Graduate Work Showcase
Here you will see some of the work that I did while taking part in my master's program at Michigan State. I specialized in Literacy Education, and I hope to share some of the work that I am both most proud of as well taught me the most about how to better develop my craft. As you look through this showcase, you will get a stronger idea of the skills that I am passionate about honing through a variety of different mediums.
The three categories for this showcase are:
Pop Culture in the Classroom, Classroom Adaptations for Literacy Learners, and Building Classroom Community.
Pop Culture in the Classroom
Amongst these artifacts, you will see a variety of ways that I analyze popular culture and try to develop interesting and engaging ways to tie it into my curriculum to increase student engagement.
One of the most fun and rewarding experiences I had during my program was when I was working with children's literature, and my work with Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mr. Fox was amongst my favorite. In this piece of writing, you will see ways that I connect both Dahl's book and West Anderson's 2009 film of the same name in ways that will help students make connections between source material and adaptations.
Since I started training to become an educator, I have always been fascinated by curriculum and the choices that teachers, schools, districts, states, and the country make about what we teach. In my work with children's literature awards, I developed a stronger understanding of how impactful what we choose to teach can be on our students. In this piece of writing, you'll see both how I make choices in the classroom about both what to teach as well as how to teach it.
I had not put too much thought into what made something a "classic" before my master's program, but once I started to realize analyze and think about what that word meant in popular culture, I found myself thinking in a lot of interesting new ways. In this piece of writing, you'll see how my ideas of what a classic is has been impacted through the reading and viewing of multiple versions of Peter Pan, and what the implications for this critical work on "classics" has done for the decisions I make in the classroom.
Classroom Adaptations for Literacy Learners
Here you will find some examples of ways I learned to create a classroom environment that is welcoming and accommodating for learners regardless of where their skills may lie when they enter my classroom.
In this link, you will see a way that I adapted a geography slide that was originally poorly designed and difficult to read. You'll see some of the skills I developed that helped me create presentations that are more focused and less confusing.
This link is another example of skills I developed that allow me to create better presentations. I am a teacher who likes to use a lot of images and visuals in my presentations, so this will provide you with an example of how I could take a poor use of an image on a slide and adapted it so that an image is both highlighted and used to reinforce key ideas of the lesson.
This is a unit plan that I put together with a heavy emphasis on developing literacy skills. In this document you will see examples of the way that I think when I am putting a unit together as well as see the various ways that I take new skills that I am learning and include them in my lesson and unit development.
Building Classroom Community
Both in my master's program and beyond, I have been heavily focused on creating a classroom where all of my students can see themselves in the content and lessons I teach. In this section, you will see some of the ways I do this and the skills I've learned to do so more effectively.
I always have more fun and get more out of my classes when the content and lessons feel relevant to my life, so when I was given the opportunity to create a new way to learn about my students, I was thrilled. This interest inventory will show some of the ways I can gain a better understanding of who my students are and what kind of learners they are/want to become.
When I was creating this blog, I started to learn a lot about the different ways that curriculum has impacted me both as a teacher and as a student. Looking through this link, you'll see a variety of the different ways that I look at curriculum as a way to create an inclusive community for my students as well as how I see curriculum development as an opportunity for me to continually grow as a teacher. On this page you'll also see a letter to my students, which is an example of a way that I try to make myself open to my students and help foster a stronger community.
Speaking to, collaborating with, and learning from fellow educators have proven to be both one of the most important and enjoyable aspects of my growth as an educator. During my master's program, I was given the opportunity to do this on a scale I had never done before by collaborating with a colleague and friend from another school. In this artifact you will see how I value collaboration and creative problem solving as well as how I believe building a strong classroom community expands beyond the classroom itself.