Spotlight on Theresa Ruggiero - 'Real World' Learning in the Classroom

As we talk about student engagement at CCHS, providing students with 'authentic, meaningful, real-world learning experiences' is one technique that increases student engagement. Theresa Ruggiero's Meteorology students routinely engage with meteorology experts to answer timely, real-world weather questions. Here is how she does it!

As a reminder, the CCHS Student Engagement Committee defines Student Engagement as:

...the degree of attention, curiosity, interest, optimism, and/or passion that students show when they are learning or being taught, which extends to the level of motivation they have to learn and progress in their education.

Theresa's students watch the Weather Underground internet broadcast WUTV on Wednesday nights as homework. (WUTV is a national weather news program shown weeknights 6-8 p.m.) Using knowledge learned during Meteorology class, students post questions to expert meteorologists at the weather program about current weather events using Twitter. Meteorologists respond to the question on the show. See samples of our student's questions below:

This video highlights a question from one of our students, with the Weather Underground program recognizing Concord Carlisle High School students for their excellent questions! (The shout-out happens in the first 15 seconds!)

(You can search for their posts using the Twitter hashtag #cchsmeteo, or follow Theresa (@RuggCCHSmeteo).* )

Obviously, students (and their families) get very excited when their questions are featured on a national program! Students connect their learning in the classroom with actual weather-related events and are able to ask in-depth questions of experts! The #WUTV program and Twitter allow the entire class to participate in a real-world professional learning community, promoting student engagement and extending their learning.

Bonus: While delivering her course content, Theresa models effective and appropriate participation in a digital community herself and has students practice this skill as well! This experience provides students the best kind of instruction for being a good digital citizen - guided practice!

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Never used Twitter before? Click here for an introduction to how Twitter works. Twitter has really established itself as the 'professional' social media outlet!

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