Innovative and Intelligent Use of Technology Helps to Deepen Learning, Foster Collaboration, and Provide Students with Real-World, Problem-Solving Skills.

Across all grade levels, innovative and intelligent use of technology helps to deepen learning, foster collaboration, and provide students with real-world, problem-solving skills.

By Lee-Anne Black, editor

IN a classroom in the lower level of the Purdy Center for Science and Mathematics, Country Day’s strongest STEM seniors work in small teams to further an ongoing novel research project that began in 2016 as an independent study with nine students under the direction of Tom Collins, Science Department chair. Now offered as a second semester capstone course for seniors, Physical Computational Biochemistry includes 17 students who draw on their strong backgrounds in chemistry, biology, physics, and computer science to collaborate on moving the primary research forward. The long-term goal is to 3D print an interactive model of the hormone insulin that accurately depicts the structure and flexibility of the protein.

The class is taught by chemistry teacher Dr. Brittany Lott, but supervisor is a better word to describe her role with these motivated and dedicated students. The students use a variety of software programs, including writing some codes themselves, to search an online protein database to find the correct angles and distances between the atoms of the protein. They also design the atoms and print the pieces in the Upper School 3D Printing Lab. Then Makerspace equipment is used to attach magnets and bushings to the atoms to allow them to rotate around each other in a way that mimics how the protein would behave inside a cell. “We run the class very much like a real college research lab, with the students working in small teams on various aspects of the overarching goal,” Dr. Lott explains. “We come together at the end of the week during class to update and collaborate with the full group on the progress made and challenges encountered.”

Their Friday updates are impressive as the students speak with confidence and passion about their work. If you didn’t know better, you might think you walked in on an upper-level college chemistry course. In fact, this project extends research conducted at Berkeley Lab to create a physical model of the polypeptide chain.

“Many medical disorders are thought to involve the misfolding of proteins,” explains Mr. Collins. “This is an exciting area of active research. The results of our research will be used in our classrooms and shared worldwide, so others can reproduce and print our work.”

According to Mr. Collins, major milestones in the research over the past five years include completing the characterization and construction of the cysteine residue, developing the “Southern Gent” equation to describe how potential energy varies with dihedral angle and magnet position, initially characterizing the proline and printing of B chain vs D chain variants, and meeting with the original research author by Zoom. Dive deeper into the science here: ccdsbiochem.com.

The 2020 team was interrupted in its work due to the pandemic, however, the 2021 team has been able to collaborate well within the blended learning model. As they finish the year fully on campus, it’s expected they will make some real progress toward construction. “

"Not only will they leave the project in a great place for next year’s group, but they are also gaining priceless experience that will help them in whatever science-related field they choose to follow in college,” says Dr. Lott. “What they are learning by using engineering-based software, tackling a new and challenging programming language, and working collaboratively with others in a real hands-on environment—including the frustrating great place for next trouble-shooting component—will undoubtedly give them a leg up in any year’s group, but they applied college course or research lab.”

Digital Classroom Enhances World Studies

The virtual bitmoji classroom projected related field they onto the monitor in Jessica Demeter’s choose to follow in seventh-grade social studies class looks a lot like a “choose your journey” type online game. It’s colorful, fun, and effective in engaging middle-grade students, which has been especially challenging for the past year as teachers innovated to bring their physical classrooms online.

Mrs. Demeter, who collaborates frequently via social media groups with other like-minded social studies teachers across the country, recognized back in the spring that the student wellness piece was most disrupted because of lockdown. “I sort of went down a rabbit hole when it came to professional development and exploring all the ways I could use technology,” says Mrs. Demeter. “Figuring out a way to improve wellness is what really got my attention.”

She familiarized herself with the idea of a bitmoji virtual classroom as part of the self-directed summer professional development initiative that all teachers took part in to prepare for blended learning. The initial goal was to create a virtual wellness room for students with resources like breathing exercises and stress relievers. From there, Mrs. Demeter, along with Kelly Patterson, who also teaches seventh-grade social studies, built out the virtual classroom to support their global geography and culture curriculum. “One of the big takeaways from my learning was that with online learning we needed to be more uniform; kids really do need some sort of plan,” she says.

The teachers spent time over the summer identifying and mapping the essential components of each unit and organized these into three categories—basics, readings, and case studies. So when students click on a drawer in the virtual classroom they will always see the tabs to these categories. As they move into the case studies, for instance, they head into a new breakout room full of videos, websites, graphs, and other supporting material.

She says students like the accessibility of the material and knowing how every unit is organized. “I see them more engaged because we are building a digital classroom together, as opposed to viewing a one and done video or website.”

And when it comes to technology, Mrs. Demeter embraces the idea of learning together. “The kids are constantly on top of it,” she says. “You’re never going to be a master, so you have to go ahead and learn along with the students; be open to taking risks in front of them, failing in front of them, and let them know it’s OK.”

Smart use of technology also enables Mrs. Demeter and Mrs. Patterson to move away from the minutia that can bog down the process of getting to deeper, more meaningful synthesis of ideas. Years ago, they eliminated spelling tests because Google will get Mediterranean correct as students begin typing. This year, for their water wars unit, they have migrated students from the iPad’s Numbers app to Excel to distill their data because that is what they will need for the future. By allowing technology to facilitate the basics, they can focus on how what the students are learning applies to the bigger picture of world issues.

“As challenging as this year has been for students and teachers, a lot of good has come from it,” concludes Mrs. Demeter. “Even when we are all together in class, we’ll be keeping our virtual classroom, too.”

Strengthening Student Connections

Our special area classes in Lower School truly shine. “We have the incredible opportunity for children to be exposed to so many different kinds of content areas, especially the arts, science, and physical education,” says Lori Townsend, Lower School science teacher and Special Area coordinator. “Offering two additional languages, besides their literacy instruction in English, with French and Spanish in our modern language program is really one of the most opportune experiences that our children can have.”

When faced with the challenge of holding special area classes in their typical format due to COVID-19 restrictions and precautions, our teachers immediately went to work. They recorded their lessons, supplied materials to the classroom teachers, provided feedback to students through recordings, and brought their content and joy to our students through reimagining and innovating.

Lower School teachers use SeeSaw, an online learning and communication portal that allows for the sharing of lessons and assignments and student responses. For instance, art teacher Kandise Hayes created detailed instructional videos for her students, who then uploaded photos of their creations to SeeSaw. In turn, Mrs. Hayes used SeeSaw’s built-in tools to provide individual feedback to students on their work. A similar process of frontloading, followed by student work and individualized feedback occurs with languages, music, and science. Similarly, drama teacher Krista Maggart created engaging YouTube videos for her second, third, and fourth graders.

Since March 2020, faculty have had to step up, create, innovate, and use technology more intelligently than ever before. Our exceptionally strong STEM foundation was one element in our ability to successfully implement blended learning this year. As always, we combined the best elements of traditional teaching and strong student/teacher relationships with the inventive nature of digital learning.