My students have difficulty completing academic work at home, so I am enabling them to do more work in the classroom. This means shifting anything that looks like a classroom lecture to the web, so students can work more directly with me and each other during the actual class period.
Our school is an urban charter focused on preparing students for college.
The building is located in a higher-poverty area of our city with all the difficulties that entails. I say this a bit haltingly given that I live here in the neighborhood. Our students are highly motivated and persistent. They have to be because we push them hard to prepare themselves and to discover their capabilities. We do not let them off the hook.
Over ninety percent of our students in any given graduating class attend college. They love to engage in discussions of literature that connect back to what they think about the world. But I often find that they have difficulty completing work that requires heavy mental lifting if they are required to take it home as homework. I want to shift simpler tasks into the homework category and more challenging tasks into the classroom where I can facilitate the appropriate environment and provide support. Thinking tasks in class; passive tasks at home through the web.
My Project
The computer you provide will allow students to contribute to, maintain, and utilize a website about our class and the literature we study. This computer is necessary because my computer is often tied up in the lesson being presented or in looking at a student's work. They need access.
How will this affect my students? I find that I spend too much time in class explaining assignments instead of working directly with students, so I will be posting many of my explanations as videos on the class website for students to respond to as part of their homework. The computer will allow students who lack access at home to use class work time to view and respond to the "homework."
I have also provided space on the website for students to publish thoughts on our current readings, so students will use the computer for online discussions of literature. I look forward to hearing voices online that I do not hear as often in class and bringing those voices into the work we do together.
This computer gives students more ways to interact with literature and each other.
First, by eliminating class period lecture time, it frees them to work more directly with each other and with me on their reading and writing. Second, with students composing responses online, our classroom discussions connect more directly with student writing. Third, this project invites students who do not typically raise their voices in class to raise their voices online.
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