My Teaching Philosophy - Create An Environment for Success
My students are my number one priority! Their safety, comfort, and development are at the forefront of every action taken and decision made. The personal interaction and relationships I build with individual children is certainly one of my strengths. Building individual relationships with the students allows me to create opportunities to understand the group I work with. I then adapt my teaching to benefit the classroom through making connections from their lives to the content being taught. Creating a community within my classroom is critically important and practiced daily. This community is nurtured by sharing personal stories and experiences, working together through difficult problems, discovering the world around us, and enjoying the time we have together through engaging activities.
To ensure all students succeed, I have received training and implemented MTSS (Multi-Tiered Systems of Support) in my class. Using MTSS, I have assessed students and used observations to adjust my teaching and provide the necessary support for students to make progress. Examples of this include: creating small reading groups for struggling readers, meeting for one-on-one math instruction during and after school, communicating with parents about student behavior, and differentiated instruction across all curriculum to match student's needs.
Classroom management is paramount at any level and I focus heavily on my behavior management skills. Student engagement is one of the best behavior management tools and I work extremely hard to engage students numerous ways. Aspects of my classroom such as seat arrangement, work groups, and explicit expectations are meant to ensure student interact productively with each other. I am liberal employer of groups and I believe it is important to teach students how to operate with classmates as working with people is a life skill. I have received training in Kagan classroom management which allows students to work cooperatively to stay engaged.
Other modes of engaging students include using guest teachers, adapting content to students, differentiating my instruction based on abilities, and incorporating technology as often as possible. I am very open to bringing in experts I personally know and parents who are experts to share their knowledge and experiences. I provide supporting materials in my teaching of Reading Street for Language Arts by including many additional videos, readings, and activities not presented through the basic curriculum. The reading and writing groups are based on ability levels determined through testing and observation. Lastly, I bring technology front and center with my instruction through videos, education websites, typing games, personal blog creation, and web-based learning.
I learned to employ the CHAMPS (Conversation, Help, Activity, Movement, Participation, Success) chart within my elementary and middle school classrooms. The chart helps set clear expectations for students and is incredibly important for students who need direction for operating within the classroom. These expectations provide the instructional framework for the students as they work, allowing me to conduct activities more efficiently. As students meet the expectations, they would earn points for their "Positive Performance Chart." The goal of the chart is to encourage good behavior from the whole class which would be rewarded with a whole class celebration. The celebration stems from student generated ideas, making them more meaningful to the students.
As I have gained a greater understanding of using technology in the classroom, I have been able to enrich the learning environment in new ways. My development in the TPACK (Technological, Pedagogical, and Content Knowledge) framework developed by Punya Mishra and Matthew Koehler expanded my ability to combine my teaching skills and content knowledge to effectively use technology in all subject areas. TPACK has allowed me to extend my lessons and allow students to interact using 21st century learning skills. I focus on implementing lessons with technology as a driving component and not as a replacement of pen and paper.
My teaching philosophy reflects my focus on involving students in their learning. They are not vessels to be filled with knowledge. My students are meant to be innovators, collaborators, and masters of their own learning.
To ensure all students succeed, I have received training and implemented MTSS (Multi-Tiered Systems of Support) in my class. Using MTSS, I have assessed students and used observations to adjust my teaching and provide the necessary support for students to make progress. Examples of this include: creating small reading groups for struggling readers, meeting for one-on-one math instruction during and after school, communicating with parents about student behavior, and differentiated instruction across all curriculum to match student's needs.
Classroom management is paramount at any level and I focus heavily on my behavior management skills. Student engagement is one of the best behavior management tools and I work extremely hard to engage students numerous ways. Aspects of my classroom such as seat arrangement, work groups, and explicit expectations are meant to ensure student interact productively with each other. I am liberal employer of groups and I believe it is important to teach students how to operate with classmates as working with people is a life skill. I have received training in Kagan classroom management which allows students to work cooperatively to stay engaged.
Other modes of engaging students include using guest teachers, adapting content to students, differentiating my instruction based on abilities, and incorporating technology as often as possible. I am very open to bringing in experts I personally know and parents who are experts to share their knowledge and experiences. I provide supporting materials in my teaching of Reading Street for Language Arts by including many additional videos, readings, and activities not presented through the basic curriculum. The reading and writing groups are based on ability levels determined through testing and observation. Lastly, I bring technology front and center with my instruction through videos, education websites, typing games, personal blog creation, and web-based learning.
I learned to employ the CHAMPS (Conversation, Help, Activity, Movement, Participation, Success) chart within my elementary and middle school classrooms. The chart helps set clear expectations for students and is incredibly important for students who need direction for operating within the classroom. These expectations provide the instructional framework for the students as they work, allowing me to conduct activities more efficiently. As students meet the expectations, they would earn points for their "Positive Performance Chart." The goal of the chart is to encourage good behavior from the whole class which would be rewarded with a whole class celebration. The celebration stems from student generated ideas, making them more meaningful to the students.
As I have gained a greater understanding of using technology in the classroom, I have been able to enrich the learning environment in new ways. My development in the TPACK (Technological, Pedagogical, and Content Knowledge) framework developed by Punya Mishra and Matthew Koehler expanded my ability to combine my teaching skills and content knowledge to effectively use technology in all subject areas. TPACK has allowed me to extend my lessons and allow students to interact using 21st century learning skills. I focus on implementing lessons with technology as a driving component and not as a replacement of pen and paper.
My teaching philosophy reflects my focus on involving students in their learning. They are not vessels to be filled with knowledge. My students are meant to be innovators, collaborators, and masters of their own learning.