My high students attend a continuation/alternative school undergoing a positive transformation. Many of them come to us extremely credit deficient and unable to graduate on a traditional high school track. They decided to continue their education with our school community through credit recovery so that they may matriculate back to their high school or graduate with us. We have had a lot of success by motivating the students to attend school through various school-wide art projects.
My students are wonderful, creative students that don't fit into the traditional classroom environment.
It will not do them justice to just give them packets of worksheets to complete. They need a directed teacher instruction to help guide them through necessary skills. We hope to have art materials to encourage our alternative ways of learning mathematics for this changing global economy.
My Project
My students were not successful in a traditional school environment for various reasons. We believe that learning mathematics through creative art projects instead of basic worksheets will boost motivation to attend class and allow them to work on the logical reasoning skills needed in both mathematics and art works. They have scored low on assessment exams in the past because worksheets are not meaningful to them.
Having these art materials will not only allow them to learn mathematics, it will transform the way our students view their math skills.
We will create visual mnemonics of math vocabulary and concepts with the professional-grade art supplies to decorate around our classroom and school community much like an art gallery. For example, a memory clue for the quadratic equation is the song to the tune of "Pop Goes the Weasel"--x equals negative b, plus or minus the square root of b squared minus four ac, all over 2a! Students would be able to capture these learning devices visually so that the entire class community could see it as a visual display. There are a lot of concepts involved with learning math and having a visual interpretation displayed on the classroom walls creates a print and art-rich environment for student learning.
My Business Math students would also like to market these math concepts by creating posters, t-shirts, and tote bags to other teachers and students. This way, the money we are able to make will help us sustain the art supplies that we need in for our art project.
Please consider giving us a chance to enhance our math skills!
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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. Montealvo and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
