Middle School Voices

In fall 2019, Oklahoma City 10th grader Andrew created a wonderfully complex and innovative game as his culminating project for his study of the Old English Poem Beowulf. In this 27 minute interview, Andrew describes his game and how it connected to the themes as well as historical, cultural context of Beowulf. 10th grade English teacher, Dr. Bonnie Gerard, explains project expectations and how Andrew found a very creative way to blend his understanding of game theory, mathematics and probability, with the themes of both Beowulf as well as "honor" in Scandinavian culture to demonstrate his mastery of the unit's goals and objectives. Listen to Andrew and Dr. Gerard's description of this fantastic project and the backstory of how it was created!

An interview on March 12, 2018, with Eric Ebert. Eric teaches upper division computer science courses in Oklahoma City. Referenced book: "Teaching with Your Mouth Shut" by Donald L. Finkel: https://www.amazon.com/Teaching-Your-Mouth-Donald-Finkel/dp/0867094699

On August 26, 2017, representatives of the 4 divisions of our school met together with staff for a Saturday retreat to reflect on ways to build a school culture supportive of computer science, STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) learning, Maker Education and digital literacy.

This edition features an interview with 11th grader Hannah Jordan & Mrs Sheila Kruse. They discuss a unique sociological study Hannah is conducting in Oklahoma and in France as part of an upcoming spring break trip.

This episode features an interview with Janine Perry, who teaches high school biology and environmental science in Oklahoma City. Janine uses a variety of technology integration platforms and tools with her students to enable them to show what they know using media and better retain vocabulary and concepts they are learning in class.

This episode  includes an interview with lower school art teacher Megan Thompson, who has been using an iPad in the past year to enhance and augment student learning. By using the iPad "AirPlaying" to an Apple TV connected television, encouraging students to record audio reflections about their artwork, and documenting the process of creating art projects, Mrs. Thompson is finding the iPad to be a transformative addition to her classroom toolkit as a teacher. Learn more about what is happening in Mrs. Thompson's art classroom by following her on Twitter: http://twitter.com/seeingnewshapes

Rob Huber teaches 8th grade Algebra in Oklahoma City, and has been experimenting with a variety of strategies to flip classroom learning the past two years. In this podcast interview, he talks about his journey and how he is using the iPad app Explain Everything to create short tutorial videos for students to watch at home, so they can work on more challenging problems together in class.