My students need binders to organize their notes, quizzes, tests, and projects in addition to construction paper and dry-erase markers to make class more hands-on.
This project is part of the Black History Month celebration because it supports a Black teacher or a school where the majority of the students are Black.
My Students
As with all schools affiliated with the Teach For America program, my students face the struggles of poverty and low income living situations in addition to the recent destruction of the tornado last spring. My hope is that they can overcome these challenges and break the cyclical nature of poverty.
The 93 individuals I teach all have the potential to succeed because each one has shown initiative and promise within the first month of school.
Their problems lie in consistency. The attention span of 11-13 year olds is something that is difficult to keep, but once you have it and keep them engaged all four of my classes have had entire 64 minute periods where they were on task and enjoying learning science.
There is no easy summary of 93 students each with their own challenges and promise. Almost all of them are on free or reduced lunch. Alabama is undergoing serious education reform and so the school is undergoing constant monitoring in order to get it's Title 1 funding. The students are therefore under constant watch and have a very good staff to keep them in line.
That said there are weekly disputes that put 5-8 of my students in in school suspension and therefore out of the classroom. These come from the intricate nature of adolescent social interactions and emotional struggles.
My Project
My students need order. They learn best when I have used foldables for them to take notes and I believe that keeping their resources in a binder in the classroom will help them stay on task and more easily understand my expectations. So the binder will be used as a tool to organize and invest the students in taking ownership of their own learning. As a new teacher it will also allow me to model what they should have and be working on everyday. Therefore it should improve classroom management and thus increase student achievement.
The markers will be used for foldables and projects such as labeling plant and animal cells as well as taking down definitions and marking on readings to help keep them engaged and break the monotony of regular note taking. These are not projects for projects sake but varying ways of communicating the objectives the students need to learn. The dry erase markers will be used to check for understanding on dry erase boards I bought for the students.
A well managed classroom is key to any teachers success and the easiest way I believe to balance my inexperience as a first year teacher is to provide as much structure as possible.
The binders and projects will allow me to keep my students accountable for what I hand out and I will be better able to help them because of it. I want to prepare these students to be "life learners" - students who intrinsically value learning and in order to do that I need engagement and proper order.
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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. Kostyo and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.