I am writing to request two computer towers for my 9th grade Physiology classroom. (We have monitors; we just don't have working towers.) Each day, as a class, we try to imagine the complex inner-workings of the body using only a text book written at a reading level many of my students don't comprehend and the images from that book. Having computers in the classroom would make it possible for all my students to really see how their insides work, allow the more academically advanced students to continue being challenged, and prepare all students for the open jobs that exist in science/medicine today.
Online you can find websites that walk you through processes inside the body, with visuals and animations for each step, in a way that is much easier to grasp than my overhead projector notes tend to be. Students can even perform an organ by organ dissection of a frog online. This resource would be incredible as we don't have a working lab at the school and our supplies for activities such as dissections are limited.
There is also the issue of differing abilities. Our students have staggeringly different academic abilities and with computers in the classroom, students who are able to research independently can continue to be stimulated while others in the class have their needs met through group reading strategies that focus on word recognition. I believe that students' individual needs would be better met, and that the entire class would be able to comprehend our material more quickly and more deeply (by seeing the processes online) through the addition of two working computers in our classroom.
Finally, as a science teacher, I am very interested in cultivating science and medical skills and interest in students of color. The more scientists/doctors of color, the more the focus in those fields will be on the issues that communities of color face. Although my students are not at a school where they will have access to everything other high school students do, I feel they can be infinitely more prepared for a scientific job or undergraduate school by cultivating computer skills while in high school. I would love to give my students the chance to begin developing their computer literacy skills while they learn the content.
For these three reasons, I would like to request two computer towers for my class.
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