search logo

Kumu Complete Summer PLTW Professional Development Program

Aug. 7, 2017

Contributed by Thomas Jones

During the summer break four KS kumu attended an intense week of a professional development program called Project Lead the Way (PLTW) in San Diego, Seattle, and Colorado. Attendees were (from left to right in photo) Kumu Kapisi, Kumu Vierra, Kumu Kimoto, and Kumu See.

Project Lead the Way's mission is to “Empower students to thrive in an evolving world.” and the program aims to help teachers engage students in real-world learning.

Kumu Geri was at San Diego State University and participated in App Creators training. She said "This training taught me about how to teach students how to create mobile apps using MIT App Inventor. There were about 30 people involved in the training; some brand new to coding and app development, just like me. The final project was to work in groups to create an app. I was amazed to see what people could create in just a few hours! This class would allow students to do the same thing – learn about “App Inventor” and computer science concepts to  create new apps that might solve a problem, gather data, or even just make life a little easier!  Cool stuff!" 

Kumu Vierra was also at San Diego State University and was a part of the Automation and Robotics cohort.

Kumu See attended Seattle University's new 8th grade science program, “Flight and Space”. He said "I learned about the design process, the history of flight and space, aeronautics, as well as living in space. This is an engineering style STEM curriculum that will be more challenging, but also more fun."

Kumu Kapisi trained in a class titled Medical Detectives in Colorado. Attendees had eight hours of course work for one week with homework in the evenings! Kumu Kapisi said "It's an awesome curriculum that I'm excited to implement this year."

All kumu that attended have stated that the program is very intense complete with training sessions starting as early as 8am and going until 4:30 or later and even homework daily that would run into the late hours of the night.

Mahalo nui and a big hoʻomaikaʻi (congratulations) to our kumu for embarking on this huge task that will ultimately benefit our haumāna (students) in a great way!


TAGS

CATEGORIES
Kaipuolono Article, Maui Newsroom, Maui Middle School, Maui campus

Print with photos Print text only