Students using VR headsets that were purchased from a GCCF grant. Photo courtesy of PCSD
As Paton-Churdan returns from winter break, there have been a few new additions in student learning.
Principal Annie Smith says two staff members, led by Lauren Bardole, had previous experience with a robotics team with LEGO League. She points out that after they were awarded a grant, work started immediately in the classroom and now it is moving to get students to form an actual team that they can compete against other students across the state. She shares what she has seen from the students already this school year.
“I’ve been able to sit in on some of the classroom pieces of it and to see these minds working, I mean when I walk in there it’s 100 percent engagement, kids are working together, you can see their minds just moving, they’re working to solve problems, or they’re working to create things. It’s fun, it’s fun to see that. I’m excited to see what comes of it.”
Smith notes that Bardole also received a Greene County Community Foundation grant for new virtual reality headsets. Smith describes how having this kind of technology helps students better understand certain topics such as visiting Ancient Greece or being immersed in the setting of a book that they are reading.
“It just expands our kids’ world. Not everybody has the opportunity to go to those places or to see those places, or even to experience it in museums or things like that. And this gives them the chance to have first-hand, right there, real world – I’m going to say real world – but it really seems like it is because they are transplanted to those places.”
Smith is thankful for having such a caring staff that has out-of-the-box thinking to enhance student learning at Paton-Churdan.