"If we aim to get it right with all youth, a productive starting point is to design teaching and learning to go to the group(s) of students who have been marginalized the most in society and within schools."

- Gholdy Muhammad

High Impact Teachers... Create educational opportunity and equity inside and outside of their classrooms.

This year I've tried to focus my classroom adjustments to get the most bang for my buck.  I recall in prior years I had a long list of what I wanted to do but with minimal execution.  This year I was able to focus on using data to make my planning more equitable with a focus on menus and stations.  The video below is an excerpt from one of the review sessions on the chapter on Cells.  On this day I separated the room:  on one side the stations had scaffolded questions and answer sheets, and on the other side there were no scaffolds.  Students had simple directions, rotate through the stations on your side of the room and complete the worksheet.  Students were allowed to use the textbook or discuss responses with the individual at their station.  

This was a good day in the classroom as students were able to work through the content on their level and they got to complete a task, stretch and move to the next station.  It was also great because no one on the opposite sides of the room knew that there was a difference in the assignments, which would've been a point of contention for some of the students.  

The artifacts below the video are labeled and give the rest of the setup for the stations on that day.  

Additionally, creating educational opportunity and equity inside and outside of the classroom includes: 

• "Going beyond," specifically, taking an interest in students' learning to exceed the expectations of an educators role to support student success and well being. 

• Promoting college and/or career readiness and helping students to dream about and prepare for what is possible in their life beyond school.  

I'm a connector by nature.  Throughout the school year I poll students to see what their interests are so that I can connect them to resources that can help them to excel those areas.  I have reached out to my personal network and connected: 

• Students who are interested in truck driving with a school mate that owns a trucking company. 

• Basketball players with individuals who have played collegiate and professional basketball overseas.

• Students interested in real estate with local licensed real estate agents

• Student interested in art with the art teachers in the school.

• Students interested in cosmetology with a licensed cosmetologist who owns her own shop. 

Most recently, I took a couple of days out of our normal science duties to prepare for the college and career coordinator to come into our classroom to speak with students about preparing for 11th & 12th grade in addition to preparing for their lives after graduation.  To prepare, I created the worksheet attached below, to get students thinking about what they want to do beyond high school and to do some research about what is required so that they could ask informed questions to the college and career coordinator in class.  Because of that preparation, I feel like students maximized the time that was spent with him because they typically don't come down to do much with the freshmen.  I've learned that the more the students get to thinking about the future, the more focused they'll be on what they need to do now to make that happen.  So it was worth taking the two days away from content, and next year I'll do it earlier in the school year.