To Inspire...

Teaching is a career that should not be taken lightly; considering that we are responsible for generations of minds that are in their developmental stage. As a teacher, especially as a high school teacher, I want to inspire students to enjoy and love the sciences. I find it to be very important to challenge students so they understand that I expect more from them while also creating a safe and welcoming learning environment.

Why teaching is important to you.

Teaching is important to me because, as a teacher I have a hand in changing lives daily, starting with just a kind smile in the morning. Every morning I pass one of my students and I smile and tell him good morning, he replies, "is it?" This gives me the chance to add in a positive response. We do this every morning and I feel at this point he is ready for my off-the-wall positive morning interaction. These are the moments I look forward to. As a teacher, my students' well-being and mental health is the number one most important aspect, followed by their academic product. Some days I just have to take some time to check in with my students, because I can see they are drained and have nothing left. These days can be frustrating, however you still have to be on track and a 5-minute check goes a long way with the young adults that I teach. I want to teach and I teach because my students need a positive adult influence in their life that wants to help them succeed. We live in a community where most of our students do not receive this at home and I have the opportunity to give that to my students.

My beliefs as a professional educator about teaching and learning.

As a professional educator, my beliefs about teaching and learning starts with creating a positive and relaxing learning environment. In my classroom, I use a mixture of music and mood lighting to create an inviting and positive learning environment. My students say they automatically feel relaxed when they enter my classroom because the overhead lights are off. The creation of a positive and relaxing environment is important to my student's learning and engagement because it calms them down and helps them be able to focus on learning.

Explain how your beliefs about teaching and learning are supported by theory or research.

My belief of having the students make connections between cross-curriculum and real-world experience aligns with the theory of constructivism because students are taking their knowledge from their past education and experience to advance their learning. In the beginning, this is a hard task for my students in general because they struggle to make connections for which I supply scaffolding in the beginning. As we move on, students start to naturally see the connection on their own. They start to open their minds to the connections between their past knowledge and current learning. I noticed early on in teaching, students often times only have their science or math brain on. Doing cross-curriculum shows students how and why they need to use their whole brain.

"Constructivism learning theory is based on the idea that students create their learning based on their previous experiences. Students take what they’re being taught and add it to their previous knowledge and experiences, creating a reality that’s unique to them. This learning theory focuses on learning as an active process, which is personal and individual for each student."

(Western Governors University, 2021)

Describe a learning outcome you want to foster in your students.

As a Cross County Subject Leader, my power standards are always in the back of my head but multiple-choice tests are not everything to me as a teacher. The power of learning through problem-solving and cross-curriculum assessment is very important to me. As a science teacher, I find that assessing my students in various ways builds their confidence and problem-solving skills. For example, assessing research papers and reading comprehension through articles and questions according to their reading levels, gives my students a chance to tell me everything they learned. Incorporating things my students learn in their other courses is important in science to support the connection between subjects. When my students practice their math skills in a lab they are making real-world connections to math concepts, which they have a state exam on.

Explain how you will use two or more instructional strategies to foster student mastery of the learning outcome.

The main two instructional strategies I use in my classroom are experiential learning and direct instruction. I use direct instruction to introduce new content and example while using experiential learning to reinforce and practice the concepts from the lesson. This instructional style fosters more communication between my students and me. When my students are open to communicating more I have the ability to direct them into mastering the concepts. As a teacher of freshmen, I mainly use instructional strategies to start the year with a low amount of experiential learning. As the year continues I slowly transition to more experiential learning versus direct instructional strategies which is how I move from a teacher lead classroom to a student lead classroom. When incorporating cross-curriculum, the transition from teacher lead to student lead was slow and unnoticed by my students. They become more confident about the cross-curriculum assignments with the gradual transition. The importance of the experiential instructional strategy is to push my students to master concepts through trying, making mistakes, and pushing them to be active learners.

Explain how you will use two or more specific assessment tools or strategies to measure student mastery of the learning outcome.

First, to asses reading comprehension and essay writing skills, I give a subject-related article to the students at their perspective reading levels on their unit test for them to complete essay questions about. These articles and questions are based on their most recent Lexile reading level. I placed an example in Evidence and Commentary of Classroom Practices. This gives me the chance to assess each student's understanding of the content without my student struggling to understand the article or question based solely on their reading level. The students will show their mastery and understanding of the content along with applying their understanding of vocab connections. Second, I use a review question game where students are placed in groups of 3 and have assigned questions for each player. During the game, the player answers their assigned question while being able to ask their group mates for assistance. This is a great way to address misunderstanding and learn gaps as we move through the game. My student stays highly engaged and eager to ask questions about the content.

Describe your beliefs as a professional educator about building positive relationships with school stakeholders, and explain the strategies you would use to build such relationships.

Building relationships with stakeholders is important from day one. During every interaction I have with stakeholders I remind myself to make sure when they walk away they have no doubt in my teaching ability or my passion. When in a meeting with stakeholders I always have a positive input and engage in the conversation. For example in IEP meetings, I am actively engaged with the parents, student, administrator, caseworker, and fellow teachers to work towards a positive outcome. Along with being engaged, being prepared for any question and situation is also a way to build positive relationships with stakeholders. As a cross-county common assessment representative, I always show up prepared for collaboration and positive engagement in conversation with all stakeholders.

Western Governors University. (2021, August 11). Five educational learning theories. Western Governors University. Retrieved March 23, 2022, from https://www.wgu.edu/blog/five-educational-learning-theories2005.html#close