My classroom is about connections, my connection to my students, both as learners and as people, the connections my students have to each other as learners and classmates, the connection we all share with the Spanish curriculum, and our connections with local and even international community
I teach the middle and upper levels of Spanish at a K-12 public charter school, including level 3 through a post-AP culture class.
My classes range from students who have taken Spanish class for only a few years to students who are nearly bilingual. Some come from homes where Spanish is spoken as the first language. They are students who are increasingly aware of the benefits of knowing Spanish in our community as well as in future schooling and employment. We graduate many truly amazing individuals who have gone on to lead in various ways.
The students are generally very proud of our school, even though we can struggle financially to provide them with the resources found at other district schools.
My Project
My students need 7 Chromebooks to improve their ability to make authentic local and international connections with other language learners. The Chromebooks will help my students connect better to their own learning. Students will be able to record themselves without using our constantly-breaking tape recorders, resulting in better self-assessments, goal setting and fewer misadministrations on the Advanced Placement test each spring. Students will also connect better with me, as I will easily have access to their documents they are working on, more easily providing feedback in real time.
Students will connect better with each other in group projects due to the collaborative designs of the Google programs, and they will have the opportunity to connect more consistently and profoundly with our local bilingual elementary students as well as students internationally. With the use of Chromebooks, my students will also have equal access to technology in the classroom, allowing web-based differentiation to really expand. Students will use these DAILY to engage in many authentic language activities.
Instead of exclusively researching about a country from a website, students will actually be able to interview people from that country on their Chromebook.
Instead of scrambling for resources to make durable books to bring to our local bilingual elementary and to rural Central America, we can digitally produce and publish works in much less time and with greater accuracy, delivering them more efficiently and impacting several communities at once.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mr. Matthews and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.