Picture yourself in a classroom where students engage in reading, writing, listening, and speaking in an interactive way. What better way to do this than with TECHNOLOGY! We need two iPads to help us monitor students' growth in English across the four language domains.
The students in my New American classroom are English Language Learners who have been in the country for less than one year.
Not all students who are non-English speakers are selected for this setting. My students are refugees from several different countries. They had limited or very interrupted schooling in their own countries due to lack of resources and upheaval. This year, I have students from Afghanistan, Thailand, Uganda, Rwanda, Congo, Vietnam, Somalia, and Kenya. There are many different languages in my classroom and several different cultures. For these students, life in our city is very different than their lives before coming here. We strive to be at all times respectful and appreciative of each others' culture and strengths. We believe that we all have gifts to share and that with education we will have the power to do so. We have a wonderful classroom culture where everyone helps each other to grow in their English and academics.
My Project
Whittier is currently one of three elementary schools in Kansas City Public Schools with a targeted New Americans program. We are very data-oriented and use our progress monitoring data to improve our instruction. We want to improve our ability to identify our students' language-specific needs. There is a free iPad app that measures growth over time. However, we do not have iPads in our classrooms. Through donations from you, we will be able to purchase our very first classroom iPads. This technology will allow us to access appropriate monitoring tools for our very unique population. Utilizing the data we collect, we will be able to tailor our instruction to each student's needs. Additionally, we will be able to measure progress over time.
For students who come from refugee situations, the development of strong language skills is critical.
Even now, this free iPad app is available. Unfortunately, we cannot access it without your support. With your help, we will be able to gather the most accurate data about our students' language needs. Help us to make this a reality for our students!
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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. Jensen and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
