Showcase of Work
On this page, you will find a display of work I completed during my Master of Arts in Education program at Michigan State University. As a dedicated educator, I decided to focus on the two themes most important to me: Teaching and Learning. In the Teaching section, I have included projects that showcase new techniques I learned that helped me in designing lesson plans to address the individualized needs of the diverse students. I also included a website I designed to reflect how creativity can be taught and nurtured. The Learning section highlights the knowledge that I obtained about how to work with aggressive students and students with mild disabilities, how learning can take place in different settings, and how technology can be incorporated into the teaching and learning of math. These artifacts had a significant influence in helping me to enhance literacy instruction in the classroom and to differentiate learning for all students.
Teaching
In this case study, I had the opportunity to research different techniques for literacy instruction.
I worked with two students with different literacy needs. I gathered some background information about them and did a literacy pre-assessment test.
I designed different lessons to help them achieve their literacy needs. I conducted a post-assessment test to check on their progress. At the end of the case study, you can find my reflection on this project. I also include the lesson plans and the artifacts that I used in this case study.
Book Reflection
In this project, I worked with three other classmates to discuss the book "All About Words: Increasing Vocabulary in the Common Core Classroom, Prek-2". I chose this book because I know how important vocabulary is for English Language Learners (ELL). Children now are required to read complex vocabulary-rich texts related to math, science, art, and social studies.
Reading this book gave me a practical guide on how to implement new and useful vocabulary development strategies for young ELLs.
Language diversity is an issue that teachers are facing or will face in the future. Providing teachers with the necessary skills and strategies to manage the different literacy level can ease the transition for teachers, students, and parents. The hardest subject for English Language Learners is writing, and students deserve good feedback that help them in developing their writing skills. I was able to develop a one-hour professional development workshop to address this issue and to assist my fellow teachers in delivering the most useful feedback to students.
I designed a website that demonstrates to other teachers how creativity can be learned and nurtured. It is true that some people are creative by nature, but that doesn't mean that creativity can't be learned. This site displays how to deliver subject matter in a creative way and how to develop creativity in young learners. For a person to be creative, he/she needs not to be afraid to try new things. Everyone can be creative in his/her own way.
Learning
Having a student with challenging behavior in a class of 25 kindergarteners can be very challenging, and classroom management will be affected when the teacher has to attend to the persistent needs of such student. Teachers need a set of strategies to guide them in setting an intervention plan to change this behavior. I had the opportunity to work with one passive-aggressive student; through observation, I collected enough data which helped me in setting a strategic plan for improvement. I designed a powerpoint project to demonstrate the steps I followed to change his challenging behaviors.
Reflective Essays
I had the opportunity to read some wonderful book about how learning can happen in different settings. The concept of "Learning Society" is very broad, some people see the learning society as a place for economic development and technological advancement. Others see a more important emphasis on issues of social justice, equity, and access to education. In my work above, I included the six reflective essays I wrote about learning at work, at home, away (different cultures), at school, and through technology.
Case Study
In this case study, I had the opportunity to design an intervention guide plan for subject-area teachers (math, science, and social studies) having students with mild disabilities. Part 1 of this guide concentrates on the content-area that the students need to master, the tasks that the students are required to perform, the challenges that the students with learning difficulty will face, and my suggestions for the intervention plan. This guide should be used in general education classrooms and is intended to improve the learning and the academic performance of students with mild learning disabilities. Part 2 concentrates on general intervention strategies, such as, students' engagement, paying attention, etc.
Website
This website is an online math resource library for k-2 teachers. It contains tools and resources that allow teachers and student to use them while teaching and learning. I included tools for numbers & operations, algebra, geometry, and data & probability. I also included links to the Principles and Standards for School Math (PSSM) and Common Core Standards (CCSS). Each tool has a brief description of the tool, technical and cost consideration, evaluation of the tool, and additional information about the tool. All tools have been evaluated by me or one of my classmates.