What I believe:  

I think the title from my presentation from the 2016 AP conference at Calvin College says it all: "Language Lessons: To Engage and Prepare a Diverse Population of AP Language and Composition Students for College and Beyond." I'm proud to say that I have chosen to teach in diverse schools since the beginning of my career as a teacher. Teaching students to come from a place of power, to study and work hard to back up that power, and to find ways to empower others to be the very best they can be is one of my missions. My mantra in class is that we are all here to learn to be open-minded, thoughtful, knowledgeable, responsible citizens of the world. Being a global citizen is the future of our economy and our humanity. Everything we do in class comes down to those ideals and those of Northview High School's mission. This ultimately promotes classroom equity, where all voices are heard and honored. To this end, in addition to the AP English Language and Composition classes that I usually teach, I requested to teach EL English in conjunction with earning credentials for TESOL certification from Aquinas College. It has indeed been an honor and a joy to prepare learning for ALL my students. 

The tension between letting one’s mind go and reeling it back in to meet requirements is very real in academic and real-world settings: “What are all the ways we might solve the problem of hunger in our world?” There are a million possible answers. But what is the right or best answer? Where has this solution happened before, or something similar? What are the results of this? How might we fit an idea to the present circumstances? Ironically, parameters are what support innovation. How can we make a solution happen within these sets of boundaries? 

This is real-world thinking, and it is the thinking I encourage in all my lessons for my learners. From what I hear from professors, this is what college readiness looks like. 

Essentially, what I am all about is preparing all of my learners, no matter their background, for their futures, whatever those futures may be. If I can get them thinking about solutions instead of getting stuck on the problem (although realizing that a problem is truly a problem is an art in and of itself); if I can inspire them to think around blocks and boundaries; if I can foster a belief in the journey as much as the finish; and still remind them they are citizens of a vast world where they need to be thoughtful, responsible, and open-minded; then I have done my job.

Teaching Experience:  I have been teaching in Michigan Public Schools since 2000, including student teaching and 2 years of substitute teaching. Student teaching was at City Middle/High School; my first teaching job was at Wayne-Memorial High School, a very diverse school just outside Detroit; then I subbed for a couple years all around Kent County. I had many long-term sub jobs, and developed relationships with a few specific schools: Rockford, Northview, and Forest Hills Northern and Central. Next, I landed a job at West Ottawa High School, where I stayed for 8 years. All throughout these years, I have taken every opportunity to develop my pedagogy in education so that I could help my myriad of students to learn at the top of their ability. Next, I spent 10 wonderful years at East Kentwood High School, and finally, I’ve happily landed at Northview High School where I’ll be in my first year. This totals to 22 years of teaching experience, with 2 years of substitute teaching and a ½ year of student teaching. I also subbed in Kalamazoo Public Schools before I graduated college. Before that, I was a swim instructor for children from the time I was 16 to about 25 at various pools. Basically, I’ve been a teacher forever. Teaching and learning in various forms and mutations are my callings, most definitely. 

Learning Philosophy: My philosophy of teaching and learning and my opinions regarding the purpose of education.

Listening to others to find out just what motivates them has been the crux of my career:  helping reluctant readers to love reading by choosing books they like on their own; empowering hesitant writers to finish 4-6-10 page research papers little-by-little; enriching my advanced students with differentiated and high-level options; supporting my school’s improvement plan by collaborating with a group of colleagues on a variety of projects; and sharing my learning with others who want to diversify their teaching and learning tool-kits.

I believe that education is about our future ability to communicate and collaborate in an ever-changing, tech-exploding society. Our children will need to navigate a variety of media and tech, all the while to work person-to-person. Essentially, many of them will be doing jobs that do not even exist yet when they graduate. 

So the big question is, how are we going to support that as educators to these future movers-and-shakers? Our kids have dreams, and it is our job to empower our kids to make them come true. And while these dreams are great for the kids themselves, they are even better for our society as a whole. 

Innovation: I strongly believe that America's biggest strength in the world is our innovation. This cannot be only tested in a standardized way. It is something we have from the time we are born, and which can be either supported and thwarted throughout our educational careers. Sir Ken Robinson's talk explains this more thoroughly. Here is an example of an innovative lesson I do: 

Innovation: that “aha” moment when you’ve been thinking about a solution to a problem, and some ideas have come up, but there’s a moment when your gut shouts, “This is it! This is the idea I’m looking for.” This moment happened to me last March when I wanted to create a non-traditional assessment for my AP Language Gender Unit. Essentially, I took an idea that my mentor teacher, years ago, told me: “Encourage your students to create something that cannot be imitated or copied from something else.” This was, and still is, genius. So, with this in mind, I started thinking about how I might ask my students to synthesize their learning into a final project. Here’s what I came up with (and it went pretty well!): 1.) Choose 1 book or 3 pieces of pop culture (music, art, tv, movies, video games, superheroes, etc…) to analyze. 2.) Read them/look at them/study them and answer the 8 “feminist critical theory” questions we’ve been studying. 3.) Synthesize your findings into a presentation using any form you choose. 4.) Present for 5 minutes + or - 30 seconds. At first, they were dumbfounded. Where was a sample? What exactly were they supposed to do? Where was the outline? I told them I purposely kept it open and some parts vague to encourage creativity and innovation. They took the challenge! Some needed extra support, so I did that, but many were excited by the challenge and the opportunity to flex their creative muscles. Update: Learning for Justice picked up this plan and teachers around the world can us it in their classrooms. 

Leadership: 

• Co-lead the AP Best Practices Conference for local AP Teachers

• AP English Language and Composition Reader 

• WMU Legacy Scholarship reader

• Piloted the google classroom Chromebooks for my department

• Lead and participated in many book studies for PD at EKHS, including Visible Learning, Readicide, and Questioning Texts

• Created and implemented the Advisory Program at EKHS, working with teachers, administration, and superintendents to get this up and running

• I currently lead the Kentwood Track Club-Adults facebook group

• Gay-Straight-Alliance (GSA) co-sponsor at WO and EK

• Co-advisor for the Young Democrats at EK

• Trained and supported West Ottawa HS staff on Infinite Campus grading system

• Collaborated with ESL teachers, another English teacher, and administration in aligning the ESL curriculum to CCSS and ESL standards

• English Department Head at EKHS, 2015-16

• Coached children 6th-12th grade in track, cross-country, and varsity lacrosse throughout my career in head coach, assistant coach, and co-coach roles

• Collaborated with a successful 9th grade PLC group at West Ottawa High School

• Co-Developed a county-wide literacy framework at the OAISD with Rita Reimbold

• Lead PD for two years at the EKHS beginning of school conference on How to Design a Classroom Website (year 3), Accountable Talk (year 2) and Rhetorical Analysis (year 1) teaching strategies

• Manager at OHSS during the summer

• Water Director at Camp Mariah--trained swim instructors and lead the water program

Technology: The types of technology training I've had, certifications or degrees earned, coaching experience or other technology skill sets.

Seeing how technology can truly transform a classroom by making it more efficient and modern, more relatable and oddly, relational, is one of the best things I have had the pleasure of noticing in my career as a teacher. I have been trained in SIOP, Infinite Campus gradebook staff roll-out, various reading strategies, and Read 180. I picked up various tech ideas through my PLC at West Ottawa, and meetings at East Kentwood such as Edmodo, Zip Grade, google classroom, blogging, website creation, Doctopus, Goobric, iMovie, Animoto, Flipgrid, Seesaw, various presentation applications, etc...I’m always open and up for a challenge and glory in change; however, I do understand how others can find change challenging. A while back, I worked with a team of teachers and Rita Reimbold at the OAISD on a Literacy Framework, where we created an online database for various literacy strategies for teachers. Recently, I participated in the one-day cognitive coaching session at the Kent ISD. This supplemented my experience as a teacher-host and teacher-guest in Classroom Learning Labs in the past 8 years.

Public Speaking: Conferences, district/school professional development, and other public speaking experiences.

• Led a Lansing/Livonia professional development teacher training--accountable talk and making a classroom website

• Trained in cognitive coaching for Classroom Learning Lab (CLL) implementation and facilitation 

• Created and implemented the Advisory Program in '14 and PBIS currently at EKHS, working with teachers, administration, and superintendents to get this up and running

• 1st place winner at GVSU’s Shakespeare Festival for Graduate-Level essay writing-acceptance speech

• Trained and supported West Ottawa HS staff on Infinite Campus grading system

• Coached children 6th-12th grade in track, cross-country, and varsity lacrosse throughout my career; held many public parent meetings and information meetings about lacrosse especially

• Presented on how to teach AP Language to diverse learners at the Calvin College AP conference, 2016

• Presented for two years at the EK Conference on Accountable Talk and Rhetorical Analysis, 2015-2016

• Held a session at EKCon17 on creating/editing your own classroom website--Google Sites and Weebly, 2017

• Speech and communication minor from WMU, 2002