This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because
it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.
My Students
I have been teaching for almost 25 years, the majority of those years teaching 4th and 5th grades. This past school year, I was moved to middle school. In spite of the challenges of teaching three different subjects (Math, Science, and Social Studies) and transitioning to distance learning, I enjoyed teaching my sixth-grade students. I found their curiosity and creativity in expressing their ideas and thoughts refreshing.
Currently, I teach Math, Science, and Social Studies to about 130 middle school students, including students with special needs and in the ESOL program.
Prior to this school year, I was teaching about 25 students, but now I am impacting more students on a daily basis, which makes my job more rewarding. As a result of the pandemic, schools were forced to transition to distance learning which impacted my students greatly. Teaching remotely definitely created obstacles for my students; meeting their needs required incorporating different techniques in my instructional delivery. Coming up with creative approaches to meet my students' needs made my job challenging, but worthwhile. Working with students during this pandemic has taught me the importance of being flexible and receptive to changes.
My Project
My students and I have been doing distance learning since March. It has been a challenge using an old computer to teach my students remotely. I teach Math, Science, and Social Studies which are subjects that utilize many online programs. Many of the online programs, like Zoom, require a faster running memory. Being that my computer is over 8 years old, I found that my computer connection was poor. During our Zoom sessions, connection and audio issues would frequently occur. During my Zoom sessions, I am able to present math and science concepts so my students can understand the content. On several occasions, I experienced issues with my computer - connection, audio, and screen freezing. As a result of these issues, my teaching was less effective and efficient.
I need a reliable laptop with at least 8GB of Ram to incorporate various digital resources into my instructional delivery, to assign online lessons, to review digital submissions of completed work, and most importantly to communicate with my students on a daily basis.
For those students that regressed during distance learning, I will need a better laptop to effectively teach Math, Science, and Social Studies. Please help fund my project so that I can teach my students with a more powerful computer.
DonorsChoose is the most trusted classroom funding site for teachers.
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. Etienne and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
