Amber Kiley, an elementary school teacher at MaST Community Charter School II, places a local twist on her math lessons that really gets her students engaged, writes Ross DiMattei for CBS News Philadelphia.
At the Northeast Philadelphia school, she uses her students’ love for the Eagles and Phillies to make learning arithmetic and measurements more fun to learn.
This all started with Saquon Barkley’s historic first season with the Eagles. After each Eagles game, Kiley’s class would add up Barkley’s total rushing yards.
“When we started doing it, I could see the difference in engagement with when we actually did the curriculum work in the book to when we started tracking his yards. The participation skyrocketed when we would track Saquon’s rushing yards,” Kiley said.
Now, her students are keeping track of Kyle Schwarber’s home run count, in addition to how many pitches he hits and how far they go.
As the school year inches closer to the end, Kiley will be giving her students an optional summer assignment to continue keeping track as the Phillies’ season goes on.
As a first-year teacher, Kiley has been determined to find a way to make learning more fun and relatable.
It’s safe to say she has done it.
Read more about Amber Kiley and her fun teaching methods at CBS News Philadelphia.
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