One of the most compelling and meaningful results of blended learning is a student's ability to to take ownership of their learning. I support student learning in my classroom by using holistic assessment where I periodically meet with each child individually. Together we look at and go over assessments they have taken such as STAR and Freckle data, AR progress, and running records. We celebrate the progress the student has made and since the last conference, and discuss areas for growth and set goals to focus on in the coming weeks.

Attached is an example of a literacy lesson I have done with my class. Students are working on the concept of main idea/details and summarizing strategies.

I have attached an example of a math lesson from my classroom. We have been practicing working with groups to gain a foundation in multiplication. Students in this lesson are solving word problems using arrays and repeated addition equations. We began the lesson with some metacognition by doing a skip counting crossing hundreds activity as a warm-up challenge. Students also worked collaboratively to create arrays and write a word problem that corresponded with those arrays. At another station students played a card game to strengthen their subtraction math facts while I worked with a small group at the back table. You can see the full lesson at the link here.

Math Lesson Plan

Teachers historically work independently of each other isolated in their own classrooms, and in a Catholic school it can be even more isolating because of the only grade at the school. Here at St. Catherine of Siena, teachers are lucky to have a school that is so collaborative. As a staff we come together in staff meetings to implement best teaching practices for the school as a collective such as religion pacing, creating writing standard assessments, and analyzing test data. My school has also incorporated time to do instructional rounds where teachers visit other colleagues' classrooms to positively give feedback and “get takeaways” to use in their own rooms. St. Catherine’s is also part of the Lumen Christi Academies (LCA) network of schools. The six schools meet on Wednesdays where teachers meet with other teachers of the same grade levels to discuss pacing of instruction and to share project and assessment ideas. Being able to talk with other teachers around me makes me feel more confident and supported which helps contribute to my students' success.

I have often loved using storytelling as an educational technique to enhance my teaching and motivate students to grasp the concepts in an enjoyable way. For many years I have taught social studies to second graders and by far my favorite topic is the branches of the US government and how laws are made. I use a book series written by Peter W. Barnes and Cheryl Shaw Barnes using mice as characters to explain how these branches of government work. Through this exploration students learn many aspects of our government. My favorite project is having my students run for class president. Students write a campaign speech explaining three to five reasons why they would make a good class president and their platform, a campaign promise they will try to get for the class while they’re in office. Next, I hold an election where students read their speeches to the class and then vote for who they think would best represent the class. Whoever wins will have an important role in our next section where we learn how laws are made, and we as a class vote on a class mascot for the president to either sign it into law or veto the bill. Every year my students really love this project and the students in the upper grades get excited too, asking me throughout the day “Who won class president this year?” Check out some examples of my students and their work. You can also click on the link to see my full lesson plan for this project and the other link to see my students presenting their campaign speeches in a super cute video.

https://youtu.be/3hAW7pZ1wIw class speeches