Written by Charlotte Brearley, BSD Education

Enrichment programs are after school activities designed to give students the opportunity to try new things and explore and develop interests outside of the classroom. Activities can range from sports to cooking, from drawing to coding. All you need is a passionate teacher or external instructor, who can run an activity that aligns with the interests of your students. Another option you can consider is to challenge your students and get them to run their own activity. For example, we have worked with a student at the South Island School in Hong Kong to start an after school code club. It’s been incredibly successful and he now has a waiting list!  

Enrichment programs are not just something that fills time between school and home though. They have a huge number of benefits and provide opportunities for students to further their interests from the classroom or to try something totally new. They help students develop a love for learning in their own time, expand their mind and gain skills that will help them in their academic and professional careers. Learning outside the classroom also gives students the opportunity to experiment and take risks with no implications. They are not being graded or compared to their peers and so students can try things out and learn from their mistakes. This in turn will build students’ confidence as they learn new skills and immerse themselves in new experiences.

Although activities may take place outside the classroom, their benefits will follow your students into their studies. According to “After School Programs in the 21st Century: Their Potential and What It Takes to Achieve It” published by Harvard Family Research Project, many studies “repeatedly underscore the impact of supporting a range of positive learning outcomes, including academic achievement, by affording children and youth opportunities to learn and practice new skills through hands-on, experimental learning.”

These benefits are all true of our experience at BSD. We offer programs at our own space in Hong Kong and at a large number of schools in both Hong Kong and Philadelphia. As after school programs are in a student’s own time, we know it’s important to provide an educational but also fun and sociable environment. We particularly focus on collaboration and teamwork as our programs often bring together students from a range of different backgrounds and age groups. As a result, we have found that students participating in enrichment activities not only build technical knowledge, but also develop vital future skills such as working collaboratively with new people, problem solving and presentation skills. You can found out more about what we offer here.

Enrichment programs are a great way to encourage students to follow their passions, develop new interests and build new skills. You should think about the activities you can offer and inspire your students to try something different.

Written by Eva Yeung, BSD Education

Last week we discussed tech-ed versus edtech and introduced 3 reasons why you should bring technology learning into your subject. For the next 3 weeks, we will be sharing ways to integrate technology into different subject areas, to kick off this series, let’s begin with science.

Many educators would immediately consider bringing in hardware, such as robotics. However, this requires purchasing new kits. There are other quick and simple ways to inject tech into your existing lessons and activities!

We are going to look at the 3 main ways that technology enhances and supports the science classroom: improving data collection and analysis, supported visualization of abstract phenomena and the presentation of findings.

Improving Data Collection and Analysis

When introducing the topic of data to students, don’t stop with pen and paper! Introduce tech tools such as Google Sheets to help students organize their data for better analysis. For an authentic technology learning experience, introduce students to simple programming projects using JavaScript to create dynamic data visualizations that support their understanding of the relationships between their datasets. Through such activity, students will practice 21st-century skills in working with and interpreting meaning from data with the support of technology.

Visualization of Abstract and Intangible Concepts

In a school environment, some experiments and simulations are inaccessible due to safety or budget constraints. For many students, abstract and intangible concepts in science can become challenging to grasp without visualizations. This is where computer-generated simulations become extremely useful to support student understanding. Bring in simulation projects, such as a project that simulates the speed of orbit of different planets around the sun, a plant simulation game to learn about the requirements to keep a healthy plant or a game of Pong to understand forces. Students can be challenged to solve problems by modifying values of simple computing concepts such as variables, conditionals, and animations to represent a real-world process/phenomena through experiential learning.

Presentation of Research/Findings

Give students an authentic audience to write for. The next time you set a poster or report task or assessment, consider asking students to present their findings and research through an online poster, website, or information app. In planning to use digital artifacts, students are challenged to consider the user experience and will use graphical and organization devices effectively to present information in an engaging and dynamic way. An added benefit of this activity is the shareability of the completed artifacts. Practice online safety and digital citizenship by asking students to consider how they communicate information online.

As shown above, you don’t have to change your existing curriculum and sacrifice hours from your existing practices and curriculum to give students the opportunity to practice important tech skills! If you are interested in hearing more about the BSD cross-curricular project offerings, please contact us – we would love to walk you through what we have to offer to you and your students.

Written by Mo Qureshi, BSD Education.

What are the MIT STEAM Challenges?

The MIT STEAM Challenges is a collaboration between Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Nord Anglia Education to enhance the teaching and learning of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM) by connecting MIT innovation and culture to Nord Anglia schools globally through project based challenges.

Since 2016, MIT has designed three challenges per year, which have been implemented in Nord Anglia schools. The Challenges are in-school cross curricular experiences for Nord Anglia students based on MIT research. The MIT Challenges are a unique opportunity aimed to give a taste of MIT to every school, teacher, and student in the Nord Anglia Education family. Each MIT Challenge embodies the teaching and learning culture of MIT, is rooted in the research of MIT faculty, and makes that research relevant and accessible to Nord Anglia students.

This Year’s Theme

The 2018-2019 MIT Challenge is themed “STEAM Superheroes”. The challenges highlight the research of three MIT professors and their ‘sidekick’ graduate student researchers, for Nord Anglia to use as inspiration for developing their own innovations, powers, devices, identities, and more.

Each of the three “STEAM Superheroes” challenges present the work of an MIT professor and a graduate student researcher as a snapshot of life at MIT. Nord Anglia students then tackle a project of their own, using the professor and their process as inspiration

The three STEAM Superheroes and their powers are:

1. Epic Identity featuring Prof. Leia Stirling: Students will learn about wearable technology and its ability to improve human performance.
2. Super Natural featuring Prof. Anette “Peko” Hosoi: Students will closely observe the natural world and understand the physics behind an animal’s adaptation, then apply that knowledge to engineering design.
3. Medical Marvel featuring Prof. Chris Voigt: Students will tap into the potential of applying engineering principles to biological problems to improve human health.

BSD Education and Nord Anglia International School, Hong Kong

BSD partnered with Nord Anglia International School, Hong Kong (NAIS HK) in 2017/18 to develop and deliver projects for the MIT STEAM Challenges.

As part of the partnership, BSD delivered PD for 4 NAIS HK teachers in 2017 and is training 8 teachers in 2018. The 4 teachers developed in 2017, internally trained 4 teachers each, making a total of 20 teachers trained in 2017.

What students will learn to build using BSD Online in 2018-19

NAIS HK is using BSD’s cross-curricular curriculum offering – TechConnected with their Year 3-6 students to build their own customised creations for the MIT STEAM Challenges. Students will build their foundation with coding by learning HTML and CSS, learn the fundamentals of Computational Thinking, and learn how to make their digital artifacts and present their work.

The BSD projects recommended can be used by students to showcase and present work or to apply their learning. For example, students will showcase their work by documenting their journey of researching and building their own STEAM Challenge and present this by creating a digital portfolio. Students learn about the challenges of space travel, the preparation required and what astronauts do when they face problems in space; then students apply this learning by creating a Mission to Mars theme Choose Your Own Adventure game.

All students will be build their own Personal Portfolio Showcase to document their learning and showcase what they have built. In addition to this, students will complete the following projects in each year group:

1. Year 3: Introduction to coding in HTML & CSS followed by coding and designing their Online Poster with a Keep Calm and Carry On theme.
2. Year 4: My First Website to explain and document their STEAM Challenge
3. Year 5: My First Website with the theme of “Into the Unknown” and Choose Your Own Adventure with a “Mission to Mars” theme.
4. Year 6: Trivia Game and MicroBit Wearables with a “Medical Marvel” theme.

At BSD, we believe in and advocate for introducing digital skills, including coding, to students during the primary years. This builds a strong foundation of skills,  knowledge and experience applying technology that they have created in a real-world context to make them future ready and prepare them for technology first careers.

If you are infusing your regular lessons with technology skills we would love to hear from you.

Written by Eva Yeung, BSD Education

As educators, we want to bring the most relevant and engaging learning experience to our students to ensure they are prepared for the future. One effective way to do this is to bring on “meaningful technology activities” into the classroom, but what does this mean? Where do you start?

First of all, let’s debunk the differences between Education Technology (ed-tech) versus Technology Education (tech-ed).

In the ed-tech community, educators encourage the use of technology to enhance the process of learning of the current school curriculum – Science, Mathematics, Languages, for example, using search engines to conduct research or writing using Google Docs. Through edtech, students use appropriate technology tools to more effectively, efficiently or engagingly do a traditional classroom activity. Whilst bringing in technology to enhance traditional learning, in many classrooms teachers are not yet evolving the “what” students are learning. This is an integral piece for preparing our students to create their own tools rather than becoming consumers. On the other hand, technology education (tech-ed) is the focus on learning how technology works. This encompasses coding and programming, innovation through technology, and computer science. Technology education learning will likely be covered in your school’s coding elective, or technology class. However, we still find the absence of a real-world connection and authenticity in classroom technology projects.

At BSD, we believe in a holistic approach to learning, where students are pro-active and creative, and more importantly, where their learning is sustainable and relevant. In our curriculum, we take on a blended approach to bring balance in technology learning. It shouldn’t be edtech or tech-ed, we want to enable teachers to integrate technology meaningfully into their lessons by offering projects such as building a website to present research for history using HTML and CSS, or reinforcing the learning of planets and orbit through coding a simulation using JavaScript. In the K-12 Computer Science Framework (US), the ‘practice’ highlights the opportunities and benefits of a cross-curricular approach to develop skills, such as computational thinking and tech skills, purposefully. Supported by tech, in English, Mathematics, and Science, students develop their skills in defining problems and developing models through abstraction. They also hone their ability to communicate their rationale for chosen solutions. This occurs through exciting projects such as building an information chatbot to showcase their subject understanding. The image below illustrates different pathways to introduce and integrate computing concepts through K-12. Considering the structure of the K-12 education system, it is more difficult to integrate into subject areas in High School due to the existing curriculum demands, therefore a more specialist approach is preferred by schools to offer students the depth of learning into the topic.

From p.165 of the K-12 Computer Science Framework (US) by the K-12 Computer Science Framework Steering Committee.

In the next few weeks, we will take a deep dive into six subject areas (English, Mathematics, Science, Humanities, Geography, and Foreign Languages) to discuss how you can bring authentically connected and integrated tech projects into your subject area.

In the next few weeks, we will take a deep dive into six subject areas (English, Mathematics, Science, Humanities, Geography, and Foreign Languages) to discuss how you can bring authentically connected and integrated tech projects into your subject area.