Grants Awarded for the 2015-16 School Year

1. SRI Winter Conference

Patricia Kinsella, Assistant Superintendent
This professional development initiative is an out-of-cycle grant awarded for the 2015-2016 school year.  This grant funded two teachers, Math Specialists Elaine Herzog and Carol Walker, to attend the School Reform Initiative Facilitative Leadership Winter Conference from January 14-16 in Miami, Florida. This opportunity gave them additional training in how to be a leader in schools, designing working meetings, and facilitating professional development. They will share their learnings with the district upon their return. This conference was intended to build on current LPS professional development with Gene Thompson Grove.

2. Artist Day Residency: Porfirio Gutiérrez: Zapotec Weaver from Oaxaca, Mexico

Donna Lubin, Art Specialist, Hanscom Primary School
This grant provides grade 5-7 students at both the Hanscom and Lincoln campuses the opportunity to spend the day with an acclaimed Mexican weaver. Porfirio Gutierrez is an award winning artist from Oaxaca, Mexico who will spend one day at Hanscom and one day at Lincoln Middle School showing students all phases of the weaving process including how natural colors are derived from plants, minerals and insects.
Click here to read the Grant Summary  

3. Innovation Accelerator

Rob Ford, Director of Technology
This professional development initiative is designed to facilitate the dissemination of best-in-class innovative teaching methods to enhance the learning experience for LPS students. A new faculty innovation platform will serve as a forum to highlight and share model lessons created by LPS teachers and instructional technology specialists. The use of short videos created will showcase the innovative teaching practice and how it positively impacts student learning. Through this platform, teachers will be able to watch the video, ask questions, and sign up to do a peer observation or coaching session to help introduce the practice into the teacher’s classroom dove-tailing nicely with the district’s peer mentoring program. The Innovation Accelerator will also host an ongoing series of online and blended learning opportunities for teachers as well as a “Teaching with Technology Boot Camp” for educators new to the Lincoln Public Schools. On an annual basis, the program hopes to sponsor an outside innovative educator to spend a day with the district presenting their work and leading workshops to further expand the possibilities for incorporating the best ideas.

4. Lincoln METCO Film Project

Lateefah Franck, Lincoln METCO Team
This school-community collaboration incorporates professional development with student learning. Middle school students will work to write, film, and produce a documentary that captures various perspectives culminating in an “I am Lincoln” iMovie. Student interviews with peers, teachers, families, and community members will be the basis for this short film. Students will then have the opportunity to work with a professional production crew to edit and enhance the film getting it ready to present to the school community. Additionally, the film will be used as part of a professional development workshop discussing how culture impacts school performance and culturally relevant teaching and classroom practices.

5. Reflections of a Military Child: A Hands-on Memoir Writing Project

Nancy Rote, Hanscom Librarian
This new curriculum initiative supports sixth-graders in writing “their story”, putting down on paper what it means to be a military child. The grant partners with Author Doug Wilhelm on creating memoirs, editing, revising and finally publishing the memoirs. While the author is present he will give a presentation to sixth through eighth graders on bullying and other middle school challenges as well as a parent presentation.
Click here to read the Military Memoirs Newsletter

6. LittleBits, Big Ideas

Josh Gold, Hanscom Middle School Math Teacher
This new curriculum initiative expands the HMS Programming Club to include fourth and fifth graders as well as an extensions course for sixth graders. LittleBits are magnetic circuit boards that students can snap together and create “anything”, taking the programming logic they are currently learning and allowing them to work with prototyping.

7. Build a Chicken Coop – 6th Grade Engineering

David Trant, Brooks School 6th Grade Science and Engineering Teacher
This grant proposal ties together new curriculum initiative along with school-community collaboration and professional development. Sixth grade students will have an authentic engineering learning experience while building a chicken coop for a Lincoln resident. Students will gather requirements from the client, perform a site identification, consult with local government, design and build this engineering challenge in parts and then participate in the on-site installation of the final product.

8. Learning While Moving Around the Classroom

Colette Kuchel and Kim Haflich, Smith School Behaviorist/Special Education Teachers
This new curriculum initiative seeks to provide open access to movement tools for all children in one classroom from each grade as a trial. Observations and surveys will be conducted at the beginning, mid-point and conclusion of the year to determine if open access to these movement tools benefitted all students in the classroom, not just those that have been designated as needing them, thus making the case for a more robust arsenal of movement tools going forward.
Click to read the Learning While Moving Final Report

9. Electro-Magnetics in 7th Grade

Mairead Curtis, Science Engineering Curriculum Leader
This new curriculum initiative develops lessons and labs and allows for the purchase of materials to support seventh graders learning the effect of distance and magnitude of electronic charge and current on the size of the electromagnetic forces. Additionally students will use scientific evidence to prove that fields exist between objects with mass, between magnetic objects, and between electronically charged objects that exert force on each other even when they are not touching.

10. Revitalizing the Regions in Grade Four

Grade Four Team with Gwen Blumberg, Smith School Teaching Team and Literacy Specialist
This new curriculum initiative aims to help bring to life the study of the regions of the United States. Teachers will create specific lesson plans to utilize books that bring the imagery, culture, history, natural resources and geography of the five US regions to life. Additionally, the curriculum will integrate language arts and social studies as well as further develop the use of Close Reading.
Click to read the Revitalizing the Regions in Grade 4 Final Report

11. Hanscom Middle School Garden

Becca Fasciano, Hanscom Middle School 6th Grade Science/6th – 8th AP Tech Teacher
This new curriculum initiative supports the life science STE standards being adopted Fall 2016, but more importantly provides students a hands-on experience with plants, increasing their understanding of how food arrives on their plates. Students in fourth and sixth grades will work together to plan, plant and maintain four raised-bed gardens in front of the HMS. The collaboration between the students will allow fourth graders, new to the Middle School, to be mentored by sixth graders. Herbs and vegetables produced in the garden will be used in school lunches.

12. STEM: Plant Biology in 7th Grade

Mairead Curtis, Science Engineering Curriculum Leader
This new curriculum initiative creates lessons and labs to enable seventh graders to discover more about plant structure and how a plant’s characteristics enable it to successfully reproduce. They will discover the properties of plants (colorful flowers to attract butterflies for pollination, hard shells of nuts so squirrels can bury them, etc.) that enable these plants to prosper.

13. Jump Right In! 

Stacey Clarkin, Hanscom Primary School Wellness Specialist
This new curriculum initiative provides both Lincoln and Hanscom campuses with a visit from the Beantown Jumpers, a double dutch jump roping team to help promote cardiovascular exercise. PE Specialist would learn double dutch and incorporate this type of jumping into the current jump rope unit. Additionally, this grant includes jump ropes and jump rope music to encourage students to make up their own jump rope routines inspired by the Beantown Jumpers.

14. Engaging Students Using the iPad as a Creation Tool

Nicole Putman, Hanscom Instructional Technology Specialist
This graduate-level professional development opportunity allows teachers to explore how the iPad can be used as a tool to deepen cognitive demand and engage students in authentic learning experiences. Teachers will explore open-ended iPad applications including iMovie, Book Creator, Explain Everything, Puppet Pals, Felt Board, and Bookabi. Teachers will be required to develop lessons, projects or assessments that are grounded in the learning standards and allow students to use the iPad as tools to create. Follow-up and project sharing components are scheduled throughout the year.

15. Physical Science Bootcamp for Elementary School Teachers

Mairead Curtis, Science Engineering Curriculum Leader
This professional development initiative creates three opportunities for elementary school teachers to learn science content so that they will be more confident in teaching science concepts in their classrooms. Teachers will first learn the core components of Physical, Life, and/or Earth Sciences, how to teach them and what to teach students about “how science is done”. Participants will then split into groups to dig deeper into grade-specific content. This is the first formal opportunity in which middle school teachers will be teaching elementary school teachers subject area content to help raise the bar across all grade levels. A follow-up component is included to ensure that the knowledge and comfort with teaching science subjects is sustained throughout the year.

16. Infusing Social Thinking Into the Curriculum

Grace Janusis and Mara Salis, Hanscom School Psychologist and School Social Worker
This new curriculum initiative helps support the Hanscom Primary School students with social, emotional, and behavioral functioning in the classroom in two ways. First, the purchase of “Whole Body Listening Larry” book and poster for each classroom and specialist room allows for consistency and common language between classes and grades. Secondly, Kindergarten classrooms will use the “Incredible Flexible You” curriculum, which complements the Responsive Classroom, and sets the stage in the first few weeks of school for positive behavioral, social and emotional growth.

17. 3D Printing for MakerSpace and Cross-curricular Units

Josh Gold, Hanscom Middle School Math Teacher
This grant supports new curriculum initiatives in many of the middle school grades. The purchase of a 3-D printer would allow students to take their poster and cardboard design projects to another level. For example, this grant would enable cross-curriculum efforts related to studying ancient Egyptian pyramids and Greek architecture.

18. “Wiggle It” Fitness Disks and Exercise Bands in the Classroom

Siobhan Rooney, Smith School First Grade Teacher
This new curriculum initiative provides balance disks or “wiggle” seats and fitness bands to give children the ability to move around more while sitting thus making them more attentive, alert and focused. The “wiggle seats” are portable therefore they can be used on chairs or during “rug” time. This initiative provides 1 to 1 access to wiggle seats and bands, allowing the assessment of a whole class as opposed to select opportunities in the classroom.

19. From Prototype to Fabrication

Josh Gold, Hanscom Middle School Math Teacher
This grant allows seventh grade STEM students the opportunity to take their learning further with enhanced opportunities to design and program video games as well as design a 3D enclosure that would be printed to hold their Arduino unit. The cost of the grant would cover twenty Arduino Uno Boards, USB cables, and TFT shields and 3D printer filament.

20. AppleTV and iPads: 1x1 in the Classroom

Matt Reed, Smith School First Grade Teacher
This new curriculum initiative will allow First Grade teachers in the Smith School to program content on an iPad that then allows the class to share their work in an interactive way. New projectors equipped with AppleTV will wirelessly pick up signals from the desired iPad and that child’s work will be displayed on the board for discussion or presentation purposes.