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.
I teach Algebra 2 to a mixed-grade high school class at a high-need, college prep, urban charter school. It's an uphill battle - most students who reach our school have become math-phobic through bad experiences in previous classrooms. One of my biggest jobs is to show them that it's fun to learn how to think critically ... and that's what math is all about. It's the most rewarding job I could imagine having, and after five years of doing it, I still get excited to come back to school each September.
Our math department has a small-but-growing library of videos that make math topics real, relevant, and fun. Some of these videos are on DVDs, but many are on online video sites. These clips help my students get excited to learn about a wide-range of topics. Another way to get students interested in a topic is to have them make a video of a moving object (such as a marble launched through the air) and then watch the video, frame-by-frame, to graph the motion of the object. This is a great way to teach quadratic equations. However, whenever I want to show the students a cool clip or perform some video measurements as a discussion starting point, I have to reserve one of the school's few LCD projectors. Sometimes they are already in use, and the students don't get the full multimedia lesson I had planned.
If I have an LCD projector mounted to the ceiling in my classroom, along with a surround-sound speaker system, my lessons can be multimedia on a daily basis. No more disappointed faces as I tell students that we were unable to check out the necessary projector today!
Your project will help my more visual and auditory Algebra 2 students to remain engaged long enough to actually grasp the complex mathematical ideas presented in my class. Algebra 2 is an important an important college-prep class for two reasons: first, many competitive colleges need to see that students have done well in the class; second, the critical thinking skills necessary for success in Algebra 2 will carry my students through college and beyond. As an added plus, my science students (most teachers at my school teach more than one subject) will also benefit from these materials on a near-daily basis.
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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 Ms. Norris and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.