Exploration Classroom for Assistive Technology: Allenby Public School

HSP Class – Math Focus

Teachers recently visited Lisa Sherman’s HSP classroom to observe how she is incorporating assistive technology into her math programme.  Visiting teachers observed the use of interactive whiteboard technology and Read and Write Gold software to support students to make connections between concepts and terminology in an equations unit launch.

Using layers to model the unknown (n)

The highlight of the morning was when students used the Read and Write Gold vocabulary tool to generate a digital word bank that included definitions and images to support the understanding of key mathematical terms.  Students independently read, edited and added additional notes to their word banks to clarify their understanding of terms through the use of Read and Write Gold.  Students were challenged when the vocabulary tool did not generate an image for the word “unknown” and quickly provided suggestions to each other about a visual that could be used (?, n) in their word bank.

Digital Word Bank edited by students.

Digital Word Bank edited by students.

In the afternoon, visiting teachers had the opportunity to review how the interactive whiteboard could be used to support students to chunk, comprehend and communicate mathematical concepts.   Participants then adapted their own lesson content using the assistive technology tools.

We look forward to hosting another Exploration Classroom for Assistive Technology at Allenby P.S. in April focusing on the use of assistive technology to support language in the HSP classroom.