From Engineer to Teacher
Dana Dawson has a degree in engineering and worked in this field until it came time to raise her children. When her kids were in school she volunteered in their classrooms and got to know the teachers well. “They conned me into teaching!” Dana recalls. Once she had her own fifth-grade classroom in Moriarty, New Mexico, a rural area 35 miles from Albuquerque, Dana found that her technology background was lacking. She had used supercomputers such as Crays in her engineering work, but didn’t have a good sense of how computers could be useful to her students. It wasn’t until she took a course in using databases that “the light bulb went on,” as Dana puts it. “I realized using databases would be a way to get students to put information together to make new information.”

Birth of a Teaching Plan
When she went to develop a social studies unit during the Intel® Teach Program course, Dana had trouble finding accessible databases. After a bit of looking, she found the CIA World Fact Book and determined that it was practical for students in the intermediate grades.

In “The World through a Different Pair of Eyes,” Dana’s students consider factors relating to life expectancy across the world. She starts the unit by asking kids to find out where in the world citizens live the longest. When students discover that it’s Andorra, they head straight to the map to find the tiny country (in the Pyrenees mountains between Spain and France), and are compelled to ask a multitude of questions: What causes an Andorran to live so long? How long might I live? Where in the world is life expectancy the shortest? And the biggest question: Why does life expectancy vary so greatly around the world? Using online sources such as the World Fact Book (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook*), students consider the many factors that affect the general health and well-being of a population. For example, in Zambia, the nation with the lowest life expectancy (37 years), there are more than 70 indigenous languages. This information provides context for evaluating solutions to public health problems. A strategy such as “inform the populace” becomes more complex when the populace speaks so many languages.

If she teaches the unit again, Dana is interested in trying out a software program she came across recently. “Real Lives” (http://www.educationalsimulations.com*) allows students to engage in a simulation in which they are randomly assigned an identity. Real statistical data drive what happens; for example, because one of six people in the world is Chinese, many students start with a Chinese identity. Students “live” the life of a representative citizen in their country, and suffer or enjoy the same risks and opportunities. Students make realistic choices in how they spend their money and free time (should they have any), based on personal and local resources. The software links students to online reference sites they can use to learn more about their country and their “life.”

Moving to Math
Dana now teaches at Moriarty Middle School and is continuing to explore new uses of technology in the classroom. "I don’t believe in technology for technology’s sake," she says, "but I’ve found perfect applications for mathematics.”

Integrating technology into math classes can be hard, she admits, "because there's so much to teach and little time for projects." Math teachers need to let go of “coverage” as a goal, Dana insists. "If you’re a mile wide and an inch deep, it doesn’t work."

She has developed a number of projects that take student understanding deeper through the use of databases (such as Microsoft Excel*), which allow them to capture and manipulate data. One project might have students tracking fluctuations in the stock market. In another, students conduct surveys then calcuate percentages, make charts and then interpret them. "These are real and important skills for the lower-level kids," she says. All students stand to gain from projects that engage them in "higher-order thinking."

Dana knows she's on the right track when she asks students what helped them learn math in her class. "Kids say, 'Technology!'" The smart board* alone "makes them want to come to school," she adds.

Advice for Others
For teachers new to project-based learning, Dana suggests tackling one project a quarter, "and pretty soon you have a good bank of teaching units." "Start with curriculum," she suggests, "and see how technology can enhance it. If you pick the right tool, it’s motivating."

Now that she's teaching middle school students, she continues to draw on her elementary teaching experience to teach to "the whole child. At middle school, it's so compartmentalized." She also appreciates the value of introducing children to technology during the elementary grades. "Kids can start making charts in Excel* and working with databases by third grade. They need opportunities earlier."

"Students also benefit," Dana says, "when teachers step out of the way and act as a facilitator instead of a controller." The teacher's role, she suggests, is "to guide the process where information is being exchanged rather than merely delivered."

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