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TeachersDecember KBAY Teacher of the MonthThe KBAY Teacher of the Month program is a partnership between 94.5 KBAY FM and the San Jose Education Foundation, the leading education foundation serving students, families and teachers of San Jose.
The KBAY Teacher of the Month for December is Karen Benitez, who teaches 7th and 8th grade science at LeyVa Middle School in San Jose. Karen will receive a $500 Innovation Grant for her classroom from the San Jose Education Foundation. “My favorite thing about being a teacher is getting to introduce my students to a novel idea or experience, or see students approach something from a totally new perspective. I enjoy getting to participate in the accomplishment my students feel from having done something or accomplished something new.” Karen will use her SJEF Teacher Innovation Grant to purchase a digital camera so her students can better grasp the concepts in the study of motion. Students will build cars for experiments, race them, record motion data, enter data into a spreadsheet and produce stop-action QuickTime movies for class presentations using PowerPoint. “Simply reading about science concepts in a textbook does not allow students to experience these concepts themselves. This SJEF Innovation Grant will enable students to record, document and explain their science experiments, data and results in a way that they have not been able to previously.” LeyVa Middle School has a diverse population of students, many of whom are bilingual and bicultural. “My biggest challenge as a teacher is the feeling that I never have enough time. I never have enough time in a day to spend with each of my 150 students.” This SJEF grant will help provide a different way for Karen to interact with her students. |
Karen Benitez is a sixth year teacher who has spent her entire career in San Jose. She has degrees in both Economics and Biology from UC Santa Cruz and a degree in Educational Leadership from San Jose State University.