After 10 years of teaching students with moderate to profound physical and intellectual disabilities, I have been given the opportunity to teach STEM to 6th graders. Both classes have been rewarding to me both in a professional capacity and as a human. I feel that I am getting a large picture of what I can do as a teacher to help a variety of students to become the best they can be in the future and to help them to make positive contributions to the society they live in now and in the future
As a teacher in a low-poverty Title I school, I see the different challenges that our students face in and outside of school.
With all of these challenges, sometimes it is difficult to see what is hidden in their hearts. However, when given the chance, and with some coaching and encouragement, I know our students can open up to reveal their true colors of positivity and awesomeness to the world. By opening up, I hope that they can help others become more positive and remind themselves that they can achieve greatness now and in the future.
My Project
I love learning new things on my own. I really do. I enjoy learning on my own from other people's experiences. In this professional development project, I am requesting a whole bunch of highly rated STEM-related books. Videos are a great way to learn, but people often forget about books. The ideas in these books should help to give me dozens of new ideas for lesson plans and how to implement them. Ultimately I am also interested in sharing these ideas with other educators, so by learning from a variety of books, I hope that I will be able to see what is helpful for adult educators and what might not be appealing or useful.
Books are great because they allow you to learn one page or one picture at a time.
As I mentioned before, I really love learning new things on my own. Books will allow me to read in the middle of the night (I could do this with videos but it's not the same), or while waiting for an appointment (again, I know that you can do this with a video on a phone but it's just not the same; I'd be much more reluctant trying to watch a video with sound in a doctors office than just reading a book).
I think that the books that I am requesting for my own professional development will be beneficial to me as a teacher because they incorporate a lot of photos and instruction. Especially with experiments and projects, I often do them by myself before doing them with my students, so they become like a science recipe book for me to learn how to do the project and then how to share it with my students.
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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. Wakabayashi and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
