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Sabrina Alkayfee

Ability to Reach All Students


The New York City Teaching Collaborative
Spring 2019

I currently teach at Life Sciences Secondary School, where I have developed many skills

through practice, feedback, and self-reflection. This is a high school located in East Harlem, New

York. Over 80% of the students at this school receive free or reduced price lunch. Over 60% of

the school is Hispanic, and 57% of the students who attend this school are chronically absent.

The school’s focus is to “facilitate the development of critical-thinking skills through project-

based learning across all subject areas”. Although I will be certified to teach Chemistry, I was

assigned to teach Algebra II, Advanced Placement Statistics, and a Freshmen advisory course. I

teach three Algebra II courses: one general education class and two integrated co-teaching

classes. The ICT classes are taught with a special education teacher and our style is “One

teaching, One Assisting”.

My unit was created on the premise to help my students build an understanding of

statistics. My students were able to take a smooth curve to describe how data is distributed. They

learned how to use various forms of technology to find the area under the curve. My goal for my

students were to be able to make predictions about a population by analysis of random samples.

My students were able to draw conclusions about a population through statistical tests such as

sample surveys, experiments, and observational studies. My students were about to estimates the

mean and proportion of populations by using the data from random samples. The unit was

designed so that my students were able to calculate the margin of error to investigate whether or

not a given sample came from a population. I acknowledge that my classes consist of a diverse

group of learners, and my goal was to reach each student to the best of my ability regardless of
disability, cultural background, or language barriers. Since the school’s focus is collaborative,

project based critical thinking… the majourity of lessons I created are in collaborative style.

The majourity of the students in my Algebra II classes have failed Algebra I and II at

least once before attending the class. Most of the students failed Algebra I and are retaking it

concurrently with Algebra II. About 30-40% of my students are English Language

Learners(ELL). The majourity of the ELLs are in the Expanding/Advanced development level. A

few of the students are at the Entering/Emerging level. My classes are very collaborative based,

so I try to make sure I employ the use of modeling at the beginning of every class and leave a

model up there for students to refer to. My students are grouped, so that students are are fluent in

both English and Spanish sit at or near tables of Students who are at the emerging/entering level.

The same for my Arabic speaking and Bengali Speaking students. Since I know that some

students may not be completely efficient in English yet, I give my students the option of

answering my Exit Tickets with sentences and/or formulas, symbols, and numbers related to

answering the question.

As I have gotten to know my students, I have learned that more than half of my students

work at least one job, about a third of my students are displaced and are living in homeless

shelters. Many of my students come from large families, and so not working isn’t an option. In

the beginning of the year I assigned many homework assignments and I realized that they

weren’t doing it. This was not because they didn’t want to, but because they didn’t have time or

lacked the resources (pencils, pens, calculators) to complete them. So my unit had minimal

homework, and more time during the class to work through problems collaboratively. Many of

my students are observant Muslims and are fasting for the month of Ramadan, I tried to be
respectful to their beliefs and did not play music as transitions between different parts of the

lesson.

This is aside from my unit. I am well aware that my students do not get a proper meal

before my class. This can interfere with studying and paying attention. I have always had a

supply of water, juice, soda, and snacks for the students and they are free to eat during my class.

Even if they skipped my class that day, and they stop by for a snack, I still will give it to them. I

love these kids. I found that my attendance has increased, and students who aren’t even in any of

my classes stop by.

I know that many of my students math proficiency levels were at a third or fourth grade

level. While I delivered whole class instruction, My co-teacher did small groups with my

students who struggled. Their lessons were differentiated, and scaffolded so that whatever prior

math skills were needed to solve the problem was added to their worksheet. My co-teacher also

wrote handwritten notes and half of the worksheets with guided questions, and students had the

option to take whichever copy of the worksheet they preferred. The worksheet’s font is always at

least size font, and I utilize bold and italics throughout the worksheets so that students know

which terms and phrases will support their learning. There are also information “bubbles” on

certain worksheets which provide tips on how to solve a problem.

I write on a SMART board, and upload all documents (lessons, homework assignments,

test review sheets) onto PupilPath so that students can have assess to it outside of the classroom

if they are absent or working that day.

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