This is a gift to all the teachers out there who are continually looking for new ways to engage and motivate their students to learn. After finding a math based Jeopardy powerpoint online I decided to modify it for a wider audience as a template. I also embedded real Jeopardy sounds into the presentation for effects that will keep learners engaged.

In less than 15 minutes of time you can have a new lesson plan created which revolves around the fun and exciting game of Jeopardy. You can use it to test learners on any subject imaginable.

Click “continue reading” below to download your  own copy

• Powerpoint Jeopardy Template – with sounds (4.1 mb download)

• Powerpoint Jeopardy Template – no sounds (636 kb download)

Please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions! I love feedback.

As spring bursts forth with its energetic new growth, springtime finds the KCI also blossoming and growing as we go global to help improve teaching and learning beyond Silicon Valley. I’m delighted to share this major news with you. This spring, the KCI has led the charge to train 105 K-12 teachers and administrators in the Philippines! The premier cohort of enthusiastic Filipino educators will then train 3,500 additional teachers in the country’s Pangasinan area. Ultimately, 120,000 students across the Pangasinan region will be impacted. We have an outstanding team of lead KCI instructors who are providing the initial training, with the KCI in-house team managing the communication and six months of follow up. This is the KCI’s first venture outside of California, and the early results have been profoundly positive. We also have been retained to provide a custom professional development program in Hawaii for 50 teachers at the Hawaii Preparatory Academy. These opportunities are in addition to our primary work with educators in Silicon Valley through our MERIT and FAME programs, and FastTech courses. Learn how we’re working even more closely with public, charter and private schools in Silicon Valley to develop custom programs by reading the article on page XX.

The 2012–2013 MERIT and FAME teacher cohorts have graduated, and we have selected the new 2013–2014 cohorts of MERIT and FAME teachers. The new cohorts begin their training in May/June, with their concentrated professional development in July. I invite you to visit the KCI during this exciting time to see for yourself just how KCI programs are transforming teaching practices. July is an ideal time to see our programs in action, or you can stop in to observe the follow-up sessions later this fall and winter.

In addition to our work with educators, I’ve had the unique opportunity to serve on a panel with distinguished educators from the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF) to discuss innovation in education with business and industry leaders. Out of this collaboration, a second event was held at our home, and featured Dr. Michael Kirst, president of the California State Board of Education, and Dr. Emmett Carson, CEO of SVCF, to introduce SVCF donors to the new Common Core standards. The new standards, which will help transform education, will be in place in K–12 schools in 45 states and the District of Columbia beginning in 2014–2015. It is truly an exciting time to be involved in education!

Please continue to visit the KCI website and read this newsletter to learn more about what’s happening at the KCI and our ventures in Silicon Valley and beyond.

Regards,

Gay Krause

The 2013 MERIT program will undergo some significant changes this year. After three years, Rushton Hurley will be turning over the program director role to Diane Main. Hurley has been instrumental in shaping the program for the last three years and for bringing out-of-state and international teachers to MERIT. “I have found the opportunity to work with so many talented teachers (instructors and participants) over the last three years to be professionally energizing and personally very meaningful,” he said. “These are people with whom I’ve shared ideas, discovered new possibilities, and traded stories about the wonderful opportunities we have to change the lives of students—children who are ready to share their hopes and talents with teachers who are willing to explore the new world with them. For MERIT’s future, Diane Main is one of the most talented people I know, and I am confident that she’ll bring her insight, humor, experience and heart to this program for which we both care so much.” Hurley will remain part of the MERIT instructional team in 2013 to support the program’s continuity.

Diane Main has been part of the MERIT instructional team for the last two years, and is currently the assistant director of instructional technology at the Harker School.  “After spending a significant part of the last two summers on the faculty of the MERIT Summer Institute, I am very much looking forward to this summer as my first year as director of the MERIT program,” she said. “I have very big shoes to fill in replacing Rushton Hurley. I anticipate much greater responsibility and greater attention to be paid to all the workings of the program in the months leading up to and the remainder of the year after the two-week camplike experience in late July and early August, but I am excited by the challenge. Every year, the educators I meet through MERIT become a lasting part of my own personal network, and as a result my work and life have been immensely enriched by these new relationships.”

The MERIT 2013 Summer Institute runs July 22–Aug. 2. You can experience the excitement of our innovative MERIT program, too. To arrange a visit to the program in person, e-mail KCI Executive Director Gay Krause at .

As a result, the KCI commissioned Applied Survey Research (ASR) to conduct an evaluation of the MERIT program last year. ASR focused on the 2010, 2011 and 2012 program years. The goal of the evaluation is to investigate specific and long-term impacts of the program on MERIT teachers and the educational environments in which they work. The study seeks to determine if teachers’ instructional practices involved more frequent and constructive use of technology as a result of their participation in MERIT, and how MERIT may have influenced the adoption of technology in other ways at their schools.

The interim survey results for the 2010 and 2011 MERIT cohorts are extremely encouraging. At the highest level, results strongly support the conclusion that the MERIT program boosted the quality and quantity of technology-based instruction in the schools in which its participants currently teach. The following outlines the survey’s key findings.

• The program cultivated concrete technical skills that teachers did not possess before the program, and teachers used those skills more frequently than they did before the program.
• Within one or two years of joining the program, 85 percent of MERIT teachers described themselves as proficient or advanced technology users—a 32-point increase from teachers’ skills prior to completing MERIT. Teachers also increased their proficiency in specific skills that mapped to the framework for 21^st century learning. These skills include the use of digital tools to address students’ diverse learning styles, and the promotion and support of creative thinking.
• Interviews with teachers and principals revealed how the MERIT program fostered a collaborative and enthusiastic spirit among teachers who then carried these positive attitudes back to their schools. The MERIT teachers at the four schools where interviews took place are now considered leaders and ambassadors for instructional technology.
• There is also strong evidence that MERIT may have stimulated teachers to continue to gain further training. After the program, there was a marked increase in the number of MERIT teachers who received extensive professional development outside the district (not including MERIT). Given that there was no difference in professional development offered within the district for these teachers, it seems likely that teachers sought this additional professional development on their own.

While these interim results are gratifying, the study will continue. Phase II is under way and is focusing on the 2012 MERIT program, including student impacts. Another interim report will be available in Fall 2013, followed by the final report in Fall 2014. If you would like to request a copy of the Results of MERIT Program Evaluation 2010 & 2011, please e-mail your request to Liana Freeman, director of strategy and marketing for the KCI, at .

The KCI will support the 2013 SUTA program by providing professional development for SUTA teachers, with an emphasis on integrating interactive technology into the program’s curriculum. The professional development will focus on Edmodo, Geogebra, Khan Academy, and the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives.

One of the main outcomes of the partnership is to develop a stand-alone, online course that can be used to help scale the teacher professional development component that will be required to teach the SUTA program.

“We are excited about partnering with the KCI,” said SVEF STEM Integration Director Amy Wong. “Technology allows students to grapple with math concepts in a different way, whether it be through applying math using real-world tools, using dynamic software to help visualize difficult math concepts, utilizing tools that capture real-time feedback, or providing a social tool that allows students to collaborate. We want our students to go deeper in learning math and technology, and this unique partnership with the KCI helps us to do just that!”

This summer, the KCI will host two hands-on, educational and fun classes: Designing Great Multimedia Projects and Video Game Creation: Program & Design Your Own Games with Flash. Both classes are specifically tailored to help middle and high school students excel at their studies and develop new skills and abilities. For registration instructions and to learn more about the Extended Year Program, go to extendedyear.deanza.edu.

Becoming a MERIT-inspired teacher can be risky business. Our MERIT alums tell us it’s also one of the most exhilarating experiences of their professional lives.

One MERIT 2011 alum who learned to take risks via the program—and has since enjoyed reaping the rewards of those pedagogical risks—is Karl Linden-Streicher, who teaches 9th–10th grade social studies at Hillsdale High School in the San Mateo Union High School District. “I have always been concerned with critical thinking, and this is still the basis for my students’ experience in my classroom,” he said. “I want them doing the work of historians—mucking around in the gray area of history—as much as possible. However, I am now more concerned with students being engaged, and so focus also on learning soft, but not-tested skills in my classroom.” Lindren-Streicher attributes this transformation to his MERIT experience.

He has changed the dynamics of his classroom as well. “My class this year is a mastery-based, self-paced flipped classroom that includes time for students to do self-directed research on areas of their interest, which is modeled on Google’s 20-percent time employee projects. I have also eliminated homework.”

When asked how his students have responded to these changes, he said, “My students recognize that they are in a learning space that operates differently and they appreciate it. They are aware that so much more of their learning is dependent on their efforts, not on me standing in front of the classroom telling what to do and when to do it.” His students appreciate the freedom they have to explore, and Lindren-Streicher is better able to differentiate his instruction to meet the needs of his students. He’s also seen changes in student achievement. More of his students are earning grades of C and higher, which makes them eligible for admission to UC and CSU campuses. Correspondingly, F grades have decreased by 75 percent since he took a risk and adopted the flipped classroom approach.

As a result of his participation in MERIT, Lindren-Streicher has broadened his influence and presented at several EdCamps and local Computer Using Educators (CUE) conferences, and has spoken at flipped classroom conferences. He is now on the Silicon Valley CUE board as well as the EdCampSFBay organizing team. This summer, he will be a staff member at CUE RockStar Teacher Summer Camp. The KCI is thrilled to report that Lindren-Streicher is also joining the 2013 MERIT instructional team.

In addition to reaching out to the broader educational community, he is connecting with his colleagues and becoming a change agent at his school and district. “I serve as the co-instructional technology coordinator at my school site, and I’m on my district’s instructional technology council as well as the digital task force. None of this would have been possible without MERIT.”
Lindren-Streicher and the rest of the MERIT 2013 cohort and instructional team will revisit the rewards of taking pedagogical risks when the group begins its summer institute in July.

Surveys of FAME graduates routinely show that teachers are benefitting from the program—teachers change how they teach math and they gain a much higher level of confidence using technology. However, what has changed for students of a FAME teacher? Jade Lee, who teaches 7th grade at Shirakawa Sr. Elementary School in the Franklin McKinley School District, reports that she has used a number of technologies in her classroom—Geogebra, Gapminder, Edmodo and Human Graphing. But more importantly, “My students enjoy the various ways and learning channels they have been introduced to…they love that they have more choices in their hands to find answers to their questions. My classroom is practically open 24/7 since students communicate with one another about math and science via Edmodo. My classroom door is never closed even after everyone goes home!”

On a district level, Lee’s principal asked her to open her classroom to administrators across the district to showcase how technologies are embedded in the teaching and learning process. “Principals who visited seemed impressed by how students were actively engaging in their learning,” she said. “I am forever grateful for the FAME 2012 training I received last summer. Although I have not yet practiced all the information and knowledge I learned during the course, my teaching has dramatically taken its turn for the better.”

For Dana Marshall, who teaches math at Davis Intermediate in the Oak Grove School District, the change for students is even more dramatic. With a loan of 15 HP Elitebooks from the KCI, Marshall was able to immerse one of her classes in technology-integrated math lessons, which covered everything from setting up workstations to installing applications to discussing of digital citizenship and privacy issues. Students were soon using technology to complete and submit assignments. Through another application, Marshall’s students collected responses and ideas on concepts like ratio and proportion. Using the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives, students played games, moved geometric pieces around a virtual geoboard, and practiced solving one version of the proof of the Pythagorean Theorem.

The impact was more than math deep. “The students’ collective confidence grew,” she said. “At least during our class, it didn’t matter who was homeless, had been to community day school, had been retained, was in special ed, or any other qualifier that so affects a student’s view of himself or herself. Tardies and absences decreased. One girl even commented that she bets some of the kids will go into technology jobs when they grow up. When our principal was setting up for a presentation and was having technical difficulties, I didn’t think twice about sending one of the students to help. FAME opened my eyes to what is available, and the kids showed me what was possible.”

The FAME 2013 summer institute will run July 8–19 and visitors are encouraged to stop by the KCI to see FAME in action. To arrange a visit to the program in person, e-mail KCI Executive Director Gay Krause at

Based on a pilot program in 2011, in 2012 the KCI has initiated a new services model of designing and delivering custom programs for schools and districts. These customized programs are tailored to a school or district’s specific needs with the goal of preparing teachers to implement 21st century technology skills into daily instructional practice. Since 2011, the KCI has worked with staff in the San Bruno Park School District, Loma Prieta School District, and Egan Junior High of the Los Altos District.

One of the common themes that we hear from teachers is the need to have sufficient time to explore and gain new technology skills that can be applied to the classroom experience. Having a supportive environment to work together as a professional learning community is also important for teachers, and increases the likelihood that they will be able to implement new projects and methodologies.

At Egan Junior High School, “The KCI’s professional development opportunity gave our English 8 teachers the opportunity to explore and try new technology for a literature unit,” said Rosemary Garcia, an 8th grade teacher at Egan. “The use of the technology was a boost to us as teachers, and it also gave the students exposure to differentiated learning and projects using technology.”

According to Egan Principal Brenda Dyckman, “The efforts of the KCI support at Egan opened up the possibility of on-site, personal training for my staff. The result has been unit map documents for all core subjects that incorporate the common core, 21st century skills, and educational technology. We are excited to be charting new opportunities for our students to develop new levels of critical and creative thinking skills that foster inquiry and in-depth discovery.”

The KCI has developed different approaches and models to meet school and district needs. For the Loma Prieta District, they chose to adopt a “mini MERIT” program during which faculty attended a five-day intensive program during the summer with follow-up sessions throughout the academic year.

“The team at the KCI has transformed our schools,” said Loma Prieta Superintendent Corey Kidwell. “The impact of the very first course jump-started an entire movement toward 21st century teaching and learning. Now our faculty and staff look to the KCI for leading-edge offerings that are facilitated by instructors with real-world experience. Classrooms from kindergarten through middle school are different this year due to the vision, inspiration and supportive instructional model offered by the KCI.”

The KCI can develop similar high-impact customized professional development opportunities for your school, too. To learn more about KCI custom professional development programs, please e-mail to Liana Freeman, director of strategy and marketing for the KCI, at

Landscape from the Pangasinan Region
Photo by Serge Villena

The program includes an intensive two-week institute, and a six-month mentorship project that will follow nearly 3,000 educators as they incorporate the proven tools, content and techniques that will help them transform the way that they teach, and the way that their students learn, for generations to come. The innovation of this program lies in KCI’s integrated instructional design and custom-built courseware, which has been fully customized to enhance the existing national Philippine curriculum. Throughout the 2013–2014 school year, these newly trained educators will impact approximately 120,000 students across the Pangasinan region, which represents more than 65 percent of all the students in the region.