Guest Blog Post from our Student Principal of the Day

Last month, 3rd Grader Eli Champoux, had his name picked from a hat in one of our raffles from Pizza Bingo Night. His winning prize was to be "Principal of the Day" and shadow me for the school day. As part of his expereince, he is writing a guest blog post on the Lincoln School Principal's Blog. Below is Eli's description of his day as Principal of Lincoln School.

I had morning duty, and welcomed a new student and gave his family a tour. I stopped in on some of the classrooms, and 3rd grade teacher, Mrs. McBrine, even asked me for a raise! One thing I will definitely remember, was how my older sister seemed a little emabarrased when I visited her 5th grade class.

I distributed the math-a-thon packets for every class in the building and I read Rapunzel to Mrs. Breda's Kindergarten Class. Mrs. Breda was my kindergarten teacher and I remember sitting on the rug hearing other people to read to us.  This time I was the one sitting in the rocking chair reading.

I have a lunch meeting scheduled with Mrs. Corduck, the Franklin Early Childhood Principal. I am going to explain how kindergarten was for me so she can learn more about how to help preschoolers be ready for Kindergarten.

The day was very busy and things seemed to go quickly. I had a full schedule and many things to do. I want to be a football player and a video game creator when I grow up but being a principal isn't so bad either.

Principal of the Day
Eli Champoux

Expanding the learning day? Technology did it for us.

It's really a simple formula; more time equals more learning. This is not news to those of us in education and it certainly doesn't seem like an earth shattering revelation to others. A recent study by Harvard economics professor Roland Fryer looked at the correct "recipe" for highly effective schools. His study is highlighted in a recent Boston Globe column by Gareth Cook. Mr. Fryer identified 5 common elements, one of them was extended learning time. This one aspect has proven to be very challenging for public schools mainly due to the large scale financial implications of extending the school day.

Before Fryer recognized the need for purposeful learning beyond the traditional six hour school day, Lincoln and the Melrose Public Schools starting using a variety of technology tools to "expand the learning day" with targeted activities.

Lexia, a powerful literacy development tool, is web-based and provides individualized student accounts that are closely followed by teachers, tutors and administrators. The folks at Quantum Learning, New England's largest Lexia user group, know full well the benefits of this program and how it's consistent student use with teacher follow up instruction based on the Lexia results, can make huge improvements with students decoding and comprehension skills. When students use Lexia from home or in school 3-5 times a week for 20 minutes each, we have seen students close a 1 year reading gap in 6 months.

Similarly, the Symphony Math program, is a web-based program where students progress through various stages of math skills, while the program responds to student answers, forcing students to tackle additional problems they demonstrate difficulty with. This program, uses a strong visual component to learning math, which for struggling math students, can be the piece that ties it all together.

In both programs, teachers and administrators can view each individual student's progress, where they are struggling and then respond by providing the students with some additional instruction. These programs are powerful, but they still will never replace direct, explicit instruction. However, when they are used consistently by students and the information is used by teachers to help students, the results for us have been impressive. It is real time data and assessment without testing.

With only 6 hours in the school day, we must find ways for students to engage in meaningful and directed work outside of the school day. Technology, and in particular, web enabled responsive programs like Lexia and Symphony, may be the answer for those who are looking to catch students up, but are constrained by time.