Evidence of Student Work
About my students...
The student population at UASGC is made up of about 50% Black and 50% Latino students. Although on paper, this appears to be racially segregated, even within this statistic lays so much diversity. We serve a wide range of students with varying academic, social and lingual abilities as well as a variety of cultural values and traditions. This encourages me to be creative and responsive in my delivery of content and assessment of how my students learn best.
Evidence Based Reading, Writing and Discussion
In service of our school's Instructional Focus, I provide multiple opportunities for all of my students, including special populations, to use evidence from text, videos and classroom activities when supporting claims during a discussion. I have shared this strategy of Argument Driven inquiry with my colleagues through Teacher led PD (Promoting Evidence Based Discussion PD). For students that struggle accessing grade level texts, I have implemented the use of CQU( Comment, Question, Underline), a close reading strategy to help students annotate, summarize and assess their understanding of complex texts.
Transition to Digital Learning
The use of technology as a tool for education has been a priority of mine, and is especially important as we transition to Digital Learning in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of my students have natural talent when working with technology. Students in my class are taught and expected to use Google Classroom and tools in the Google Suite to produce assessment products. These may be writing pieces in Docs, Presentations in Slides or Data Anaylsis in Sheets. With these tools I can monitor and provide real-time feedback to student work, even remotely. This has served to help prepare me and my students for this time. I have contributed to my school by supporting my colleagues in their use of these tools through a virtual PD, in which participants became more familiar with the Google Apps for Education.
IMG_5225.MOVHuman Body Systems Project
In groups, students were assigned a human body system and presented on the role the body system played in running a marathon. Students were encouraged to ask their classmates clarifying or extension questions using the Accountable Talk Prompts.
Nearpod as a Digital Learning and Data Collection Tool
Modeling in science has become essential to learning aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards.
Diversity in STEM- Making Science Culturally Relevant
Many students are disconnected from STEM because the have no scientific role models that they know or look up to. One of my goals is to introduce students to the disparities of racial and gender diversity in STEM careers and develop strategies to change that, while also introducing them to influential scientists of color. One year, my students decided to write letters to the NYS Senators and explain to them the importance of STEM programming in schools to increase diversity. I was then able to hand deliver student letters to Senator Schumer's and Senator Gillibrand's offices in Washington, DC.