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New School Year, New Technology in Ohio County and Marshall County

Photo by Scott McCloskey Bethlehem Elementary School students board a school bus Thursday following the first day of classes in Ohio County.

GLEN DALE — Students in Ohio and Marshall counties spent their first day of the new school year immersed in new technology that the districts are using to change the way they educate them.

Marshall County students will get a unique educational experience because every school in the county has added new STEM courses under Project Lead the Way.

By 11 a.m. Thursday, students returning to Glen Dale Elementary were breaking out gears and diagrams to tackle problem-solving situations. Project Lead the Way, a nonprofit initiative to bring STEM education to classrooms, will be brought to Sand Hill, Center McMechen and McNinch elementary schools by the second semester. Related programs already are in place at the county’s middle and high schools, and have been for years.

Meanwhile, in Ohio County, the district distributed nearly 400 Chromebooks to sixth-grade students. Ohio County Schools Innovation Coordinator JoJo Shay said she hopes the computers will help change the way the district approaches learning. In addition to the sixth-graders, the district gave another 400 Chromebooks to high school language arts classes. The high school Chromebooks will stay at the school, while the sixth-grade students will take theirs home.

Marshall County Curriculum Director Woody Yoder said his district’s new resources make that county the first in the state to have STEM education at every grade level from kindergarten to high school.

“There’s no other county in the state of West Virginia that has Project Lead the Way in every grade school, in every classroom, all the way up to middle and high school,” Yoder said. “Every grade-school classroom will have some modules at some point this year … they’ll be working with those modules.”

In Jenny Finley’s third-grade class, students were using plastic mechanical parts and schematics while working in groups to solve a problem. In their case, they were trying to rescue a tiger from the bottom of a ravine. Students worked in groups of four and bounced ideas off one another.

“They’re going to use the items in this vex kit to build a lever, a pulley, some type of apparatus to remove that tiger without getting involved in any way,” Finley said. “They’re giving me their ideas, and they’re saying, ‘We need to use a platform.’ That’s a big word for a third-grader, so they’re already using some vocabulary from Project Lead the Way.”

Engineering, biomedical and computer classes are held at each grade level, which allow students to familiarize themselves with the fields as they progress and grow older. The hope is that by the time students reach high school, they will have a solid understanding of the technology and an idea of whether they want to continue into specialized education.

“It’s not something they’re going to use one time and forget it; they’re going to continue building on and using the vocabulary they use,” Finley said. “It is very exciting. The students are ready to do this, hands on. The classroom environment is empowering students to develop in-demand knowledge and problem solving skills.

“It’s going to encourage students to collaborate and become group problem-solvers,” she added. “This will really help the students as they move on in their careers, and in college. They’ve been exposed to Project Lead the Way. They’ll be able to say, ‘Yes, I had the experience in high school, middle school and grade school. I want to go into that field.'”

In Ohio County, Shay said she believes Chromebooks will replace traditional tools of learning.

“In some cases, they’ll be used to substitute for paper or textbooks, or other items that we’d normally be using,” she said. “What we’re really trying to get to is a sort of redefinition of teaching — creating activities and assignments for students that are more project based, and students would use multiple pieces of technology to create something new with what they’ve learned.

“We’re running the gamut with what we’ve learned, because the teachers are learning, the students are getting used to the devices, but that’s our goal, to begin to redefine how we teach by including technology in our instruction,” she said.

Yoder said an emphasis on teamwork and cooperative problem-solving were goals of Project Lead the Way, and by assigning individual roles for group projects, students must learn to cooperate.

“That’s certainly something appealing about Project Lead the Way,” he said. “There is still that element of ‘You have to learn this, and learn it your way, and stay in your vacuum.’ But this is a collaborative setting, when you start using materials to solve a problem, and do it together. It’s not group work — which everyone assumes is one person doing all the work while everyone gets the grade — no. These students absolutely rely on one another to accomplish their tasks.”

Yoder said one student had approached him already on the first day, saying he’d seen a similar project that his sister had done at an open house at Moundsville Middle School.

“I’m excited to be in third grade and learn new things, taking another step up from what I’m used to and learning more,” said third-grade student Chaz Bowman.

Project Lead the Way began in Marshall County several years ago with a grant from Chevron to promote engineering and other STEM education in the county. Since its inception at Cameron High School, the program spread to other schools. Voters last year approved a five-year operating levy — projected to bring in around $28 million for the school district over five years — that allowed the project to continue.

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