September 30, 2021

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Dear Alpha Beta Chapter,

 

I am a fourth-year special education teacher at the Michael J. Petrides School. I work with middle school students in an 8th Grade ICT math classroom. I am super grateful and appreciative to be awarded the Fund A Teacher stipend this year. 

 

As a special education teacher in mathematics, my students struggle most with multi-step problems. I look to use the best strategies for my students to make things click and to make the many steps in math more approachable. I find what works best is a color-coding strategy, when modeling for my students. I believe this strategy, in which I use a different color for each necessary step or operation, helps capture the attention of my students and helps them retain the information.

 

Having my teaching strategy in mind, I was able to purchase color printer ink, in order to print my students color coded modeling tip sheets for each unit. The students use the tip sheets to help guide them through independent work, homework, and studying. 

 

In addition to that, I was also able to buy a new white board for my classroom, which I will use when I pull small groups during independent work time or during reteach lessons. I have also bought some nice colorful expo markers, that again, help me display the different steps with the different colors. 

 

Thank you, 

 

Samantha Diaz 

Michael J. Petrides School