The grant request is for the following materials:
A classroom library supporting social/emotional learning and inquiry/project based learning
Math games and building manipulatives
Makerspace supplies
A classroom set of Chromebooks
In particular, students that will benefit from this grant include gifted learners, creative thinkers, and high achieving students. Students that attend GATE and Accelerated Learning flexible group classes, as well as students that receive Accelerated Learning Services in any capacity will benefit from this grant. Indirectly, all students will benefit, as these resources and materials will be shared with and available to all grade level teachers to utilize.
The success of the grant will provide knowledge, skills, strategies, tools, and materials needed to develop and implement innovative curriculum for gifted learners, creative thinkers, and high achievers. It will also support these learners with the necessary resources for learning and growing as individuals. The resources and materials will reinforce best practices and pedagogical approaches in gifted education including depth and complexity, design thinking, passion projects, PBL, and social-emotional learning. This grant will impact differentiated instruction strategies to meet the diverse needs of gifted learners, creative thinkers, and high achievers through authentic, inquiry based instructional learning experiences that challenge and engage these learners. The grant will help to strengthen the curriculum, incorporating the application of depth and complexity, innovation, fostering creativity, and hands-on experiences in the Accelerated Learning and GATE classes.
I will implement the grant immediately. The books for the classroom library will be utilized in many ways, including projects like an inspirational persons study, bibliotherapy for students to connect with characters that are like them and learn and grow from them socially-emotionally, and research that is involved in inquiry, project based learning, and design thinking. Math games will be utilized in the 3rd-5th grade flexible math groups I teach periodically in order to develop strategic thinking and the Standards of Mathematical Practice. Games allow for spatial reasoning, logic, imagination, problem solving and cognitive skills, understanding of cause and effect, engineering, architecture, building, and design. Makerspace supplies will be used for both exploration and with design thinking challenges and project based learning projects. Chromebooks will support learning in the classroom, and much of our research time. Having a classroom set will allow us to be more efficient. Students often forget to bring their chromebook with them to class, and making sure they have them when needed always seems to take away from time we could be using them to learn (in various ways). Having a class set will greatly benefit all student groups that travel to my classroom daily.
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I want to note that I understand that technology is not usually funded through the EEF grant, however because I teach for the Accelerated Learning Program and have many students from different grade levels visiting my classroom at different times throughout the day, this support would be truly valuable in our learning.
With that in mind, I am willing to take a partial grant if not all of my request can be fulfilled at this time. The classroom library, math games, and Makerspace materials will all support the different needs of gifted learners, creative thinkers, and high achieving students in my classes.
*I included a link to my Google Doc with all materials itemized. I was not able to upload the document because it was too large.