Professional | Projects | Personal
Robyn | Ryan | Testimonials | Resume/CV | Writings
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Professional | Projects | Personal Robyn | Ryan | Testimonials | Resume/CV | Writings |
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As anyone who applies for a teaching job knows, when you apply to a position within a school district or state,
you must answer a plethora of questions that indicate your specific ideas on teaching. I decided to include the answers to a few of these
questions below so that anyone interested in learning about my philosophy on teaching can see what I have told school districts in the past.
New Mexico REAP Questions |
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| What are your three (3) most important reasons for wanting to be a teacher? | I chose the teaching profession because I want to make a difference in the world. Through teaching, I believe that I will inspire my students to become life-long learners, encourage them to embrace cultural diversity, and foster their belief that a single person can make the world a better place. | |
| How much do you want to know about your students in order to be helpful to them? | In a world as complex as ours, student success can be dependent on everything from an individual's family life to different learning styles. For this reason, I want to know as much as possible about my students because it shows them that there are people who care about their success. | |
| What three (3) things do you most want to know about your students? | While I believe that the more you know about your students the more capable you are of teaching them, it is imperative to understand what interests your students, how their family life influences their learning, and any learning disabilities that might affect a student's success in my class. | |
| What do you need to know in order to begin your lesson planning for a class? | To prepare an effective lesson plan, I must know what learning styles are most prevalent in my class, how to make content relative to individual interests, and identify the enduring understanding of what I intend to teach. | |
| What four (4) key components do you believe you must include in your plan? | First, my lesson plans connect content information to student interests. Second, I determine what learning styles are best suited to the content. Third, I identify how I will assess student knowledge. Fourth, I implement ways to review student understanding and address deficiencies in learning. | |
| When you think about your students, in what major ways do you most want to influence their lives? | Above all, I want to inspire my students to believe in their ability to succeed, while encouraging them to think critically about the world in which they live. | |
| List and describe two (2) core teaching strategies you most utilized in your classroom. | I am a big proponent of differentiated and cooperative learning. Differentiated learning allows me to challenge those students who excel in the classroom, while building confidence in those who struggle. Cooperative learning models encourage students to take ownership of their learning. | |
Telluride School District Questions |
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| Outline some of the things you will do as a teacher which will allow you to establish harmonious relationships with students. | Harmonious relationships are created when students and teachers respect each other’s ideas, actions, and work. As a teacher, I intend to foster mutual respect in the classroom through a classroom management system that incorporates rules and procedures that are agreed upon by both the student and the teacher. Through this initial collaboration, students will understand that their opinions are valued in my classroom, which in turn will create a positive learning environment where students can actively participate in their learning. Moreover, it is critical to include parents in the educational process. Through regular communication with the parents, students will understand that I am dedicated to their learning and will do anything in my power to ensure that they succeed. | |
Explain how your personal values will be reflected in your teaching. |
I believe that the role of social studies education is to create an active citizenry that can both conceptualize a better future for the world and become active in its pursuit. While I understand that social studies education requires some attention to dates, times and places, I believe it is more important to create an environment where students become politically, culturally, and historically aware of the processes that will influence and shape their lives for years to come. To this end, I see myself as an innovative and forward-thinking teacher who has incorporated a variety of teaching strategies in my classroom including cooperative learning, differentiated instruction, and problem-based learning. Underpinning each of these strategies, I emphasize that students should embrace the cultural, linguistic and social differences within their community and the world. From a practical perspective, I did my student teaching at a high school serving an economically depressed area of Flagstaff. During this time, I became even more convinced of the need to foster students’ ability to become critical thinkers who have tangible skills that can distinguish them in the workplace. I intend to give students these skills by incorporating learning models and projects that require the development of their ability to present information, find valid research on a topic, write coherent and persuasive essays, and understand history within a broader world context. Indeed, students also need a caring and concerned teacher who is willing to work with them to provide the emotional, academic, and social support that they need to become accomplished students. Yet, by emphasizing critical thinking in my classroom, students will leave with the ability to make sound life decisions as they become active participants in a broader community. |
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Comment on the following components of teaching: |
Motivation
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There are two areas that must be addressed when talking about student motivation, parent involvement and content relevancy. Teaching students from a low socioeconomic area, I learned quickly that motivation is directly tied to a student’s home environment. If a student is experiencing abuse of any sort in the home, they are less likely to be motivated in the classroom. For this reason, I understand the imperative to include parents in their child’s education. By continually communicating with parents in a way that highlights positive and constructive criticism of their child, I will establish an avenue for knowing students on a personal level. With adequate parent involvement, I can then focus on motivating students by making the content relevant to their lives. Fortunately, history is a subject that provides many opportunities to relate the past to the present. Making this connection is therefore a common theme in all of my lessons. In addition, my training in problem based learning has exposed me to a teaching methodology that encourages collaborative learning, problem solving skills, and the development of students’ intellectual curiosity. Classroom Control – Classroom Control - I strongly believe that classroom management should be a discursive construction, where students and teachers work together to create a positive learning environment. I have no doubt that high school and middle school students have the cognitive and affective skills necessary to participate in creation of their own classroom management, they only need the structure to exercise these abilities. To encourage these attributes, I will create a learning environment with specific procedures aligning with the ideals of mutual respect, personal responsibility and cooperation. This strategy allows students to exercise some autonomy while maintaining control of the classroom. Indeed, there are situations when the teacher must enforce rules that students might not agree upon, but by allowing them to participate in the creation of some of the rules and regulations set forth in my classroom they are more likely to adhere to the ideals that I believe are most important.Planning – Planning - Henry David Thoreau once wrote, “in the long run, men hit only what they aim at.” This quote strikes at the essence of why a teacher must have meticulous, well-organized and forward-thinking plans. As a student teacher, I learned quickly that the more preparation I put into a lesson plan the more effective it became. Fortunately, I had a cooperating teacher that trusted my ability enough to give me complete control of her classes. As a result, I was able to create and use hundreds of lesson plans throughout the semester. This collection of material now serves as my foundation for the future. | |
Espanola School District Questions |
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| Describe your instructional philosophy. | I believe that the role of social studies education is to create an active citizenry that can both conceptualize a better future for the world and become an active leader in the world. While I understand that social studies education requires some attention to dates, times and places, I believe it is more important to use social studies as a way of creating an environment where students become politically, culturally, and historically aware of the processes that will influence and shape their lives for years to come. To this end, I see myself as an innovative and forward-thinking teacher who has incorporated a variety of teaching strategies in my classroom including cooperative learning, differentiated instruction, and problem-based learning. Underpinning each of these strategies, I emphasize a mutual respect between student and teacher, while simultaneously embracing the cultural, linguistic and social differences within my community and the world. | |
Why have you chosen education as your profession? |
Graduating from the University of Texas at Austin in 1994 with a B.S. in Creative Advertising, the teaching bug found me late in my career. In fact, it would not be until I lived in El Salvador in 2001 that my worldview shifted towards making a difference in the world. While I learned tangible skills in El Salvador like being able to communicate in Spanish, I also embraced the Latino culture, and found a desire to create a cross-cultural dialogue between Latin America and the United States. The culmination of these experiences manifested in my desire to be a teacher of U.S. and World History. Since my time in El Salvador, I have pursued and successfully obtained an M.A. in History, and an M.Ed. in Secondary Education from Northern Arizona University. Then, after student teaching at a high school serving an economically depressed area of Flagstaff, my understanding of what it means to be an education reached new heights. This experience left me with the belief that students must foster their questioning ability if they are to become critical thinkers, but that they must also have a caring and concerned teacher who is willing to work in the community if they are to have the support that they need to accomplish their educational goals. Often, showing interest in a student’s life is the first step in leading them down a new path of intellectual discovery. Trying to accomplish this feat in all of my students, is what makes the profession so rewarding. |
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| What extra job related responsibilities interest you? | With my experience in computer technology and advertising/marketing, I am naturally fitted to help with the yearbook, computers, and/or graphic design. I am very comfortable with anything relating to computer technology as I have developed websites, filmed and edited promotional videos, created usable databases for university departments, and even written and executed marketing strategies involving print and online advertising vehicles. Moreover, I have extensive experience in wilderness settings. I am a certified wilderness first responder, which allows me to attend to both traumatic and medical needs in the wilderness, and I have worked as a backpack guide in the Grand Canyon, a river raft guide in Colorado, and a snowboard instructor in Arizona. These experiences would make me an ideal candidate for any student-oriented excursions into the wilderness or abroad. |
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