It seems every image of a public classroom includes the time honored picture of a smiling student eagerly raising their hand to be called upon by their teacher. My students don't do this.
My students are at-risk high school students coming from diverse backgrounds whose only commonality is a distaste for (and lack of success with) traditional school practices.
My students are part of a "school-within-a-school" where they are taught their core classes as a group outside of the more mainstream classes, but still participate in electives with the larger student body. Motivation is extremely low for my students and because they haven't found success in school before, they come to our program already in danger of dropping out. Our students benefit from having a different schedule and teachers willing to work with them one-on-one, to utilize less traditional methods in their classroom instruction, and do as many "hands-on" activities as possible. Students are rarely eager to speak publicly, and often decry attempts to get them to share their knowledge in front of their classmates.
My Project
In science especially, I often ask my students clarifying questions about the material we are covering. Because of their previous troubles with school, my students have low morale and aren't excited about answering many questions for fear they will look "dumb". Because of this, in class discussions are difficult because questions are often met with a thudding silence. My hope is that by introducing individual whiteboards (and markers) to each of my students, I can facilitate more discussion and get a better idea about what they know and don't know by having them write answers on their individual whiteboards rather than face possible derision by shouting out answers for the whole class to hear. My hope is that by starting with these white boards, I can grow confidences and help my students work towards a more positive classroom environment.
Part of high school is knowledge attainment, but more importantly, high school is shaping our students for society and preparing them to become (hopefully) important contributing members of their communities.
To do this, my students have to gain confidence in their abilities and have to become able to speak up about what they know and what they believe in. Because of my student's histories, they can't do that right now, but I believe with funding for this project, they will one day be able to.
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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. McCullough and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.