"Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn."
-Benjamin Franklin
My school is a public middle school with a site-based Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) program.
I work with 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students. Most of our students have hearing aids or cochlear implants which allow them to process sound, but they do not hear things the same way a hearing person does. Many of our students also use American Sign Language and use interpreters in the classroom.
Children who grow up deaf and hard of hearing face many challenges acquiring language in the same way that hearing children do. Even with devices, children may not pick up on every sound or part of a word. Many deaf and hard of hearing children enter Kindergarten with severe language delays and struggle throughout their entire education to catch up. In America, the average reading level of a deaf student at the time of high school graduation is 4th grade. We want to push our capable students to work up to their potential rather than giving up on themselves.
My Project
The Samsung Galaxy tablets would be extremely useful to share between our DHH classes. Our students are visual and hands-on learners, and they often need to have information presented to them in different ways. The educational apps and resources we could access through these tablets would be invaluable.
Our DHH department would share the tablets as needed. In my Language Arts class, my students are on completely different levels and need differentiated instruction. Through apps like Edmodo, I can create lessons where my students move at their own pace and work on their own level. I also want students to be able to record themselves (signing or speaking) as a pre-writing activity so they can watch themselves talking/signing to the audience in a more relaxed situation and use the videos as a guideline for their writing. This would be immensely useful for each writing project, since writing is a primary struggle. There are also a number of interactive language apps that would really benefit our kids!
Our kids would get so much from having tablets integrated in the classroom.
The visual support and increased student engagement would definitely help many of our struggling students. The dozens of research-based and special education apps alone will make the tablets worth it!
DonorsChoose is the most trusted classroom funding site for teachers.
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 Ms. Wright and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.