Week 24 at Manor New Tech was the final week of the 2nd Trimester.  The final week was dedicated to exam review and trimester exams.  It culminated in a student-organized Black History Monday celebration on Friday afternoon.

Early in the week, senior students counted and organized the book drive donations they are gathering for an elementary school.  They have only been collecting books for a couple weeks and already have nearly 200 books!

On Tuesday, we were visited by an alternative school from Oklahoma.  In these pictures, they were writing down their knows and need-to-knows about out school on paper and on glass windows.  They updated these lists throughout the day after hearing presentations about our school, visiting our classrooms, and hearing students talk in a panel discussion.

On Tuesday,  students in Ms. Valderrama’s class took part in a multimedia review they helped create.  After reviewing past quizzes, the class viewed a Quiz Show Review they had created that covered topics on their upcoming trimester exam.  Writing the script and creating and editing the game show video got students to practice skills and topics on their test.  In class, they discusses the Q and A in the game show and also provided Critical Friends feedback on the video.

On Tuesday, students in Mr. Adeboyejo’s Biology class went through a multistage review.  First they took a test similar to the exam silently and individually.  Then they met in teams and compared and discussed their answers.  Then they entered their responses in Nearpod and went over their responses in a class discussion.  This review modeled how to study with study partners and also helped students identify which topics they already knew and which topics they needed to study.

Tuesday evening, our Robotics team, FRC 2789 TEXplosion had a late evening meeting to finish the robot and bag and tag it before the midnight deadline.  They finished by 8 pm.   They kept one mechanism (under 30 lb) outside of the bag so they can continue to work on it until our competition in mid March.

On Wednesday, students in Mr. Foster’s class used Kahoot to review for their Physics exam.  The students really got into the Kahoot review game.  They also discussed their answers with other students at their table while they waited for the timer to expire (another example of using academic conversations to study).  After each response, Mr. Foster lead a discussion on the question and helped students find the places in their notebooks to find information related to the question.

On Wednesday, students in Mr. Rodriguez’ class conducted informal presentations on their CD covers in order to gather Critical Friends feedback to help them improve their artwork.  The student created their CD covers in Adobe Photoshop.  They were able to express a lot of creative ideas using the software.  Many students provided helpful specific feedback on how to improve their peers’ work.

Representatives from Texas A & M came to our school to interview several of our senior students in a panel discussion.  They looked pretty focused and thoughtful during their roundtable discussion.

Several student teachers are working on our campus this week and next week.  Here is one student teacher leading a discussion with our sophomores on Frankenstein.

Friday afternoon, our students conducted an hour-long show celebrating Black History Month.  They performed poetry, sang songs, presented history lessons, led trivia games and gave speeches.  A parent ,Mr. Henley, gave a very interesting presentation on his father-in-law’s service in World War 2.   One of our teachers, Mr. Adeboyejo, gave a speech on Why Celebrate Black History Month.  The audience was really attentive and supportive of the presenters, even the students who had to stand due to lack of seating were very engaged throughout the performances.  The audience helped one performer overcome stage fright by clapping and cheering.  It was a really warm moment – a good example of the supportive culture that is our school’s signature.