My students need 36 whiteboards with coordinate planes to practice their graphing skills, and 20 sets of markers to write on them.
$320 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.
As one of my mentor teachers told me when I first started teaching, "whiteboards are magic--they make everything fun." My math students love showing their work on whiteboards, but we currently don't have enough--and, it'd be nice to be able to practice graphing skills on them too!
About my kids: they surprise me every day.
Most of them have performed poorly in their previous math classes and on high-stakes state assessments; to compound the matter, my school is predominantly low-income (100% qualify for free or reduced-price lunch) and contains a substantial special education or Limited English Proficiency population (19% and 13%, respectively). Yet in my class, students have demonstrated again and again that they enjoy learning math and can excel at it when it is made accessible and engaging, both in the content itself and in the way it is presented.
My Project
My students' favorite part of my class by far is Guided Practice, during which they work in small groups to practice a skill, explore a new concept, or review content, all the while teaching and coaching each other. They often use student whiteboards during this time, since they find working on whiteboards infinitely more engaging that working on paper. Our whiteboards are currently blank pieces of cut-up shower board purchased at Home Depot. However, we only have enough for one per group, and it would be wonderful to have one per student, to help keep each student accountable. In addition, because I often emphasize multiple representations of math concepts, particularly graphs, it would be incredibly useful to have individual whiteboards that come with a coordinate plane. My students would also be very grateful--one of their chief complaints is that it's hard to create precise graphs on their current whiteboards.
When students have not experienced much success in math before, much of the struggle in trying to teach them rigorous new concepts is getting them engaged and interested to begin with.
I do this through a variety of methods, including tailoring the material to their own passions and interests, but having individual whiteboards that allow students to perform and represent math in a fun way would give them a big push in becoming master mathematicians.
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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. Kim and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
