I am a passionate educator with over two decades of diverse teaching experience. I am committed to cultivating a learning environment that empowers students to engage in their own learning and make connections to their everyday lives. I have consistently sought to inspire curiosity and civic responsibility in learners by combining rigorous academic instruction with compassion and creativity, while making sure to respond to students’ individual needs.  

Currently serving as a Social Studies Teacher in the Sweet Home Central School District, I take pride in building an inclusive classroom setting that celebrates diverse perspectives and gives students a voice. Integration of primary sources, multimedia, collaborative inquiry, and hands-on activities are used to challenge students to make historical connections and develop informed opinions. Student growth is a priority to me, which inspired me to join district-wide initiatives such as the NYS Seal of Civic Readiness and The Leader in Me framework. My previous roles as an Academic Support Coach and Long-Term Substitute equipped me with a deep understanding of students’ needs, both socially and academically. These roles helped me become an adaptive, collaborative teacher and colleague. 

I bring an entrepreneurial spirit, demonstrated by my role as co-owner of 26 Shirts and founder of the Entrepreneur Club. This spirit, combined with my love for both my school and Western New York communities, have helped spur me to get involved however I can.  

I have completed several staff development courses through our staff development center.  These classes helped introduce me to new ideas and best practices, in order to hone in on new and engaging ways to present content. They also have helped me see real world problems and situations (trauma, school violence, bullying, etc.) and learn new practices and interventions to deal with these issues.  Sweet Home has made a commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion and has done a great job equipping staff to create a community where every single person feels valued. 

Mastering content is important to me, so that students are clearly able to make sense of the subject matter. I strive daily to aid students in making connections in social studies.  Those connections may be to prior knowledge, real life situations or may even be personal as they see how social studies directly relates to their lives.  I often point out that it is important to learn history, so we may examine the successes and failures of our forefathers, and use that information to be better human being going forward. My lessons are well thought through, with the goals of deepening student understanding and developing a student’s ability to transfer learning authentically. Being a “coach of understanding” rather than simply a “purveyor of knowledge” assures that authentic learning is happening, not just teaching.

It is important to empower students to be brave and take risks in the classroom, with no fear of saying the wrong answer. I try to predict where misconceptions will occur, based on my years of teaching experience and the misconceptions of other students.  Nailing down social studies terms and how they make sense in context helps clarify these words, main ideas and themes throughout social studies. 

I have also employed the use of inquiry based learning through various curricula.  The use of questions, tasks and sources place responsibility for learning in the hand of the learner, guided by the teacher.  Students are able to draw conclusions, explore further questions, become experts in the content in order to support and defend their own ideas.  These skills are particularly useful to prepare for the New York State Regents assessments.

Each student has something unique that they bring to the table.  I try to consider students’ differences and what makes them who they are, considering the way they approach learning, their knowledge and skills, special needs, interests and cultural heritages. Classroom discussion, both large group and small group, gives the students the opportunity to share their backgrounds as well as their feelings and ideas about the content. Each student is valued and is given the opportunity to bring their unique and diverse background and voice into my classroom.

Regularly reviewing appropriate documents on Powerschool and being in regular contact with the counseling center has helped me to know my students’ academic, behavioral and social/emotional needs. Working with other colleagues and engaging parents/guardians, whenever possible, has been most successful in connecting with those who are struggling with any of the above. I have more recently put to use the strategies that we have been trained with using Trauma Informed Care, in order to promote healing and recovery. I wholeheartedly support the idea that our culture needs a shift to a place where we as educators guide students on a path of understanding, respect and appropriate response to the effects of trauma (Fallot and Harris, 2001).

I strive to make a connection with each student.  I try to get to know them so that I am able to ask them about their lives, families, sports, music and other interests.  Several students stop by to chat, before or after school.  A huge topic of conversation this year has been football.  It has been so fun to cheer the Bills on together and have post game critique sessions.  It has been a great connection point.  Somehow, these connections have helped students to be more engaged and attentive when I share social studies material with them. 

I use a variety of resources to engage students, both online and in print.  Some online resources I utilize include Google Classroom, all Google platform apps, Pear Deck, New Visions for Public Schools, College Board, Bitmoji, Kami, Jam Boards, ThinkTech, and Kahoot, to name a few. I also create a portion of my own material or use resources created or shared with me from other colleagues in the social studies department.

I seek to tightly align my instruction with the learning targets and outcomes in mind.  That way we are able, as a class, to reflect on the important concepts of social studies.  Authentic knowledge of these concepts is important, as students will carry the concepts with them throughout the rest of their lives.  As students attain mastery level of these concepts, I work to present paths to more complex opportunities for higher order thinking. 

The materials used are carefully chosen to keep all the learning targets and outcomes in mind.  That is why I use a variety of material outside the textbook. Also, different types of learners respond better to different ways of presenting material.  Incorporating context-rich instruction and a variety of mediums has helped students to grasp concepts.  Some of these approaches include 5-minute lectures, slideshows, read alouds, videos, incorporation of art or music, large class discussion or small group discussions.  Scaffolding the learning process has been very useful in connecting old concepts and prior knowledge to new concepts, which is foundational for learning.  The progression takes students from guided to independent instruction and authentic learning. These instruction strategies are constantly adjusted to meet the needs of the students, especially as I get to know them better.

There are several ways that students are authentically assessed. It is important to know and understand each individual student and how they best show they have truly gained understanding of the subject matter.  Both summative and formative assessments are used to determine the prior knowledge and skills that students have entered the classroom with.  Those assessments also help to uncover areas where students may be struggling or have developed a misconception.  Just one part of the student’s experience will be preparing for the New York State Regents Examination. 

Formative assessments included the use of learning target discussions, exit tickets, Pear Deck slide questions, Google Classroom question tools, quizzes, polls, Kahoot games, and sometimes just asking for a simple thumbs up or thumbs down.  Summative assessment occurs through the use of chapter quizzes and unit tests.  These quizzes and tests are multiple choice, fill in the blanks, document based and inquiry based questions, short answer questions and essays.  The use of the New York State US History Regents review book gives students practice and prepares them for the types of questions that will appear on the Regents Examination.

Students are given quizzes at the end of each section and tests at the end of each unit to check for understanding.  Vocabulary quizzes are sometimes given to challenge students to learn key terms.
My tests and quizzes are a blend of material I have created and New Visions or New York State Regents questions.  All are aligned with the NYS Social Studies Framework. They also help prepare for the New York State Regents Examination in June. 

Daily assessment and student self-assessment are incorporated into lessons to check for understanding.  This is done through teacher directed questions, guided reading questions, and through the use of technology (Pear Deck, Kahoot, Google Meet Questions, etc.).

These principles and practices are reevaluated regularly, so that I am able to offer students every opportunity for success.