Welcome to my teaching portfolio. Above, there are links to my resume, teaching philosophy and work samples. I am a California credentialed teacher with a single subject credential in Visual Arts. I hope this portfolio may help give insight on my teaching practices. If you have any further questions please feel free to reach out to my via email at tyralira@yahoo.com.
As a San Diego native, I feel lucky to have grown up in a place with such rich culture and appreciation for art. My personal art practices are printmaking and drawing and that is where I find most of my joy in creating. My educational background in Studio Arts will allow me to teach our students to experiment and explore a variety of mediums. My hopes and dreams as an educator are to celebrate the cultures of our community while teaching lasting foundations that will build our students into artists.
I am lucky to have worked in such culturally rich and diverse schools that celebrate all identities and ways of learning. Working within the full inclusion model has pushed me to be culturally responsive and constantly learning about ways I can serve students so that I am meeting their needs.
Through my work as both an afterschool program assistant and academic support coach, I was able to gain the foundational knowledge and understanding of how the academic system works which allowed me to fully invest in my love for education. While working toward my Bachelors of Arts in Studio Arts at San Diego State University, I was diving deeper into supporting students with academics and was feeding the growing love I had for serving the student community through education. Naturally, my two loves converged as I continued to acquire a single-subject credential in Visual Arts.
While teaching full time, I have grown to build curriculum in grades TK through 5th, as well as lower and upper level elementary self-contained (mod-severe) classrooms. In 2025 I matriculated with a Masters in Education of Teaching and Learning through HTHGSE, where lesson study cycles were the means of articulating and designing curriculum. From these lesson study cycles, I have continued to apply a critical lens to my teaching practice as I develop an engaging and culturally responsive visual arts curriculum guided by CA Visual Arts Standards.