Using Asynchronous Resources to Maintain Students’ Love for STEM: Jessica Graves
Jessica Graves
Jessica Graves, AKA “Passionista”, is the STEM Lead for KIPP Texas, one of the nation’s largest and most successful charter school networks.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, KIPP’s curriculum did not include a virtual option, so Passionista knew the Academic Team had to work quickly to adapt to the new virtual world. They began exploring resources that were student-driven and asynchronous in order to maintain students’ love for STEM and keep them engaged in their schoolwork.
In order to improve virtual engagement, Passionista wanted to offer her students’ choices in their digital experience. When the Academic Team took a look at what their teachers were having initial success with, many teachers mentioned Legends of Learning. This drove Jessica to try out the program across all campuses, providing Legends to students as one of their digital options. Passionista was elated to see that students repeatedly chose Legends of Learning for review or enrichment, and they were excited to adopt the program for the school year.
Jessica credits Legends of Learning with “creating improvement in student engagement across the board. It also helped students improve by connecting prior knowledge to teacher lessons and teachers could also use it as a reinforcement for instruction. Before Legends, virtual attendance was a struggle and now more students are logging on looking forward to the next assignment.”
In October, Passionista got a Legendary surprise: “My academics team got a video of one of our students totally engaged in the Legends of Learning Awakening experience, answering questions and progressing towards mastery while battling monsters and leveling up his avatar. My team gave me a big shout out on Twitter and it made my day!”
Thank you for all your legendary work, Passionista!
