About the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands Public School System
500
Dedicated teaching staff
10,000+
Students
Preschool to 12th Grade
District includes Rota, Tinian, and Saipan
Educator's challenge
For students, teachers and administrators in The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), remote learning was a monumental challenge, but the transition back to full-time learning brought its own complexities. Two of the school district’s strategic priorities focus on student success and high performing personnel. Equipping teachers and school leaders with Nearpod has provided remarkable shifts in instruction to promote engaged learners and effective technology integration in the K-12 learning environments within the Public School System. Over the course of two years, administrators and teachers across the district were using Nearpod to make their lessons more interactive and engaging, and propel their own professional development and goals.
During the pandemic-induced remote learning periods, CNMI teachers expressed that student engagement was one of the biggest challenges. In her online sessions, Dr. Riya noticed that many of her students weren’t engaging in the content or participating in class.
As a parent, Lorraine reflects on how seeing her son using Nearpod in one of his online classes at home was “An a-ha” moment. She sat down with him one afternoon and saw how he and his classmates were watching videos with pauses along the way and check-ins to see what he was understanding. He was absorbed in the lesson, and for his mom, that was a game changer.
To support engagement in remote learning courses, the CNMI PSS leadership supported the district-wide procurement of Nearpod. The learning tool gave students of different levels the opportunity to contribute, share their thoughts and participate in activities at their own rhythm and according to their own interests. Educators could see which students were participating and answering the questions and check on those who weren’t.
Now that all students in CNMI are back in school full-time, Nearpod continues to be a tool that teachers use in face-to-face classes to support engaging, interactive, and accessible learning for all learners.
Nearpod is a powerful learning tool that can support personalized learning and student engagement. 
Lorraine Catienza
CNMI Public School System’s Interim Director for Instructional Technology & Distance Education
The element of “show don’t tell” has been remarkable. When I’m teaching about careers, the virtual reality tool enables students to really experience a day in the life of an engineer.
Dr. Riya Nathrani
CNMI Public School System’s Instructional Technology Coach
Solution & results
Administrator’s solution
No school left behind
Implementing a district-wide solution called for continuous collaboration and commitment. While teachers of all levels and subject areas began to experiment with the free version of Nearpod, the CNMI PSS arranged for several Nearpod training sessions for teachers in public schools across the CNMI.
Lorraine recalls her surprise at how many educators embraced Nearpod from the get-go: At the training sessions, teachers and administrators experienced the platform as students and got to immerse themselves in the lessons before jumping into the back end.
In the first year of implementation, teachers from all grades and subjects shared their experiences with colleagues. One teacher participant expressed “The training content will greatly impact my teaching practices. Students will be more engaged and 100% of my students will participate in classroom activities.”
Educator’s solution
Tech is no stranger to educators in CNMI. Most schools in the district use an online learning management system to deliver lessons, and teachers were clearly relieved and reassured to find a spectrum of tools integrated into one platform with Nearpod.
Riya recalls how the Nearpod Collaborate Board, Time to Climb and quizzes rapidly ramped up student participation while facilitating lesson planning, delivery and evaluation. “The students so clearly wanted to participate. They instantly felt guided rather than dragged through their learning experience.”
About the district
The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands Public School System (CNMI PSS) is comprised of eight elementary schools, five middle schools, and six high schools. With an average of 10,000 students per year and 1,000 dedicated staff and faculty, the district includes Rota, Tinian, and Saipan.
About the educators
Dr. Riya Nathrani
CNMI Public School System’s Instructional Technology Coach
Dr. Riya Nathrani currently serves as the CNMI Public School System’s Instructional Technology Coach. She is a former seventh-grade computer literacy and automation and robotics teacher. She has a passion for using digital tools and research-based practices to effectively design classroom lessons and activities. Riya is an instructor for the public school system’s educational technology program, through which she showcases best practices for using technology in the classroom and collaborates with educators to enhance learning experiences for students. She was awarded the 2020 Education Technology Teacher of the Year award for supporting the district’s schools with technology advancement.
Lorraine Catienza
CNMI Public School System’s Interim Director for Instructional Technology & Distance Education
Lorraine Catienza serves as the CNMI Public School System’s Interim Director for Instructional Technology & Distance Education. She is currently pursuing a doctoral degree from Nova Southeastern University in Instructional Technology & Distance Education. She has served as a former language arts high school teacher, distance education program manager, and data and evaluation program manager for the district.
The change was tangible: students could watch a video and pause at checkpoints to answer questions about the content they just saw. Their motivation to interact with content, peers and teachers, and the convenience of the platform transformed the return to the classroom. Educators were no longer delivering monologues but curating real-time learning with real-world content.
Creativity without borders
Nearpod’s lesson planning tools and templates sparked creativity among the district’s educators in unexpected ways. CNMI is an archipelago with a rich, multicultural, multilingual heritage. Lorraine recalls how one of the top users of Nearpod was a middle school teacher of the Chamorro language, who created interactive lessons with local content.
In addition to promoting local culture, Nearpod has also given students on the Northern Mariana Islands a lens to the world, which Riya wholeheartedly supports. Career training has become more meaningful and interactive thanks to the virtual field trips in which students can immerse themselves in the daily lives of say aeronautical or biomedical engineers.
The polls enabled her to gage and build on students’ interest in certain careers. She recalls a 3D printing lesson she gave with a dinosaur skeleton. “The students’ excitement was palpable as they moved around in a 360-degree view of the Smithsonian Museum through Nearpod.”
Inclusive learning
Nearpod has facilitated a new level of support for public school students in the district in overcoming engrained challenges. Nearpod has encouraged every student to engage and share, and to be vocal through their devices.
Mental health interns in the district used it extensively in the last academic year to facilitate SEL lessons for elementary and middle school students via Nearpod.
Riya also recalls how she’s seen students with behavioral challenges engage more with the learning process. Activities and hands-on learning through Nearpod’s discussion boards and prompts, and her ability to check on their understanding enables them to feel more immersed in the content. “On the virtual field trips, they can move around the screen, while with Time to Climb they’re physically seeing the characters. It makes a world of difference.”
Beyond the classroom
As they look ahead to their second academic year with Nearpod, the CNMI PSS ITDE Office has wrapped up a training of trainers program with the aim of getting “more school-level expertise and greater resources for using Nearpod to support teaching and learning.”
Lorraine also underlines the importance of getting support from the school leaders, as they “make decisions about technology use and encourage educators to use technology tools in the classroom.” Beyond the exponential benefits Nearpod is bringing to educators and students, Lorraine believes that it can effectively facilitate two-way engagement between administrators and their teachers, as “Nearpod is such a powerful tool for professional development.”
Riya feels it is paramount that schools put more resources in the school library so teachers can share and access across subjects and grade levels. This will in turn, support teachers that don’t have pre-made activities already, to get started, building alignment between different teachers and the lessons they create.
For her, the evolution from disengaged students in a remote learning setting to motivated learners, within and beyond the classroom has been the most remarkable shift. "Nearpod in the classroom and in professional development settings has been transformational! It has provided access to interactive, engaging, and personalized learning for all of our students.”
