Division B Drone Project
P.S. 5
Cohort I:
My name is Diana Cady and I teach 7th grade math and 8th grade algebra at Dr. Michael Conti School (PS # 5). I have been using drones in all of my classes for approximately six months. I have never seen my students so enthusiastic to come to math class in my seven years of teaching. The level of engagement has increased one hundred percent especially in my inclusion class. The drone initiative should definitely be incorporated into the curriculum at every school in the district.
My name is Jacqueline Truesdale and I teach 4th grade at Dr. Michael Conti School (PS # 5.)
Since I have incorporated the usage of a drone in my math classroom, I have seen a dramatic increase in student engagement. Whenever the drone is present my students are interested and enthusiastic from the moment they enter the classroom to the second they leave. It also makes teaching a lot more exciting!
Cohort II:
My name is Albert Padilla and I teach Middle School Math at Dr. Michael Conti School (PS # 5). I have been using drones in all my classes and I have been incorporating them in our STEM program. My Students are extremely enthusiastic about drones and are always looking for different ways to incorporate the drone in our research. The level of engagement has increased throughout all my classes. The drone initiative should definitely be incorporated into the curriculum at every school in the district.
My name is April Fowler-Hogan. I am a certified special education teacher and I am currently the Math Support Teacher at PS# 5. As the math support teacher one of my roles is to help come up with ways to help students who are struggling with math concepts. When we were introduced to the Drone projects my colleagues and I were very excited about the many ways we could create engaging lessons with our students. We are a project based learning school and we automatically saw the opportunity for cross curricular collaboration. Our seventh grade general education class collaborated with one of our self-contained special education classes on a math, science and writing project. During the math portion of the project all students were actively engaged in measuring, converting, and collecting data using the drone. They became mathematicians, asking questions, defending their theories and creating new hypothesis as they went through the experiment. With these lessons I could see my students actively learning and teaching each other multiple mathematical standards. All students were helpful, respectful of each other's thoughts and confident about the math they were doing. They did all of the work and I only needed to act a facilitator. The students stated that they enjoyed the hands on approach of the lesson. It was great to see learning in its purest form!
My name is Iraida Cesar and I teach Middle School Self-Contained at Dr. Michael Conti School, PS #5. The implementation of Drones in the classroom, created high student engagement based on data, it allowed differentiated lessons, and improved critical thinking skills, it provided democracy in action, it created student ownership of learning and increased collaboration-all 21st century skills. The use of Drones in my class taught students about robotics and sharpened their analytical thinking skills needed to understand how many different disciplines function together to make a single system work and then, to make multiple systems work together. As a Project Based Learning School, the use of DRONES lend the students the opportunity to create the basis for thinking about programming and bigger logic problems, as it requires “If, then” kind of thinking, i.e. “If I do this, this event happens.” (Cause and Effect) The use of the DRONES in the classroom provided a different approach of the use of technology to those who may want to become engineers. This kind of mental engagement is exactly what’s needed especially, as engineers are increasingly required to become multi-faceted with certain specialty areas. Overall, the use of Drones in the classroom have enticed the imagination of the students leaving them with a new innovative way of learning.