My students need 29 Casio calculators to see math on natural display.
$565 goal
Hooray! This project is fully funded
Hooray! This project is fully funded
Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month
This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because
it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.
Doing high school math means doing problems while thinking algebraically. The more problems young people get correct, the more they enjoy working, and the more problems they complete correctly, the more long term learning results. In the classroom, it's all about speed and staying on track.
At risk students, some rich, many poor, find that their last chance to graduate is in a continuation high school (grades 10-12).
They need to sense success to want to stay in school.
They struggle not only with the basics, but also with Algebra. Both topics require different solutions and they work on both each day. Calculators help them solve more Algebra problems than they would otherwise. This directly helps them learn and pass.
Surprisingly, continuation students have great attitudes. As a rule, they have failed math for close to a decade, but they haven't quit yet. Rebuilding their confidence, letting them see their own progress rapidly makes a great difference in their lives. Calculators help them move faster; good calculators help them learn better.
My Project
Casio, Sharp, & TI each offer low-cost calculators with natural display of rational fractions. For example, instead of just 5.3333333333, 5 1/3 and 16/3 can also be displayed. Instead of sqrt(125) = 11.18033, 5sqrt(5) with radical sign is shown. This makes calculators useful in instruction; since most high school math problems expect rational and irrational numbers in their solutions, not decimals.
Each classroom needs to use one main calculator type; so that students and the teacher can become familiar with the buttons and how to really use the tool. Casio's solar cell powered fx-300ES has the nicest display at the lowest cost. It's a teaching tool. When finding an average, students press the fraction key and they enter numbers directly in the numerator and denominator. They can see if the answer's correct before pressing the equals key. Otherwise, they are in the dark.
For students who use calculators as a crutch; they use dedicated software to learn the four math tables.
Students call these calculators SEXY.
They fight for them, and over 90% of them complete the math coursework and graduate.
The daily issue is keeping students working. Many simply quit when they become stuck and then they don't complete enough work to learn and to earn credits. They answer far more problems successfully when they use 2-line, natural display calculators. That's really what this request is all about. Students who succeed create successful schools.
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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. A and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
