Introduction
Kayenta Intermediate School educates about 450-500 students, grades 3-5. Kayenta School District serves three schools with an estimate of 2,000 students. The rural town is located on northeast section of the Dine Nation in Arizona about a hundred miles east of 4 Corners (a place where the four states, Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico meet at one vertex). The student population is 98.1% American Indian (Dine), .01% African American, .09% Caucasian. Twenty-five % of the students are in English Language Learning classrooms. Eighty-five% of the students receive free or reduced lunch so the school is eligible for Title I funds. The district also serves 10-12 high profile students with special needs like physical, mental and behavioral. Our school made Annual Yearly Progress for two consecutive school years in 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 and was recognized as an A plus performing school. The past school year our school did not make Annual Yearly Progress. Additionally, there about 250 other special need students who are able to function in the general education classroom with assistance from technical aides in the school and about 30-35 at the primary and middle school and 50-55 at the intermediate and middle school. Whereas, the high school has about 100-120 special need students. Some of the students reside within a mile or two from their school and other live within the outlying areas ranging from 20 to 50 miles away. Students living out of town are bused in daily. The students who come in from Forest Lake area, which is fifty miles from home to school (that is a lot of miles), have to board the bus during the school week at five a.m. and return home by five or six p.m.
I had taught special education multi-age third through fifth grade in a pull-out classroom for two years. The coming school year, 2011-2012, I will transfer to the Middle School as a sixth grade general education teacher. When I taught special need students, I focused on teaching science during the afternoon block for ninety minutes daily. Every Friday was lab day which was using the inquiry process and scientific investigation while viewing and analyzing various cells through the microscope. Our district's mission and goal are targeted subjects of mathematics, reading and writing. Science is not as important as the three R's so our students have fewer opportunities to learn about science concepts, vocabulary, and the inquiry process.
This year as a new sixth grade teacher, I will continue teaching science daily. I will invite native Dine orators to my classroom or to the cultural center. The speakers will present science topics about the current content our classroom is learning like earth, space, or living organisms. We will plan field trips to participate and attend science fairs locally and state level. We will visit science museums, and the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. The teacher and students will use as supplemental resources for science and math like the online resources like PBS teacher online, and Siemens Science Technology Engineering Mathematics Academy and the Asset online from Arizona State University which is online video streaming, webinars, and illustrations. I will create a monthly Science Newsletter so parents are informed of what concepts their children are learning and information of Dine cultural sensitivity. The newsletter will cover current science topics we are studying with vocabulary, projects, guest speakers, experiments and additional school and district information involving science. I will include a simple science experiment that parents and students can do together as school to home activity. My goal is to turn on the light bulb and create excitement for science so students enjoy learning and growing. I would like to parents to be involved in their child's education.
I teach science using the Arizona state standards strands, concept and performance objectives and the Dine philosophy of life relating to native science concepts. I will use research-based teaching methods with various resources and strategies correlating science experiences for enduring understanding so my students will remember as they move up to the upper grades. Many students have insufficient technology experience and computers within the lower grades are not compatible with the latest technology. I will make every effort to obtain current computers for my students so they can perform and share their discoveries. There are online educational media I have subscribed and applied for our use. I will take advantage of useful teaching tools available and assessments my students in the science realm, to differentiate instruction and to have student advocate their learning through choices of projects, experiments, and assignments.
Comments: