Running Head: GRANT PROPOSAL

Grant Proposal

SED 464 Signature Assignment

Joseph Canzona

Arizona State University

GRANT PROPOSAL 2

Abstract

Cooley Middle School is an exceptional middle school consisting of 915 bright students

alongside a devoted staff. Cooley Middle Schools testing scores are well above Arizonas

average testing scores but they are still lower than desired. To not only increase student test

scores but also their gratification for learning, I want to design lesson plans based around making

mathematical concepts visual which can only be done with the aid of new laptops and new

software. The objective I wish to meet by the end of this grant proposal is to show how new

laptops and Graphing Calculator 4.0 (nucalc) software can drastically enhance the effect lesson

plans have on students who learn math in a more visual and hands on way.
GRANT PROPOSAL 3

School Environment Narrative

Cooley Middle School (CMS) is a part of Higley Unified School District (HUSD) and

lies on the edge of Gilbert near Mesa. HUSD contains schools all within Gilbert, which is an

upper-middle class, moderately educated city (Cooley Middle School, 2013). In 2011, HUSD

served approximately 10,200 students grades 7-12 (Schmidt, 2011). The community mainly

consists of suburbs that house middle to upper-middle class families. The school was built in

2013 and is very new and clean. The inside and outside of the buildings are all in mint or near

mind condition. The classroom I am placed in is in excellent condition.

The demographics of the school state that the student population is 67% White, 20%

Hispanic, 5% African American and 8% other. The gender distribution is also completely equal,

with 50% being male and 50% being female. There are approximately 915 students enrolled this

school year (2016 2017) with a ratio of 23 students per teacher. Around 24% of the students

enrolled are eligible for free/discounted lunch. (Cooley Middle School Information, 2017).

Cooley Middle Schools is a completely inclusive school, meaning they do not separate students

with learning disabilities whom are completely integrated into the ordinary classrooms.

I am an 8th grade mathematics teacher at Cooley Middle School within Higley Unified

School District. Cooley Middle School is a 7-8 school that has fantastic teachers, staff, parents

and students which shows looking at their AzMERIT testing scores. Even though only 45% of

the students at Cooley Middle School score exceeded in the Math portion of AzMERIT, the

average Arizona public schools passing rate is only 31%. For the English Language Arts portion

of the test, 43% of students exceeded which is 11% over the average passing rate for Arizona as

well. (School Digger, 2017). Even though the testing scores are well above the Arizona average,

they are still lower than desired. However, Cooley Middle School is only 4 years old and since
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its foundation, the AzMERIT testing scores are steadily increasing and I anticipate this will be

the case in the following years.

I am one of the four 8th grade math teachers in the school. My class has an average of 33

students and lasts 60 minutes, with an exception to first period which lasts 65 minutes since it

includes announcements. Students have four minutes in between classes to transfer locations. I

work consistently with my fellow math teachers to create a thought-provoking curriculum that all

8th grade students can experience.

Cooley middle school offers iPads to all students who sign a liability contract with the

school. They can take the iPads off campus and utilize them for homework. If their parents do

not sign the contract, the students have access to laptops that they may not take off campus. The

school has Wi-Fi and it is only to be used for teaching, staff, and students. Teachers get a

mandatory laptop they must use because it is hooked up to the SmartBoard that every class gets

as well. Including SmartBoards, the classroom offers other forms of technological support like

calculators for all of the students. There are 16 TI-84 calculators per math classroom and 30

ordinary calculators as well. The math department does not issue textbooks to students because

all curriculum is given online. On days of testing, there are certain amount of laptop carts with

40 laptops in each one that are distributed to the classrooms that are testing. These laptop carts

can be borrowed by teachers on non-testing days for 1-5 class periods, but are extremely old and

slow.

The mathematics department at Cooley Middle School is a completely technology-

integrated workspace and does almost all work through the iPads, computers, and SmartBoards

we are given. Math homework and review guides are placed on the classroom Edmodo, which is

shared between all math teachers for 8th grade. Students tend to agree that this is much more
GRANT PROPOSAL 5

convenient than worksheets, and it certainly saves the school money on paper. The only problem

with all of this technology is that there is only so much we can do on an iPad or an old, dusty

computer. There are so many mathematical concepts that can be shown electronically (and

visually!) that would not only improve the quality of my lesson plans but also the quality of my

students learning experience. This is why I want more new and improved laptops in my

classroom, so I can ensure that my students are not only learning math but also enjoying every

second of it.

Introduction

A large percentage of my students have no exposure to how math can be applicable to

real work scenarios. To them, math is just a subject where they need to memorize formulas to get

good grades. As a math teacher with a passion for how math can applied to real world scenarios,

it is indescribably important to me that my students experience the same passion. Math is not all

about formulas, and if taught correctly, there are almost no formulas that even need to be

memorized at all (especially in the 7th-8th grade curriculum).

In this project, I make it my goal to exhibit how one of the most fundamental parts of

math, the constant rate of change (or slope), is utilized in every-day life. To make this

meaningful and relevant for my students, I want them to become the people that we write about

in word problems. My objective is to have them explore how slope is utilized in many different

operations and then create their own model of slope in terms of a bridge, or ramp, from one point

to another. This students will require students to read, write, and model a two-dimensional object

in a third-dimensional space.

Applicant Bio
GRANT PROPOSAL 6

Joseph Canzona has been teaching for 1 year at Cooley Middle School. He earned his

Bachelors degree from Arizona State University in Math Secondary Education. He is pursuing a

Masters Degree in Mathematics. Joseph loves conceptualizing why mathematics works, why

certain concepts connect to other mathematical concepts, and how math can be applied to the real

world and he wishes to give his students this same experience.

Project Narrative

Need for the project

With common core giving a strict end-goal teaching plan for educators, all teachers need

to find a way to integrate their own unique teaching methods with the common core curriculum.

At Cooley Middle School, students are given an abundance of technology but almost no ways to

actually apply it to graphing or visualizing mathematical concepts. It has been a challenge for

teachers to integrate technology to their curriculum because iPads can only do so much (and

some students dont even get to use them) and the computers that the school distributes are old

and run very slowly. The project, if used with the correct technology, will allow students to

visualize, and in turn conceptualize, the mathematical form of slope and allow them to actually

apply it to several real world applications.

Project Impact

This project will have an extraordinary impact of teachers and especially the students.

Teachers will have a much less arduous form of technology to work with and can show how

constant rate of change works and connects with the real world without having to jump through

the hoops theyd normally have to with older technology. Students, on the other hand, will have

access to hardware and software that will allow them to truly utilize mathematics in the 21st
GRANT PROPOSAL 7

century. They will be able to graph, manipulate, and customize the different equations they create

with use of Graphing Calculator 4.0 the new laptops. By the end of the project, not only should

they be able to completely understand every operation each variable and constant plays in the

slope equation y=mx+b, but they will also have a newfound respect for math because theyll

actually have a new use for it.

Learning Goals and Outcomes

How can slope be applied to architecture? How can we utilize constant rate of change to

map out distance over time for real world scenarios? The goals and outcomes I want my students

to achieve so they can answer these questions are:

Students will be able to distinguish whether a graph is linear or non-linear based on how

the graph looks.

Students will be able to identify if a function is linear or non-linear based off of a table

that lists x and y values.

Students will be able to recognize that y = mx + b models a linear function.

These are extremely important because mathematics from 7th grade all the way up until 12th grade

implement linear, exponential, and quadratic equations and students need to be able to

differentiate between them and know how and when to utilize a certain one.

Standards covered include:

8.F.A.3. Interpret the equation y = mx + b as defining a linear function, whose graph is a

straight line; give examples of functions that are not linear.

ISTE Students: 4 Critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making.
ISTE Students: 2 Communication and collaboration.
ISTE Teachers: 1 Facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity.
GRANT PROPOSAL 8

ISTE Teachers: 3 Model digital age work and learning.

Activities:

Students will engage in the following activities:

Work in teams to build a building block bridge utilizing a slope equation. Write out the

equation they used to make their bridge with their own personal slope work.

Collaborate with group members to design their own linear 3D graph that maps a y

value in terms of an x value. For example, a 3D graph that shows the distance a car

travels after a certain amount of hours.

These activities are tied into the learning goals because students are learning and mastering

the standard at the same time by creating a linear function in a hands on fashion. These

activities will be instructed by the teacher by initially providing all the building blocks of

linear functions, what the y-value, m-value and x-value mean alongside the b-value, and

allowing students almost free-range to collaborate and critically think how they can model a

function in a 3D graph.

Technology Support

I have taken a semester long class dedicated to using Graphing Calculator 4.0 and I am

very experienced in it. I would be able to help all of students use it and put extra emphasis on

helping students will learning disabilities or ELLs.

Innovation
GRANT PROPOSAL 9

This project is innovative because it actually allows math students to be hands on and

create the very mathematics that they are learning. Instead of sitting quietly in desks

watching a PowerPoint lecture, students are actively engaging with peers and groups to

create and model their own equations using technology and building blocks. Students will not

only be learning the common core standards, but also social skills, team building skills, real-

world applications, and becoming more adaptive to various forms of technology.

Budget Table and Narrative

Item and Quantity Individual Item Cost Item Cost

(10) Graphing Calculator 4.0 $25 $250

for Windows

(10) Lenovo ThinkPad Edge $300 $3000

W430c
Total Cost = $3250

The laptops I would like to utilize are phenomenally cheap for how sturdy and

technologically advanced they are. They have a touch screen, come with windows 7, and

have great specs. Each laptop would have Graphing Calculator 4.0 installed on it for the

students use. I would like 10 laptops so my students could form groups of 3 to 4 to

collaborate with each other in engaging lesson plans.

GRANT PROPOSAL 10

Works Cited

Cooley Middle School Est. 2013. (n.d.). Retrieved April 25, 2017, from

http://www.husd.org/Page/28379

School Digger. (n.d.). Cooley Middle School Information. (2017). Retrieved April 25, 2017,

from https://www.schooldigger.com/go/AZ/schools/0378003381/school.aspx

Schmidt, K. (2013, July 29). Higley's first middle schools, Sossaman and Cooley, set to open.

Retrieved April 25, 2017, from

http://archive.azcentral.com/community/gilbert/articles/20130725higleys-first-middle-

schools-sossaman-and-cooley-set-to-open.html

Smart Class. (n.d.). Cooley Middle School Testing Results. Retrieved April 25, 2017, from

http://public-schools.startclass.com/l/141004/Cooley-Middle-School