I encourage my students to set big goals that with passion and hard work they can be reachable. Our school's mission is to promote life-long learning through a caring and nurturing environment. It's not just a high school; it's a safe place for my students to understand and better themselves for their future successes.
Our school is an academic alternative high school that prepares students for global citizenship.
We teach and accept students who don't typically fit in on a big campus or have a hard situation at home. We inspire them to attend career classes at a local community college, so they will have the tools to succeed in life. I would like to give them the tools so they can adapt and become knowledgeable of the world they live in. We are a close-knit family and learn how to adapt and overcome obstacles. We encourage our students to follow their dreams and go places that they never thought possible.
My Project
My class started a new way of taking notes this semester: Sketchnoting! It has been very beneficial to all my students, especially my visual learners. Sketchnoting is a combination of regular Cornell notes with lots of doodles and sketches. A lot of my students were affected by Hurricane Harvey. We are still rebuilding and trying to restore a normal classroom atmosphere, but it has been hard with so many missed days from the weather and again from the freezing weather early this semester. My goal is to bring color and happiness into the classroom. I want to see smiles on the students' faces instead of frowns due to disaster and uncertainty due to living conditions. Some of my students were placed in motels and temporary housing due to total loss of their homes from the flooding caused by Hurricane Harvey.
I want my students to learn to create their own bullet journals and write all their notes using colored pens to bring smiles and color to World History and Psychology class.
Psychology studies have proven that color does improve memory, so this strategy will help them remember important terms for their state exams in the spring. I also think that learning the craft of book binding will bring more meaning and motivation to learning the last 9 weeks before summer.
We use interactive notebooks every day in World History, but this year it has been a struggle in the classroom with displaced students from the hurricane and need for more supplies. We need supplies to build our notebooks like file folders, copy paper, twine, and duct tape so we can add more flare and creativity to our lessons after all the recovery. It will make the lessons more organized, vivid, and fun after a semester of stressful events.
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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 Mrs. Stoker and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
