I was born and raised in Holmen, WI. I grew up in a household of four, mom, dad, and one older sister. My sister, Elizabeth, resides in Marion, Iowa with her husband, Nick, and one-year old puppy, Honey. My dad, John, is a sixth grade math teacher at G-E-T, and my mom, Karen, is an accounting specialist at Altra Federal Credit Union. I am recently engaged to Zachary Zangl, a former Winona State student-athlete and current Central High School math teacher, football coach, and powerlifting coach. I went to Sand Lake Elementary, Holmen Middle, and Holmen High School. I am currently attending Winona State University for Physical and Health Education. I came into college pursuing a degree in Business. I decided to switch to teaching after realizing that I enjoy helping others find their passion while continuously wanting to push people to be their best and become lifelong movers and learners. My mom always knew I was going to be a teacher, but it took me some time to figure out my own passion, and now that I have, I cannot wait to begin my teaching career.
Ever since I was little, I was always involved in sports and activities outside of school. I continued on to play on three varsity teams throughout high school; golf, basketball, and soccer. In college, I exhausted my eligibility through playing golf. Sports is largely where my passion for movement comes from. Not knowing much besides my personal experience, I chose the path to become a health and PE teacher. I took my mom’s advice on becoming a teacher adding in my interests in movement and health and took on the double major at Winona State. My hard work and dedication to learning is what is going to help me become the best physical and health educator that I can. I have attended state conferences and plan to attend the national one this year to expand my knowledge base in this profession to move from “gym” teacher to health and physical educator.
Not only have I gained the necessary knowledge from my classes and professional development opportunities, but I have gained hands on experience in elementary, middle school, high schools, entry level college courses, DAPE, coaching, and after school programs. I have been in a co-teaching environment with peers and veteran teachers, my own 2nd and 3rd grade PE class, Kids First (low-income after school program), middle school DAPE class, a variety of specialized high school classes, and even have got to take the lead on teaching a couple of health and PE classes at the college level. Not only have I got this experience in the classroom, but I have coached middle school girls’ basketball and golf. Each summer I also help out with the local FCA camp where I coach soccer and tennis.
My dream job would be teaching middle school health, PE, and DAPE while coaching or leading an active club after school hours. I am passionate about all of these and would love to have the variation throughout my day. Movement, health, and relationships are what I am all about and I could bring it into these various settings to help my students become life long active learners while moving towards optimal health fulfilling their goals and aspirations. I will help my students discover joy in moving, health, and building connections. My overall personal mission for my career path right now is awaken, challenge, and empower all students through collaboration in a high energy, movement setting to stimulate cognitive functioning in order to improve daily academic growth and success.
I want to be a teacher to impact the movers and learners in my classroom. I want to collaborate with students and colleagues to improve our world and community. I like the challenge that each student is not the same, but they are all important. I will empower them to embrace their differences to grow and build confidence. This is a passion of mine through teaching and coaching. Building relationships with my students will allow me to learn from them and them to learn from me and each other. I cannot wait to see where my teaching journey takes me.
A teacher must understand the central concepts, tools of inquiry, and structures of the disciplines taught and be able to create learning experiences that make these aspects of subject matter meaningful for students.
A teacher must understand how students learn and develop and must provide learning opportunities that support a student's intellectual, social, and personal development.
These two documents provide detailed understanding of content. Within each document, I created activities to work on the skill along with cognitive pieces to pair with the psychomotor part of the content. There are variations to meet students needs as well.
Through PESS300, I developed knowledge on the theoretical foundations of motor learning and development and practical applications of theories in the teaching of motor skills across a life span. This helps lead me in all decisions I make for my students in a PE class. Student's motor development is sequential, but the rate is variable.
A teacher must understand how students differ in their approaches to learning and create instructional opportunities that are adapted to students with diverse backgrounds and exceptionalities.
A teacher must understand and use a variety of instructional strategies to encourage student development of critical thinking, problem solving, and performance skills.
In my time at Winona, I had multiple opportunities to work with students with diverse backgrounds and exceptionalities. I volunteered at the after school program in Winona, Kids First, where there was a ton of diverse learners there mostly from low-income families. I also was able to participate in a practicum in a DAPE class at the local middle school. I created and planned for many diverse learners from CP to learning disabilities to visual impairments.
Within this unit plan, I created, there are multiple different instructional strategies used to reach the benchmark and objectives in the psychomotor and cognitive domain. For example, there are visual and auditory supports, along with the tactical model and sports ed model that is used to instruct learning. Within each lesson, I also planned for different daily instruction to support all learners.
A teacher must be able to use an understanding of individual and group motivation and behavior to create learning environments that encourage positive social interaction, active engagement in learning, and self- motivation.
A teacher must be able to use knowledge of effective verbal, nonverbal, and media communication techniques to foster active inquiry, collaboration, and supportive interaction in the classroom.
Through our classroom management class, we were able to create a layout of a classroom with an explanation of why we did what we did. Below is the layout I would like to have in my health classroom. As far as the gym goes, it will all mostly be set up for ease of transitions and safety which will vary day to day. The ease of transitions and having little down time will decrease the likelihood of an emotionally unsafe environment because the students will be engaged in what is going on in class
My experiences throughout my college career have all required effective communication. This goes beyond the classroom in communicating with other teachers, administration, parents, and even students. In all my lessons, and specifically in this lesson, it can be seen that the way I planned to communicate with the class was not just verbally, but non verbally such as using visuals and hand gestures. Within the lesson too, it can be seen in the supports as well as in each LX (learning experience) in table 3.
A teacher must be able to plan and manage instruction based upon knowledge of subject matter, students, the community, and curriculum goals.
A teacher must understand and be able to use formal and informal assessment strategies to evaluate and ensure the continuous intellectual, social, and physical development of the student.
To the left along with the artifacts under standard 4 and standard 6 demonstrate my ability to plan and instruct through specific lesson plans with content knowledge. In each lesson plan, I take into account and consideration the needs of my students, the age and area I am teaching as well as create objectives based of the state benchmarks and the national standards. The one to the left is health based where the ones above are PE based.
Within health and PE, there are so many different ways to assess. Using the psychomotor domain, we can actually assess all three domains and multiple different levels of Bloom's Taxonomy as long as the desired answer can be achieved. The assessment to the right is the GPAI (game performance assessment instrument) that I have used to assess my students in secondary classes for the psychomotor domain, affective domain, and cognitive domain.
A teacher must be a reflective practitioner who continually evaluates the effects of choices and actions on others, including students, parents, and other professionals in the learning community, and who actively seeks out opportunities for professional growth.
A teacher must be able to communicate and interact with parents or guardians, families, school colleagues, and the community to support student learning and well-being.
In order to stay up on the latest break throughs and in the know of what is happening in other PE and health classes, I have decided to attend the state and national conferences for health and PE teachers. This allows me to network and build a support group to help me be the best teacher I can be. I have learned so much at these conferences that will ultimately help my students. It is one of the best things I have got involved in during my time at Winona State University.
This entire website is dedicated to interacting with parents or guardians, families, school colleagues, and the community to support student learning and well-being. The goal of it is to get my students and others to get to know me and my mission to help students thrive in the classroom and society. At the top of the page are different sections on my website that I plan to keep adding to as well as add new categories once I start teaching to connect with students and the people in their life. I will continue to use this as a positive platform for Quality Physical and Health Education for all.