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SMART Boards Support Hands-on Learning at Daycroft Montessori School

Classrooms’ Use of Interactive, Touch-sensitive Whiteboards Helps Increase Students’ Engagement and Enhance Learning Effectiveness

Ann Arbor, MI (January 15, 2010) – For a little over a year now, classrooms at Daycroft Montessori School (www.daycroft.org) of Ann Arbor have used SMART Boards – the interactive whiteboards with touch-sensitive displays – to increase students’ engagement in their lessons and enhance learning effectiveness.

SMART Boards are used at all elementary levels of education at Daycroft, from kindergarten through 6th grade.

Daycroft’s Grades 3-4B classroom, in the school’s Elementary Campus on Zeeb Road, provides an excellent illustration of how the SMART Board helps enrich the educational experience. Head teachers Sheri Horn and Mandi Tuite apply the state-of-the-art presentation tool for everything from guiding students step by step through math, science, and language arts lessons to projecting educational videos and directing students’ use of educational computer activities.

Specifically, the SMART Board technology has recently helped Horne and Tuite bring vivid life to their students’ lessons in sign language, Greek, and Latin.

Another example of the tool in use: The SMART Board has helped Daycroft’s Grades 3-4B students learn the concepts and applications of graphing by enabling them to work with outsized grids on the interactive display’s surface.

A Perfect Complement to Traditional Montessori Works

“The SMART Board is a terrific learning tool,” says Tuite. “It’s so hands-on and visual, it provides a perfect complement to our traditional Montessori works.”

Mandi Tuite, co-head teacher, uses the SMART Board in her Grades 3-4B classroom at Daycroft Montessori School to help guide a math lesson. Watch Video »

Horne adds, “The chance to manipulate the SMART Board’s touch-screen encourages students’ involvement. It makes learning more fun. Students feel less anxiety about making mistakes and more eagerness to tackle new problems.”

SMART Boards are products of SMART Technologies ULC of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Daycroft students and teachers apply some of SMART Technologies’ own educational software for the SMART Board, while easily running other software and operating other equipment through the same display system.

For example, the Grades 3-4B co-head teachers frequently build and present lessons from a MacBook computer connected to their classroom’s SMART Board. Their students, meanwhile, call upon the SMART Board to help review lesson material, create and present PowerPoint presentations, and display the results of their online research in fully interactive, big-screen mode.

About SMART Boards – from SMART Technologies

SMART Technologies pioneered the development of the interactive whiteboard, and remains the industry’s leader. The company’s SMART Board systems and other collaboration tools enable group members to access and share the information they need to meet, teach, train, and present, regardless of their distance from each other.

More information about SMART Technologies, including SMART Boards and the company’s other products, can be found at www.smarttech.com.

About Daycroft Montessori School

Daycroft Montessori School blends the distinctive student-centered teaching methods of Maria Montessori with traditional and progressive teaching methods. Daycroft thus accomplishes its educational mission: to provide a personalized learning environment that appreciates individual differences, nurtures the whole child, and enables students to develop at their own pace and achieve to their full potential.

Daycroft is one of Washtenaw County's leading independent schools. It began as a preschool program in 1968. Daycroft has since grown to include a full-day kindergarten program, an elementary school program through 6th grade, before-school and after-school care, summer camp programs, and enrichment classes.

Daycroft has earned accreditation from the Independent Schools Association of the Central States (ISACS; www.isacs.org). It is a member of the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS; www.nais.org) and is affiliated with the American Montessori Society (AMS; www.amshq.org).

Daycroft Preprimary School (preschool and kindergarten) is at 100 E. Oakbrook Dr., Ann Arbor, MI 48104. Phone: (734) 930-0333.

Daycroft Elementary School (grades K through 6) and Daycroft's administrative offices are at 1095 N. Zeeb Rd., Ann Arbor, MI 48103. Phone: (734) 662-3335.

Media Contact:
Chris Kochmanski
DesignHub, Inc.
(734) 944-8705
chris@design-hub.com

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