Published: August 26, 2008 08:37 pm            

Rose-Hulman’s PRISM Web portal another resource for teachers

TERRE HAUTE — Vigo County middle-school and high-school science teachers are prepared to bring engaging, standards-based learning materials into their classes this school year through resources available in Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology’s Portal Resources for Indiana Science and Mathematics project.

Started in 2003, PRISM is helping integrate advanced educational technologies into Indiana school classrooms in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The project offers a digital library of more than 2,300 resources indexed by the Indiana Academic Standards and cross referenced by learning concepts for sixth through eighth grades.

Before starting this school year, 19 teachers from nine Vigo County School Corp. schools attended a weeklong educational workshop at Rose-Hulman, organized by PRISM Director and Rose-Hulman professor Patricia Carlson. The sessions provided a practical, hands-on learning environment and focused on integrating PRISM’s digital resources into classroom instruction.

PRISM, Rose-Hulman faculty and VCSC resource teachers are joining to offer best practices in creating rich and motivating learning units. The workshop provided opportunities for teachers to get ready for the opening of school by building engaging classroom activities.

“The use of the technology stood out for me,” said Peggy Diehl, an eighth-grade science teacher at Sarah Scott Middle School. “The thing I really like is being able to do online tests and quizzes. The students can get immediate feedback and grading is simplified since it is an online service.”

The workshop allowed Karen Henman, seventh-grade science teacher at Woodrow Wilson Middle School, to collaborate with teachers throughout the school system, sharing and exchanging ideas that should benefit teachers and students throughout the school year.

“We’re going to be able to share some of the ideas using the portal together,” stated the veteran educator. “For example, [during the workshop] I worked on an extra-credit assignment where students can actually read a current science article online or at the library. Teachers from other schools can use that same activity. We’re expanding our learning communities.”

Joe Hall, seventh-grade science teacher at Otter Creek Middle School, also liked the collaborative nature of learning alongside other teachers — all in hopes of helping students.

“The intent [of PRISM] is to help us improve what we do in the classroom by using the new technology and sharing learning experiences with each other,” Hall said.

Leslee McNeely, a chemistry and physics teacher at Terre Haute North Vigo High School, added, “It will be great for the students to be able to go home and review materials discussed in class. If they don’t remember something I have told them in the classroom, they can go home and see it for themselves [on the Web].”

Other teachers participating in the PRISM workshop included Otter Creek science teachers Dianna Cooper, Cynthia Hargis, Brent Mier and Kathy Miller; Honey Creek science teachers Mandi Cox, Brenda Rector, Joyce Striclyn and Carol Tolin; Terre Haute North science teachers Jodie Smith and Mike Williams; Theresa Adler of Sarah Scott; Cynthia Strange of Chauncey Rose Middle School; Lana Thralls of West Vigo Middle School; Frank Holley of McLean High School; and Merryn Cole of West Vigo High School.

The local educators join more than 5,000 Indiana educators who have PRISM accounts granting them access to online course materials for more than 10,000 Indiana students. Many other educators use the open access library of simulations, modeling packages, cognitive skills games, and software that increases student task engagement and motivates learning. The PRISM Web site averaged 1,190 unique users per day at the end of the 2007-08 school year, and PRISM was named in 2006 as one of the top 15 educational technology innovations in the nation by the Journal of Technology Horizons in Education.

“PRISM is the premier Web site for Indiana middle-school teachers’ STEM course work and has become a nationally recognized project,” said Carlson, who also is a professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences. “PRISM has three well-defined strengths: a library of reviewed digital resources indexed by Indiana Academic Standards, a convenient framework for integrating Web resources into the classroom, and workshops and e-course offerings for teacher development.”

PRISM is supported by the Lilly Endowment Inc. and Rose-Hulman.

A major transforming agent for education in the near future will be the rapid advancements in informational technology used in the workplace, according to Carlson. New tools for knowledge workers indicate that the next wave of educational reform may well require a focus on academic standards that incorporate emerging information technology proficiencies into the traditional STEM curricula.

To meet this rising need, PRISM began offering free distance education courses to train teachers in the use of the Moodle course management system and the PRISM digital resource library. Teachers are instructed on how to create their own online learning environment that allows them to post interactive assignments and design informative Web pages that allow their students to submit assignments electronically and critique the work of classmates. More than 300 teachers have completed the course since January.

“The whole idea of Moodle is very interesting. I have also found a new Web site, Teacher Tube, that I had never known about,” Diehl noted.

Teachers have praised PRISM and comment that students show improved problem-solving skills and recognize connections between the classroom and real-world events. Using well-known regression techniques, the statistical evidence for the project’s assessment indicates there is a direct — and statistically significant — relationship between the use of PRISM at a school and students’ performance on the eighth grade I-STEP math exam for the years 2003 and 2006, according to Carlson.

“Increased use of PRISM by a school’s teachers, holding everything else constant, leads to larger increases or smaller decreases in their eighth-grade students’ I-STEP math scores,” Carlson said.

        

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.