My students need 2 digital cameras to take photos of students and work. Photos are uploaded to student-created websites and comic software, as a means to explain concepts.
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.
My Students
Say cheese! Students will use digital cameras to take photos of themselves demonstrating key concepts learned in math class. These photos are uploaded to programs and websites that students create to explain these important ideas.
My students are in grade 7 and 8, and hail from the largest urban center in Connecticut.
Most of my students qualify for free or reduced price meals. Most are eager to learn, and living in a digital age, have responded well to the infusion of technology into my classroom. We have a Smartboard, and use a lot of online resources to help make learning fun and engaging. My students are typically behind their peers from other towns in terms of their academic level of ability.
My Project
In many math classes, students demonstrate their understanding of a concept by solving problems on classwork, homework and tests. In my class, they still do some of this, but that's not all. We use many online resources to help students demonstrate their understanding of math concepts. For example, my students create glogs on glogster and websites on wikispaces. They record and upload videos of themselves explaining math ideas. They upload documents that provide examples, and link to other sites that help explain the concepts. They take pictures of work and explanations and upload them. A new program we are starting to use is a comic strip program, where students take photos and upload them onto a story board to create a comic. We just created one this week with a sampling activity we did with different kinds of pasta: one students was up to his "elbows" in proportions, the caption read. One camera is not enough. Two more would support this important work of my students.
By supporting this project, you are helping me to create an engaging, fun math classroom where students will learn and thrive.
A successful year in math class in middle school will have a lasting effect on the learning of my students for years to come. My colleagues will see how much fun their classes can be and will start to do the same. I will be happy to share my ideas and my resources.
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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. Krauss and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.