0% Funded
Only $2,000.00 Needed
During the academic calendar year 2024 - 2025, the teachers of Golden Gate Middle School implemented what we referred to as the "Green Dot Challenge." The goal of the Green Dot Challenge was to meet the students at their current learning level specifically capitalizing on their need to challenge themselves. To this end we developed a standard where children had to do three sections of review a week (out of a possible 32) for a grade. The students reviewed principles of Earth Science, Life Science, and Physical Science as well as the Nature of Science (Scientific Method). They then took a test to prove their mastery. Students scoring 80% or above received a green dot which meant they had fulfilled one of their required three mastery level assignments for the week. If they achieved less than 80%, they were required to sit through the supplemental instruction videos contained in Progress Learning and to then retake the assessment. They could do this repeatedly until they reached the required 80% proficiency. At the conclusion of the week, they received classroom points as a homework category, and they received a red ticket that qualified them for the drawing at the conclusion of the week. The students then were selected in the morning news, six every two weeks, and they received prizes that were donated by businesses and teachers. The students who won were featured in the news on the next day along with the pictures of their winnings. Additionally at the end the students who completed all 32 sections with a grade of Green also were rewarded with an ice cream party at the end funded by the teachers. Unfortunately, the vehicle by which all of this was made possible, specifically the access to "Progress Learning" was eliminated due to budget cuts by the district for the 2025 - 2026 academic calendar year. Because we saw such giant gains in the Florida State Assessment, the entirety of the faculty wishes to do everything in our power to bring this program back. Thus we are seeking funding of $2,000 that will be put toward purchasing access to "Progress Learning" for the upcoming school year for our students.
Learning Aids - Sunshine state book sets, robotics kits, puzzle boards, science models, engineering supplies, etc.
Should this project be funded in the fourth quarter of this year when we shift our focus to the standardized state level test, we will hold the green dot challenge again. Students will be assigned three sections per week that they can work at on their own pace. If the students achieve three green dots, they will once again be awarded a ticket, and this will enter them into the biweekly drawing. Should they fail to achieve the 80% benchmark, like before they will be given tutorials to refresh their memory on the skills they should have been taught in the sixth and the seventh grades. They will then get an opportunity to show us what they learned by taking the test again to show us their current level of mastery. As this strategy has produced in the past, raising our test scores by almost 10 percentage points last year alone we do not want to lose this review tool.
What will change for us is that every 8th grade student at the school will have access to the tutorials and assessments of Progress Learning. We will measure whether this program is effective by seeing if the gains we observed last year during the first year of implementation can be replicated in the second year. We will measure success by our continued ability to achieve longitudinally maintaining the A rating our improvement demonstrated during year one.
The grant funds if rewarded will be added to your internal Catsci funds in order to reach the $3150 required to purchase a license for Progress Learning for all of the children in the 8th grade at the school.
| # | Item | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Progress Learning | $2,000.00 |
| Total: | $2,000.00 |
0% Funded
Only $2,000.00 Needed
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