understanding and make adjustments in their lessons or explanations if necessary. Thus interactive learning replaces the more traditional and passive approach involving a simple transfer of information. As a result, both student engagement and monitoring of individual student progress and learning are significantly enhanced. Another critical piece of software is Microsoft Office OneNote, a package that enables information gathering, organization, and multi-user collaboration. Basically, it acts as an electronic version of the three-ring binder with divider tabs; students can put pages in their "binder" and add handwritten annotations with their stylus tool. Teachers can create a notebook and send a copy to the students, or students can share notebooks for collaborative projects. OneNote`s voice recording feature may ultimately eliminate the need for dedicated language labs on our campuses, as their tablets will carry identical capabilities in mobile form. OneNote provides students an organizational tool for the safe keeping of work in digital form and also supports collaborative efforts between and among students both at school and from home. Viewed as a "game-changer" when it comes to educ