Teaching and Learning
Teachers are lifelong learners. Each time we present a lesson to our students, we analyze what worked, what did not work, and how to improve. We also must continually seek professional development, through seminars, books, websites, and peers, so that we can learn HOW to teach; this includes deciding which videos to present, which activities balance fun with learning, how to accommodate those with specific needs, how to gauge learning, and the list goes on. Below, I have included examples of my teaching through videos and lesson plans.
Teaching Reading
In the spring of 2021, I had the opportunity to tutor my niece, a first grader struggling to learn to read. Using the lesson format outlined by my professor for the Teaching Reading course I was enrolled in, I was able to help my niece graduate from a Kindergarten reading level to a third grade reading level in a matter of twelve weeks. Each session would include a letterbox lesson, where I used Elkonin boxes to teach a new phoneme-grapheme correspondence, followed by the reading of a new story which included words using the newly taught correspondence. Below you will find a video of me teaching my niece a letterbox lesson, centered on the correspondence ir = /er/. Then you will find a video of me scaffolding her oral reading of a new story.
To prove the effectiveness of these lesson designs, I have included the literacy report I wrote to analyze the progress my student made over the twelve weeks of tutoring.
Teaching Poetry as It Relates to Music
Below is a document created by myself and two group members containing four lesson plans to be used over the course of four 50-minute lessons. The unit plan integrates grade level-appropriate music content with poetry content for the sixth grade. The document is followed by a video where we actually teach the first two lessons to our fellow class of college students.
Integrated Unit Plan_Music and Poetry
Integrating Literacy and Social Studies Using Two Picture Books and Research-Based Strategies
I selected two picture books to teach in conjunction with one another on the topic of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. Each book has a a dedicated whole group lesson to teach the essential literacy strategy of drawing inferences. Other documents include learning activities such as vocabulary maps, writing prompts, small group lesson overviews, comprehension and thought-provoking questions. View the curriculum portfolio below to learn more.