Hello All,
I visited the Fremont High School campus in Sunnyvale today as they were having their Flex period. I was fortunate to have the principal, Bryan Emmert, walk me around the entire time and talk about the process; I then met with a few teachers afterwards to get their insights.
I’ll just jot down a few things for now to get the conversation going …
-They use the TeachMore software for the student ID cards; and based on the website, it looks like San Mateo Union also uses them, but I am not sure if Aragon does.
-TeachMore allows teachers and areas, such as the library, to be capped at a certain number of students. So, if a teacher wants a max of 40 students, then the attempt to check in #41 is rejected; if a teacher wants to have a small session of only 20, then the teacher can set it to 20. This works well in the library, as Fremont caps the number at 100.
-TeachMore allows reservations, both teacher-initiated and student-initiated. A teacher can request a student, Johnny Apple, and if Apple attempts to check in to another classroom, a rejection message pops up. Students can reserve a spot in a teacher’s room, as well.
-The Library uses a mandatory reservation system; students must sign up in advance. I walked into the library and there was light chatter, but it was fairly quiet. The only people standing up were the certificated librarian and the classified library assistant.
-Principal Emmert said that, in the beginning, a computer lab was opened up. But Fremont quickly shut it down as it wasn’t very productive, and there was only a classified staff member in the lab. There are computers in their library and in the Admin Room (I’ll get to that room in a bit) and many teachers have carts. Maybe we should c...
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...out for a year. Teachers overwhelmingly re-approved it.
-The first couple of weeks of FLEX is called a “closed flex”, where students stay with their 4th period teachers and go over videos on how to do the reservation system, power points/webinars on how to best use FLEX. Takes pressure of the teachers, too, on teaching. Then, students undergo a small FLEX where, after lunch, they go back to the 4th period for FLEX. This gets them in the habit of moving. The final stage is the FLEX itself with the reservation system and everything. Emmert suggested he bypassed the traditional pilot of a few weeks out of worry that the students wouldn’t take it seriously, but that it could totally work in other schools.
-Videos made by ASB on using FLEX and PowerPoints are on their website still fhs.fuhsd.org
That’s all for now.
I’ll review my notes later.
Time for Star Wars.
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The Flex Belt is found at the website http://www.theflexbelt.com/index.php. I came across this product while watching an advertisement on YouTube.
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