I am looking forward to sharing and receiving ideas at the upcoming Fire Summit! I will be presenting on my “Can you Hear Me Now?” grant in which I am working on improving student communication skills through more engaging strategies and environments in the middle school ELA classroom. Through the purchase of an enhanced audio system, my students will learn to be more effective listeners, speakers, and writers. Utilizing this system will bring real world communication skills to life, and as a result, we expect it to increase achievement. This system will also allow us to use music in the classroom to increase student engagement.
In addition, I will also present on my grant, “Write On”. As a way to study the impact of visual thinking and literacy strategies in the classroom on achievement, I proposed to purchase a classroom set of whiteboard tables to promote collaboration and discussion. I will remodel and rejuvenate my classroom to be more engaging for my ELA students. My focus will be on literacy strategies to improve close-reading of texts and creative planning strategies for writing. In order to engage students better and to teach the thinking and planning process, I plan to utilize white-board tables to promote collaboration and visualization. Students will use graphic organizers to both collaborate and demonstrate individual analysis of text as they write on the tables. Students will use strategies to plan and outline ideas and they engage in prewriting and evidence development. These strategies will also promote classroom discussions and participation.
I am looking forward to sharing these problems of practice and how I anticipate the results of implementing these changes.