Pearson Asks Hoboken Students For Help

Education giant Pearson is using local Hoboken students to help it develop its reading and math curriculum.

According to a release, nine elementary and middle school students – all participants in Kids CoLab Hoboken – will meet virtually and face-to-face throughout the 2015-2016 school year to help Pearson teams design features for digital learning solutions.

Kids CoLab teams have already supported the development of backstories, names, features and personalities for new characters in SuccessMaker, Pearson’s adaptive K-8 reading and math curriculum, the company stated.

Piggbacking off the first Kids CoLab in Chandler, Ariz., which launched last school year, the new Hoboken group first met last summer in a one-week summer camp session and then came back together this fall at Pearson’s office here to begin its work in earnest, the company said.

Lisa Segali and John Rotundo, parents of Kids CoLab Hoboken team member, Kate Rotundo, a fifth grader at Hoboken Dual Language School, said that the program offered their daughter an opportunity to become less introverted.

“The regularity of presenting ideas and thought processes in front of a mixed group of kids and adults has helped build her confidence and has increased the volume of her voice; once almost a whisper when speaking in front of people,” Rotundo said. “When we ask Kate ‘How was it?’, she always says, ‘Awesome!’”

Photo courtesy of L. Wolfe Communications

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