A journey of a 1,000 miles

I feel like teaching is a journey, never really “arriving” anywhere except for where I am on my path towards excellence. I’m in the midst of my own inquiry, to “Know Thyself”, not only as an educator, but as a person. I’ve enjoyed co-teaching and playing with others in a classroom space and am grateful to have learned how to bridge the cultural gap when it comes to international teaching.

As a teacher, philosophically, I am a constructivist, and I believe that children need hands-on experiences to formulate deep understanding of concepts.  With that in mind, children need time to explore, ask questions, and research ideas to develop their mastery in a subject area. When I plan, I do not follow a textbook, but I draw from multiple resources to create learning experiences in which skills are established within a context. I’ve had to lead by example, making accommodations along the way, so I could build trusting and collaborative relationships with my teaching partners.

The following artifacts are from a former bilingual kindergarten class (2011-2012).  The students were pre-emergent English learners, and my kindergarten team wanted to use a “Letter of the Week” approach to literacy in order to teach alphabetic principles and phonics.  In theory, the math topics were supposed to integrated, but it was rather loose. Instead, I provided direct instruction of the language necessary to articulate ideas and then used inquiry-based methods to scaffold the vocabulary and mathematical concepts.

Here are some samples of the unit:

An Inquiry into Measurement

Sample weekly lesson plan