English class time is filled with engaging students with literature of the world and the study of language. However, I wish for my students to be involved in their own learning through collaboration and research.
"Tell me and I forget, teach me and I remember, involve me and I learn." Benjamin Franklin
I am an English teacher that tries her darnedest to engage students and foster a love of literature and language.
Frustratingly, students often just can'Ât see the relevance to their own lives. As such, I am constantly striving to make our selections entertaining, accessible, and relevant. I do the best with what I have, but resources such as don't can and will make the content more exciting, relevant, and accessible.
Typically, my class consists of me doing proverbial jumping-jacks while my students fight sleep. This is incredibly frustrating as my students are some of the smartest people I've ever met. I teach high school English in a diverse, lower-middle class school district. Many of my students have responsibilities to their homes and families that frankly trump their academic responsibilities. They don'ÃÂt see themselves as worthy and smart like I do; they see school as an inconvenience that has little to do with their "real" lives.
My Project
It is my responsibility to make students' learning as relevant to their "real" lives as possible. I have the ideas and know-how to make this possible. I see my students collaborating on learning projects through group projects in an online classroom; I envision students communicating via blogs and skype-chats with people all over the world; I can imagine my students creating presentations, videos, and audio clips, all while using the canvas of their choosing. I picture their feeling of pride and confidence after sharing their projects with teachers, administrators, and classmates; I envisage the feeling of worthiness and pride in their ability to show how smart they really are. Through the use of these resources students will learn the real-world applications of our lessons. Online communication, collaboration, savvy, and familiarity with the hundreds of applications that will be made available to them, are all the way of the "real" world my students are living in. I am requesting five Samsung Chromebook computers so my students can research, collaborate, and make presentations.
Our school has begun a BYOD (bring your own device) initiative.
This is a great start for my students. I want to embrace the initiative and rock these technologies in my classroom. They will connect English class to world. But students w/o their own devices feel left-out and embarrassed which is totally counter to my purpose. With resources like these 5 Chromebooks, all students have the ability to engage and relate to our curriculum on a real-world scale. Please help my students; they're worth it!
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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 Mrs. Pannullo and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.