Proposal

70 Blueside Lane

South Windsor, CT 06107

October 25, 2020

Mrs. Amy Boutilier

Sport and Medical Sciences Academy

280 Huyshope Avenue 

Hartford, CT 06106

Dear Mrs. Boutilier:

As virtual learning has progressed over the course of this school year, many teachers have been finding it difficult to engage students both in person and virtually. Specifically for teachers who teach children with special needs, it's been tougher than ever to teach in a hybrid module. For my capstone project, I will be working with a special education teacher who is currently teaching both online and in person to create classroom tools like classroom rules, online worksheets recording book readings and making storybooks, and rewards charts to help her classroom function efficiently.

My research question is the following: How has COVID-19 affected teachers performance and students' learning abilities? I chose this question because I wanted to understand and possibly find solutions to better performance between students and teachers especially when it comes to students with special needs, the attention they need would be difficult to achieve due to being virtual. I also wanted to figure out how to virtually connect with students and teach them as they would be taught in a classroom setting. I plan on creating lesson plans, ideas to keep students engaged while learning as well as helping the teacher with her workload. I plan on gathering artifacts such as book recordings, teaching materials, and lesson plans to achieve my goal.

My mentor for this project is Ms. Remi Ragnat. She is a special education teacher at Ewa Beach elementary in Hawaii. Her email address is remi.ragnat.20@tfacorps.org. As it's her first time teaching as well as teaching special needs children I was able to get personal insight from her perspective. I believe that my efforts in connection with her guidance, I could make her first year easier as well as she can make my capstone experience worthwhile. I will be able to learn from my capstone project on how to teach efficiently and how to interact with students that have challenges with learning. I would be able to learn from the experience to figure out how students can be taught and learn new teaching methods for when I tutor.

Sincerely, 

Brianna Ramkishun