Hello, my name is Sohnia Malik. I am a seventh grade science and math teacher at Grissom Middle School. Grissom Middle School is located in Sterling Heights, Michigan and is a school of Warren Consolidated Schools. I am starting my 3rd year of teaching and am fortunate to be teaching the same subjects in the same school, since there was a lot of movement in the district. I teach 4 sections of science and 1 section of math. Grissom is a pretty big school with more than 600 students. The student population is diverse in terms of socio-economic and race. Grissom is a Title I school, which means that we have several students of low socio-economic status. We get title I funds from the federal government to fund some of our activities such as after school tutoring. We have a big Middle Eastern population in our schools. As you may have heard on the news, WCS will receive hundreds of Iraqi refugees, which will definitely boost our enrollment. The biggest challenge that Grissom faces is lack of parental involvement, because of the culture differences and parents who do not speak english. I only had 29 parents show up for open house this past week! We are looking at ways to improve communication between parents and the school. I love working in a middle school, because I feel like I can relate to the kids.
I love using technology in my classroom, because I believe it is a great motivator. I just got a LCD projector which my students and I are loving it! I have not used blogs in my classroom. I believe blogs would benefit my classroom, especially in my science classroom. However, the only reason I don't use blogs is because several of my students do not have a computer or internet access at home. I cannot require computers or Internet access, because several of students cannot afford it. It is difficult to do it at school because we only have 2 computer labs and 1 set of laptops, which are always busy. I would love to use blogs, but I feel lack of availability prevents me to try it in my classroom.
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5 comments:
With many students lacking computers at home or even just Internet access, it does make it hard to certain projects like blogs. Now that you have an LCD projector (cool!), maybe you can project credible blogs to enhance science subject matter...using RSS feeds!
~Kathleen
Kathleen,
Thanks! That's a good idea, I never thought of that. I could show a credible blog through the projector and have the students respond in their journals as bellwork. Now, I have to find some credible blogs in science. Thanks again Kathleen.
Sohnia
Sohnia,
You mentioned lack of parental involvement because of cultural differences. I belong to a LiveJournal first year teachers blogging community where this comes up frequently.
I always thought that there should be a cultural awareness teacher blog where you can go to know how to great parents from other cultures than ours. Sometimes we need the blogs to educate ourselves as much as we need them to educate our students.
Diane,
Not sure you're still following these comments, since this is Sohnia's blog, but feel free to post the URL for that Frst Year Teachers Blogging Community.
MKB
Diane,
Thanks for your comment. First Years Teacher blog seems like a great idea. Can you please post the link? Greeting parents in their language is also a great idea. I will mention it in my next staff meeting.
Sohnia
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