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APHS Students Do The Math With Technolgy

Kathy Waters/Highlands Today

Sophomore Hannah Allen, 15, uses the Smart clicker during algebra 1b class on Tuesday at Avon Park High School.

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By MARC VALERO | Highlands Today

Published: January 23, 2008

AVON PARK — It's like having every student raise his or her hand to answer a classroom problem.

But answering algebra questions using instant responders is less chaotic and the teacher instantly knows what percentage of his class is understanding the concept being taught.

Avon Park High math teacher Marc Davis said students using the technology knew immediately how they performed Tuesday morning on a mid-term Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) prep test.

Similar to a television remote control, the instant responder allows students to answer true/false and yes/no questions, select answers from multiple choice or enter numeric answers.

Davis is also using technology to improve his classroom presentations by editing his slide presentations and creating short video clips.

"I'm trying to move a way from a death by PowerPoint motif and taking all the slide shows that I've put together and making one or two slides that are worthy of a student's attention," he said.

Davis is seeing results from keeping it simple, but at the same time interesting for the student.

"By enriching the media I found that I had about twice as many passing on a FCAT prep class as opposed to a media-poor environment," he said.

Technology will help his advanced placement class with a water conservation project.

Students will take a photograph of a canal and be able to compare the image with a previous image to calculate the change in water volume.

Before becoming a teacher, Davis worked in research and development in the U.S. Air Force.

"I took what I knew and what I knew worked from flying and from other things and put them together," he said. For example – making a few simple changes to boost student involvement.

Students like to hear their own names, so problems always involve a student's name, Davis said.

The typical two-trains problem has been tweaked to a problem involving two cars or boats, which are operated by students.

It changes up the nature of the problem just a bit, but it's something that the students are interested in, he said.

Sometimes a computer graphic image is unnecessary to illustrate a point.

Teaching his fifth-period algebra I B class on Tuesday, Davis used scissors to cut out a parabola from a sheet of paper. But he also used his computer and projector to show how changing the coordinates of a parabola (higher or lower numbers, positive or negative) affects its shape.

Three grants were used to obtain the new technology for the classroom.

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