Skin in the Game Proposal Narrative

Overview

Skin in the Game (SIG) is an innovative Science, Technology, Reading, Engineering, Art, and Math (STREAM) based initiative that will impact 30 mathematics, literacy, science and visual arts teachers and 1100 students, grades 4 through 10, over a 3-year period. SIG will focus on three phases of planning, implementation, evaluation, and dissemination of a STREAM-based curriculum in three NYC Community School District Ten schools, PS 159, PS 205 and MS 45 and three nonpublic schools, St John’s, St. Phillip Neri and Mt St. Ursula Academy. District leadership, school administrators, classroom teachers, English Language Learner (ELL) and bilingual support specialists, as well as library media, visual arts and technology specialists will develop a pathway from elementary to middle school to support the effective use of a blended learning model to improve students’ academic achievement and promote digital literacy. SIG will support the development of a comprehensive plan for STREAM-based learning with a published curriculum map of units of study that spans from elementary through high school.

SIG will include professional development and mentoring of teachers, aimed at increasing capacity for educators to rethink when, where, and how students complete different components of a learning experience. Each participating learning space will become a laboratory for hands on STREAM-based project development, integrating mobile devices, digital media, cloud-based collaborative spaces, principles of game design, 3D printing, and AR/VR experiences.

SIG will promote working in a team-building approach where students participate as designers, engineers, documenters, and strategists creating STREAM-based projects, aligned with NYS Math, Science, and ELA curriculum standards. Online tools such as Google Classroom, Nearpod AR/VR, and Zulama, will provide teachers with an online curriculum platform, while scaffolding student learning from grade to grade. For example, in elementary school, students will apply the fundamentals of game design to create board games from nonfiction texts, leading to the development of video games, at the middle and high school levels. While exploring the transition from playing games to designing games, students will exercise conceptual, strategic and critical thinking, as well as communication, collaboration, creativity (4C’s) and planning skills promoting an environment of 21^st century learning across all content areas.

The Digital Age Learning (DAL) team will partner with district staff and lead school principals to build a cadre of 18 teacher ‘experts’ during phase 1 and 2 to support 12 additional teachers and specialists in their schools, during phase 3, in the development of the program. This will insure the opportunity to build capacity for turn-key training and bring the project to scope and scale for implementation in additional schools throughout the district, beyond the grant period. Professional development will be provided both face-to-face and online and will be followed by in classroom support and modeling for all participants. DAL will also provide training and support to all schools and the district for publishing program artifacts including program documents, materials, curriculum maps and student exemplary work that is handicap accessible and meets the Creative Commons License requirements, using a district Google Site, promoting dissemination of all project work to be shared to a broader community. SIG will include an outside evaluation firm, Metis Associates, to guide in development and implementation of evidence-based evaluation tools to monitor program strengths and weaknesses during phases 2 and 3 maximizing opportunities for program modification. The goals of SIG are to create a comprehensive evidence based strategic plan for STREAM-based teaching and learning, build capacity for digital leadership, to address the academic needs of students and to publish materials and artifacts for dissemination of a STREAM-based curriculum to a broader community.

Professional Development

Professional development during the 2019-2020 school year began with a focus on creating board games and using tools such as Bloxels EDU and Doodlematic to transition from board to video games. From March 2020- June 2020 professional learning focus shifted from game design in-person to ways to create interactive game-like activities virtually. Learning centered around using interactive tools such as Nearpod, Google slides with Bitmoji links and movie making tools such as FlipGrid and iMovie.

LTG Phase 2

STEM SCIENCE MAPPING

(2019-2020)

BY: MR. ALICEA

Roller Coaster Project-MS 45

Scientific Method / lab template (Scientific Literacy) before we start units.

· Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis

· Observation: Five Senses

· Identifying the parts of the Scientific method by experimentation (paper plane experiment)

· Difference between Theory and Law

· Metric System

Units before / During Projects

1. Energy

· Potential and kinetic

· Different types of Energy

· Energy Transformation

· Conservation of Energy

2. Simple machines vs. a Compound machine

· Six simple machines* (Project creating a bridge using two simple machines page 142 Prentice hall) (math: parallel lines and angles)

3. Electricity

· Magnetism/static

· Electric and Magnetic forces

· Electromagnets (positive and negative charge, electric motors, or generators.)

· Attractive or repulsive, and their sizes depend on the magnitudes of the charges

· Insulators

· Close and Open circuit (series and parallel circuits)

Biomes 3-d model/ Invention

Units before / During Projects

4. Cells: Animal and Plant *(3D animal or plant cell project)

· Cell theory and invention of microscope

· Cell organization (cell, tissue, organ, Organ system, organism)

· Life Processes (Characteristics of living things: Movement, Growth, Reproduce, Respond to stimuli, Nutrition and Excretion)

· Cell organelles and function

· Compare and contrast animal and plant cell

5. Weather *(Weather Instruments project)

· Earth’s spheres (Lithosphere, Hydrosphere, Atmosphere and Biosphere)

· Layers of the Atmosphere (Troposphere, Stratosphere, Mesosphere, Thermosphere, Ionosphere and Exosphere).

· Matter: Understanding the arrangements of molecules on a solid, liquid and Gas

· LATITUDE AND LONGITUDE

· Types of clouds and associations with different types of weather (Different types of Precipitation)

· WATER CYCLE

· Air Masses and Fronts (Extreme weather conditions such as Storms, Hurricanes, tornadoes, lighting and thunder) Possible activity tracking Hurricanes (Page 304-305)

· Weather stations (interpreting symbols and data collection) with build weather instruments.

· Climate change and Global warming

6. Ecology/negative human activity *(Biomes Project)

· Biotic and abiotic factors

· Levels of organization (Organism, Population, Community, Ecosystem and Biome)

· Food web and food Chain

· NITROGEN CYCLE

· Limiting factors (Environmental factors that causes a population to decrease)

· Interaction among living things

· EMMITION OF CARBON DIOXIDE AND NEGATIVE EFFECTS TO THE ENVIRONMENT

· Adaptation (Taped Hand activity) benefits and negative

· Symbiosis (Mutualism, Commensalism, Parasitism)

· Succession (Primary and Secondary Succession)

Science skills:

· Data collection and Graphing (beginning)

· Density (during weather or ecology)

· Classification (During ecology or cells)

· Measuring and usage of Triple Beam Balance

· Microscope (cell)

The P.S.159 Mural

The P.S.159 Mural was created with funding support from the Community School District 10 Learning Technology Grant and a NYSED Empire State After School Grant .Teaching artist Kristine Keller, from Digital Age Learning Inc. Worked with students and teachers both during the day and after school to plan and implement the project. The mural was designed by students in the after school program and painted during the course of a year. The students created images that conveyed a personal message and were then taught how to scale up their images and transfer them to the mural. The students also created an Augmented Reality game incorporated into the mural depicting various short films created by the students during their day school classes with the support of their technology teacher, Mr Jay Rodriguez.

P.S.159 Arcade

Through the use of the IPad Application Bloxels EDU, students in the 5th grade created pixelated video games. Each game created by the students followed a fictional story that was created in conjunction with their own video game. The entire process required students to create a fictional story, which required extensive character and story development as well computer coding and programing. This project was supported during day time classes with the grade 4 ELA teacher and the schools technology specialist, Mr Jay Rodriguez.

Below are sample back grounds and screen levels created by the students in bloxels.

PS 159 The Labyrinth- This structure was created by students using Connects and then used as a maze for creating a game with a Sphero ball, which had to navigate through the maze

Students at PS 159 build their own video arcade car.

PS 205 Student Council iMovie Project- 4th grade students at PS 205 created a virtual student council newsroom using Flipgrid and iMovie

Teachers from PS 159 create interactive Bitmoji classrooms for their students