#TIES10 STEM Panel Discussion

On Monday at the TIES Conference I attended a panel discussion on STEM. I was most impressed with what third grade teacher Ananth Pai was doing with technology in his classroom. Mr. Pai is a second career 4th year teacher who says that in his first year he realized that he had to make a change in his classroom. He started collecting technologies that could enhance learning in his classroom including many that some would find surprising like the Nintendo DS and other small portable devices. What struck me most about his approach was not so much how he integrated the technologies but how he selected them. His principal, three of his students, and their parents attended the session to support and share the good things that Mr. Pai is doing in his classroom. What struck me was their testimony about how much their teacher listens. Mr. Pai says he starts with what technologies the kids tell him they think they should be using admitting that they know more about what will engage them than he does. I absolutely love this approach and hope to visit his class sometime in the next couple of weeks to discuss more with him about his strategy for assessing technology and creating a student-centered learning environment. I highly recommend you check out his class webpage.