Story by Jada Metze
There are many different strategies that students use to learn at school. This year, Dutch Fork is using a new tool called Actively Learn, which is being used often by students and staff.
“Yes, [we use it], it’s alright,” sophomore Kaylee Schodowski said, “but it’s pretty efficient.”
Not only does Actively Learn help students with their work, but it also helps teachers when working with their students.
“It’ll help me as an English teacher to know exactly what part of a text students struggle with. Sometimes when students read, they struggle with certain parts of the text and Actively Learn will help me see this clearly,” English teacher James Gilliam said.
For many students, Actively Learn is very easy and helpful when they do not have help from their teachers.
“Yes, it’s really easy to use,” freshman Jacob Cox said.
Dutch Fork High has recently started to use Actively Learn more often in the classroom and the students and staff enjoy using it.
“Well there’s a big push in the state right now for reading skills and teaching, and there’s the Read to Succeed Act with was passed and so there is always a need for people to become better readers and any tool that can help teachers help students become better readers is going to be a good thing,” Gilliam said.
Many students find that Actively Learn is a good site for learning.
“Actively learn is good overall,” senior Nashara Haynes said.
Others think that Actively Learn could affect the different ways that students learn.
“I think it will help everybody learn the same way,” junior Cole Lewis said.
Not only do students use Actively Learn often but many teachers are also planning on using it as well. Actively Learn is being used in many different subjects not just one subject.
“I will use Actively Learn a little bit more with some poetry analysis because when students read poetry, they tend to read it quickly one time through and not go back and think about each idea long to really analyze it, so I think it will work well with poetry,” Gilliam said, “with longer texts, it’s sometimes easier on the eyes to not have to stare at a screen for an extended period of time, but with poetry, it might really help, so I’ll try that,”
Now that our school has started to do more work on Actively Learn and work that is mostly done electronically, some activities may be conducted differently.
“There will be more things electronically than on paper and that will be good,” Jacob said.
Actively Learn is also a good tool for peers because after you respond to a question then your peers can also see it which allows them to give each other feedback.
“I also like that Actively Learn has an interactive feature where students can comment on each other’s responses and see what their class is thinking about the text,” Gilliam said. “That’s pretty good, and that you don’t have to ask a whole class, ‘Ok, what do you guys think?’ You can just see the results in a poll and it saves time and always good for teaching and reading.”