RUNNING HEAD: TEL 311 SIGNATURE ASSIGNMENT 1

CLASSROOM PROBLEM-BASED PROJECT PROPOSAL

School Environment Narrative

The Eduprize school district consists of two campuses: Gilbert and Higley. As a high

school English teacher in the Gilbert location, I can attest to the current conditions present within

the school. This school is very small with only three buildings that separate the elementary,

middle school, and high school students. Since Eduprize schools are charter schools, smaller

class sizes are to be expected. The 2019 senior graduating class is only 32 students this year

compared to the last year that only had 18.

Along with the small nature of the Gilbert location, the classroom sizes seem to reflect

the number of students as well. The classrooms, from what I have been able to gather, seem to

differ tremendously. As an English teacher, my classroom is very condensed in comparison to

the science classrooms. These classrooms have built ins group areas with enough space to

include sinks and drawers to house all of the equipment used in class. Unlike the science rooms,

my classroom has only enough room for 32 desks: one for each of my students.

However, the demographics of the student population seem to differ from the

surrounding community. The Gilbert area consists of a predominantly white population, but the

students at my school reflect a very diverse community. Based on a survey given to my students

at the beginning of every school year, the predominate ethnicity of my students is usually Latino

or Hispanic. This year in particular, I have a range of students who have backgrounds from all

across the world. Diversity at Eduprize hasn’t been an issue so far.

This school has also been sought after for their implementation of a technology enriched

curriculum. In this curriculum, students are introduced to technology from as young as

kindergarten and taught how to not only use the technology given but are also taught by both

technology resources and a teacher. With this major aspect of the curriculum being advertised to
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CLASSROOM PROBLEM-BASED PROJECT PROPOSAL

parents, it is only fitting that the school provide technology to be able to use in class. The school

has provided a class set of Google Chromebooks to be able to use for most classrooms in the

school.

Applicant Biography

As mentioned previously, I am currently a high school English teacher for the Gilbert

division of Eduprize Schools. I have been teaching for about 11 years now and have been at

Eduprize for all of them. I believe that the purpose of education is to allow students to bring their

experiences into the classroom and use those experiences to further their own education. This is

part of the reason Eduprize decided to hire me right after my clinical experience my senior year

of college. They really believed in my philosophy of education and wanted to bring in more

people that could help innovate their district.

I have really embraced their technology policy as well. Eduprize encourages teachers to

be as hands on with the technology provided as they can be. In almost every lesson that I teach, I

use some form of technology. The students really stay engaged with the content when they are

able to follow along with their Chromebooks and use them to be able to create original

assignments in class. This also cuts down on the homework that I have to assign to them as well.

Many of my students tell me that they are able to get most of their normal assignments done in

class so that they don’t have to worry about it when they get home.

I also believe that project-based learning is really critical to a student’s success

academically. Being able to apply the curriculum that they are being taught in a way that makes

sense to the student really assesses what they actually learned. To give an example, I am

currently working on a literary period project with my students. In this project, my students

research one literary period, that one of the texts we have read during the semester falls under,
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CLASSROOM PROBLEM-BASED PROJECT PROPOSAL

and create a presentation that explains what the period is and how the text they have chosen

aligns with this literary period. This project really helps to cement all the themes that align with

the state standards for 12th grade English.