Education
This is a collection of work I've done as an educational leader both in the classroom and online. The job of the educator can often be split into four main roles: assessment, curriculum, and instruction. A fourth category—pedagogy—encompasses the theory, philosophy, and research that guide us in how we execute those three roles.
Career and Technical Education
As part of my plan to gain an endorsement in Career and Technical Education (CTE), I have developed an additional component to my teaching portfolio including specific elements related to my experience, planning, and pedagogy for CTE.
Why CTE? It's one thing to become a CTE teacher, but what drives CTE? Why does it get extra funding, and what does it offer that general ed does not?
Any CTE teacher would be remiss if they didn't have relevant, real world experience. This resume shows some of my experience.
In order to keep skills current and to hone teaching skills, it's important to maintain a current professional development plan.
The best way to learn about CTE is to ask those who are already in the field. I interviewed a CTE teacher and CTE director at my school. These are their interviews and my reflections after.
Every CTE teacher needs to be aware of the skills necessary to maintain in order to keep current with their field. The greatest benefit of CTE is having current and relevant work experience to pass on to our students.
Of course, to be a CTE teacher, you have to hold a proper certification. I currently hold a
Currently holding a Conditional Certificate, my next step will be applying for a Probationary Certificate, once I have completed my CTE coursework
Assessment
Every good educator needs to have a consistent and effective approach to assessment. It is essential to develop assessments that both set students up with the tools to succeed and accurately evaluate the skill level the student has reached. A purposefully designed unit begins with the assessment and the learning activities build upon each other to bring the student to competency with the skills the assessment is measuring. Below are some work samples from my efforts in the area of assessment.
The key to having effective assessment is to have an effective rubric.
Technology is a powerful tool to help deliver specific and targeted feedback to students.
Tools I've created to help inform students of assessment requirements and prepare students for the state assessment.
Mastery-based awards credit based on mastering skills rather than seat time. This is an assessment I designed to allow students to demonstrate their mastery in American Lit.
Curriculum
Samples of curriculum I've created as part of my role at Bethel Online Academy. This curriculum was laid out in a word processor and then placed into our Learning Management Systems (LMS) or delivered via Elluminate (a web conferencing solution targeted at education).
I created this slideshow as part of a training I led with teachers of Bethel Online Academy as part of a move to redesign our curriculum.
I collaborated with the other Communication Arts teacher at Bethel Online Academy to develop this syllabi as a new standard for our courses.
This slideshow was used in the WASL Questions digital lesson below. I modified the slideshow from a state-provided lesson and collaborated with another Communication Arts teacher to deliver the lesson through Elluminate.
This slideshow was used in the Sentence Problems digital lesson below. I created and delivered this lesson independently using Elluminate.
This is a practice lesson I created that helps build a student's understanding of a concept before moving on to more complex application and analysis.
This reading assignment follows the practice assignment. It asks the reader to analyze the concepts of conflict, metaphor, and simile to a course reading.
I created this writing assignment to scaffold the writing process for students. It is the first writing assignment in the 9th grade English class, and walks students through creating an essay, one step at a time. It is all in one document here, but this lesson is delivered in chunks when loaded into the LMS.
This is a creative project assignment that asks students to apply their understanding of metaphor from the practice and reading assignments and synthesize the style of extended metaphor from their reading into their own creative metaphor.
Classroom Instruction
As a classroom teacher, it is important to have a clear structure to your classroom and lessons to help engage students and manage behaviors. The key is to maximize learning using a style that is both effective and matches who you are.
A write up describing my classroom management philosophy
A lesson focused on building the team to create a learning community in the classroom.
A unit plan using Harrison Bergeron and Brave New World to analyze issues in society using portrayals of our future.
Digital Instruction
An essential part of any online teacher's repertoire is the digital classroom. Elluminate is the go to name in digital classrooms. I speak about the value of Elluminate in online curriculum in The Elluminate Energy. Here are a few sample Elluminate sessions I've lead in the past.
This was a joint lesson taught by myself and a colleague on the two- and four-point response questions of the WASL. I talk specifically about this lesson in my article, The Elluminate Energy.
This lesson covers prompt analysis for persuasive and expository essays.
This lesson covers three major sentence issues: run-ons, fragments, and comma splices. In the lesson, students learn to identify the problem and resolve it.
This lesson covers the assignments for the week in 8th grade Language Arts and helps students with elaborating on their assignments.
Pedagogy
Pedagogy encompasses the theory, philosophy, and research that guide us in how we execute our roles as an educator. Below are a few of the writings and research that express my personal educational philosophy.
Sometimes expectations need to be unfair in order to bring equity to schools.
A collection of blog posts related to education.
A report on the structures of time within a typical middle school.
A personal manifesto that drives deep into the core of my identity as a teacher as well as a human being.