New programs for the new school year

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From flipping classrooms to football fields, Rockville Centre schools have many changes for the 2014-2015 school year.

First of all, every eighth grader will receive an iPad.

“Students will be able to do classwork, homework and research projects all on the iPad,” said Chris Pelletteri, the assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction. “Kids have technology everywhere in their lives — except schools.”

The iPad, he said, helps personalize education for every student, as students can download different applications suited toward their academic weaknesses and strengths.

“We believe it’s going to only enhance the instruction in the classroom,” said Dr. William Johnson, superintendent of schools. “[It will] better enable students to communicate with us and we with them.”

First graders will get to see Aesop’s Fables at the middle school. Thanks to a grant from the Rockville Centre Education Foundation, the first graders will be bused to the middle school to see the production.

“Fables are part of [the first graders’] education,” said Pelletteri.

Last year, South Side High School experimented with “flipping” classrooms, which involves giving students their classwork as homework and their homework as classwork.

Teachers film videos that explain their lessons. The night before class, the students watch the videos. When the students are in class, they do work on what they have learned from the video.

“It was made famous by the Khan Academy,” said Pelletteri. “This is based on that model, but this is our teachers and our curriculum.”

Seven teachers participated in the program last year. This year, all teachers are encouraged to participate. The Rockville Centre Education foundation gave the school a grant to set up a room where teachers can film their videos.

For the past two years, all 11th graders took IB English. Now they will also all take IB History of the Americas.

“We’ll offer a support class for students who need it,” said Pelletteri. “But based on our experience with English, we expect outstanding results again.”

Pelletteri explained that exposing children to college-level coursework reduces the chances of them taking remedial classes in the future.

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