Mrs. Vierling's Classroom Edit display name

Past projects 21

• Vertical Non-Permanent Surfaces (VNP) To Build a Thinking Classroom

  Funded Mar 10, 2022

  Thank you so much for supporting my class' Thinking Classroom Revolution! At the end of each period, I have the students give "Yelp reviews" to the lessons and on days when I have them work collaboratively on Vertical Non Permanent Surfaces they say things like "the period went so quickly" and "I learned a lot from my classmates" and "I used to be confused about margin of error but now I can see it!"

  Our students need the tools to help support their collaboration and to focus on process so I can circulate to give them feedback as they develop their skills. So thank you thank you thank you!”

  With gratitude,

  Mrs. Vierling

• LEGO is Serious Play!

  Funded Jan 14, 2022

  Thank you so very much for your support of my class' LEGO is Serious Play project! At the end of the semester, we did some "gear down" reflection activities where they considered what they had learned and how they had grown over the 5 months we had been together. One prompt I used with the LEGOS was to build something that represented what they had enjoyed the most about 5 day in person learning (something they'll never take for granted again) and 90% of the students used to person bricks and talked about their friends and teachers when they shared their builds.

  Other teachers in the building have come to me to ask to borrow my set of LEGOS, citing that students had shared what we had done in class and that they think their other classes would enjoy it as well- it is going viral, in a good way.

  I also work as an Assistant Principal, and look forward to doing some LEGO is Serious Play at upcoming staff meetings.”

  With gratitude,

  Mrs. Vierling

• Statistical Literacy in High School

  Funded Jan 28, 2019

  Thank you so very much for donating to this project! This is a long overdue thank you note as my son is nearly 3 years old and I had ordered these books to support my students while I was out on maternity leave with them.

  It helped me to know that they would have the resources they needed to be able to write in, annotate, mark up, and really INTERACT with the review material in advance of the AP Exam. The substitute that my students had was not comfortable with the content, so it was really important that my students have high quality materials with an included answer key to help them to be independent learners.”

  With gratitude,

  Mrs. Vierling

• Support my AP Statistics Students

  Funded Sep 9, 2018

  Thank you so very much for your support of my classroom. My 34 AP Statistics students are motivated learners who have met the graduation requirements in mathematics and are excited to be learning college level material. Most of my students are first generation college applicants and speak a language other than English at home, so any supports they can get to help them transition successfully into higher education are greatly appreciated. The fulfillment of this project is a major part of that support.

  As public school students, they rarely receive bound materials that they are permitted to write in- the fact that these review books are THEIRS to annotate, highlight, dog ear, etc means they feel ownership of their learning and have a personalized resource that they is available to them 24/7.

  On a personal note, I will have to go out on maternity leave before the AP exam date, but both myself and my students feel more secure about my absence knowing that they have high quality prep materials available to them.”

  With gratitude,

  Mrs. Vierling

• Making the Learning Stick with Clickers!

  Funded Aug 25, 2015

  Thank you so very much for your support of my "making the learning stick with clickers" project. As a teacher, I have found that no one thing works to engage them every day and there is no technology quick fix for engagement- but many things, when woven into your curriculum thoughtfully, work to enhance the learning and classroom environment. Clickers have proved to be an instantly positive addition to our classroom.

  This fall, I have used them to assess the prior knowledge of my 9th graders in algebra and geometry and to practice multiplication facts, negative and positive integer addition, and the combining of like terms. In AP Statistics, I use them to check HW answers- so if many students go the question incorrect, we know that is one question we must review. Furthermore, it helps me to check for understanding at the end of a lesson to better inform my planning for the next day. As a college adviser, I have used them in my classroom presentations that tend to be a lot of information all at once. The clickers allow me to take a breath and check to see how much of the information they are taking in and helps me to see what I need to clarify before the period is over.

  As a college adviser, I have visited on average 4 college campuses over the past 6 years. Recently, I have seen large lecture classes employ clickers to help make sure that all students are involved in the learning. I have shared this information with my students, who feel that they now have access to college level technology. They feel special and I feel thankful.

  So, thank you and enjoy the pictures and thank you cards.”

  With gratitude,

  Mrs. Vierling

• Numeracy supplies for the class of 2018!

  Funded Aug 23, 2014

  Thank you so very much for your generous donation to our classroom.

  This specific class is a support class for our 9th graders who have traditionally performed the lowest on the state exams when compared to their peers. They have been told that they are bad at math, that they are lazy, that they are 1's or 2's (compared to those students who score 3 or 4 on the state exams). I see this class as an opportunity to change their mindset from a fixed mindset- I am not good at math- to a growth mindset- I didn't know this was math- I am good at this! And if I learn more, I can be good at math in the future!

  Through the support of my colleagues and math teachers online, I have begun to experiment this year with interactive notebooks, the backbone of which is the composition notebooks and the pens that you helped to donate. Basically, my students are building their own textbook of notes and examples and reflections. Instead of giving them a handout of notes with space for practice, students are using a variety of graphic organizers and foldables to help make sense of the concepts they are learning- and those serve as a backbone for the learning experiences they have in the room. Your donation of patterns blocks also helped us to investigate fractions in a tangible, visual way that we refer back to often.

  Together, we have worked to create a classroom culture of taking responsibility for your own learning- and having colorful and bright new materials has helped to make it fun and smooth!”

  With gratitude,

  Mrs. Vierling

  This classroom project was brought to life by Gates Foundation Back To School and 5 other donors.

• Numeracy Curriculum Materials

  Funded Aug 25, 2014

  Thank you so very much for your generous donation to our classroom.

  Through the use of this curriculum, I believe that I (in my tenth year of teaching math) have learned just as much as they have, if not more. This research based approach to number sense and logic as the foundation for Algebra helps students who have struggled to make sense of the more abstract concepts understand the mathematics through visual representations. For example, students who once struggled to understand why when you multiply 2x + 3 by 2, you double both the 2x and the 3 to get 4x + 6. This curriculum builds a model where 2x is represented by 2 cups and the three by three pennies, and the students are then prompted to think of what happens when you double the 2cups and 3 pennies- and they can SEE the distributive property in action and they don't "forget" to distribute the 2.

  Because of this curriculum, my students are asking me less and less "Can I do this?" and "Is this OK?" because they can see it and it makes sense to them- the concepts are less foreign and magical- they are grounded in reality.

  Another highlight of this curriculum are these little acting vignettes where there is a script of two or three students discussing a problem. My students love taking turns being the actors (and directors) of these scenes and what they are truly accomplishing is modeling mathematical discourse- how I would like to hear my students discussing a problem as I circulate during group work. More and more, I hear them using more precise language and pushing one another to be more specific, because that is what is done in the scenes.

  Thank you again for helping to open my, and my students, minds to this new way of thinking about variables and number sense.”

  With gratitude,

  Mrs. Vierling

  This classroom project was brought to life by Gates Foundation Back To School and 6 other donors.

• Buttons for College

  Funded Feb 22, 2013

  Thank you so very much for your generous donation to my classroom's "Buttons for College" project. As a retro political button collector myself, I was so excited to see as the college button project went "viral" in the hallways of my school. Students going to schools from Williams to Borough of Manhattan Community College have been wearing their "As me about _________" buttons with pride for the past few months- they are walking advertisements for promoting a college going culture!

  In a survey this fall that my Statistics students conducted, only 20% of the ninth graders at my school knew the difference between CUNY and SUNY- and it is this type of project that is going to help empower the uninformed!

  I have also had fun using the buttons to promote signing up for the May SAT exam with "May the 4th Be With You" buttons and I just made a set for the teachers who are going to cheer on the baseball team as they compete in the finals. Thank you so much for bringing "old school" community and spirit building back to my urban school!”

  With gratitude,

  Mrs. Vierling

• The Statistics of the Election

  Funded Aug 10, 2012

  Thank you all so very much for supporting my class Exit Poll project. When I first started designing this project, I had no idea how big it was going to become and without your generosity, it would not have gone as smoothly as it did.

  While the election was back in November, we continue to use the data that we gained that day as we continue through the AP Statistics curriculum (see hstatistics.blogspot.com for updates). Through this project, my students have become informed and empowered statisticians who were recognized on PBS Newshour last week (see minute 6: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/education/jan-june13/charter_01-30.html).

  We also made a class video about the project: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_8Atvq_zJo

  Thank you so very much for your ongoing support!”

  With gratitude,

  Mrs. Vierling

  This classroom project was brought to life by Wells Fargo and 12 other donors.

• AP Statistics Document Projector

  Funded Apr 9, 2011

  Thank you so very much for your generous donation to my classroom. I am in my seventh year of teaching high school math and now that I have a document projector, I do not know how I got through the first 6.5 years without it.

  What may seem to be an educational fad or a techno gadget is nothing less than the most efficient way to communicate with a classroom of 34 students while maintaining eye contact with them (i.e., not having to turn my back to them while writing on the board).

  Students remark that my demonstrations of geometric constructions and calculator based simulations are like the educational youtube videos I sometimes assign them to watch for review. Students who have trouble participating verbally are quick to offer their paper up to put under the document projector to be critiqued and celebrated.

  I cannot thank you enough for bringing the document projector into our lives!

  Thank you,

  Eleanor Terry”

  With gratitude,

  Mrs. Vierling