My school serves students from an urban area. 36% of our students come from low-income areas and nearly half of our students receive free and reduced-price lunch. Our school has a large minority population and we house one of our county's programs for English Language Learners, with many students from Mexico, Japan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. We also have an active LGBTQ population who organize a Gay-Straight Alliance and collaborate with GLSEN.
Additionally, we house magnet programs for Creative and Performing Arts and Engineering.
Thus, our student body is very diverse. Out of the 6 public high schools in our county, our school has a reputation for having a friendly student body and teachers who embrace diversity.
My Project
During virtual school, I've found several resources that I can use in the classroom to facilitate learning. For example, on Edpuzzle, students view (and listen to) videos and the app allows me to embed questions to verify comprehension periodically throughout the video. Another online app we use is Classkick. On Classkick, I can upload a photo, document, video, voice recording, or link. Then students can give me a written or recorded response.
Now that we are returning to school, I will have students learning in my classroom AND online at the same time.
I've put a lot of thought into how I will teach both groups and maximize learning. I've set up my classroom so that I will have my laptop at the front of the room with the screen projected from my laptop. I will continue to use my iPad as my "whiteboard" so that students at home can see what I'm writing from Zoom and my students in the classroom can see either on their Chromebooks or on the screen up front. I intend to continue to use these online apps for teaching and learning so that our virtual students can continue to interact with our in-person students. I think this is best because all students are used to these apps and they need consistency right now, given all of the other adjustments they are having to make.
I intend to use these headsets with microphones so that students can continue learning with these useful apps. I've asked my in-person students to bring headphones with microphones but not every student has the means to purchase this hardware. I want to have plenty of headsets in the classroom and I want to make sure learning is accessible to all my students.
More than half of students from low‑income households
Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education. Learn more
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