Teaching

My GA appointment was not as a course instructor for Fall 2017, Spring 2018, or Summer 2018.

I am thankful to Dr. Dennis for the opportunity to plan and teach a pre-departure seminar for CSE as well as a seminar in England this summer. Both seminars focused on Global Competencies and supported my research interest in this topic.

My GA appointment was not as a course instructor for Fall 2016, Spring 2017, or Summer 2017.

I personally feel that I need more experience teaching coursework prior to graduation in order to be a marketable candidate when I begin interviewing for jobs at universities where I will be expected to teach coursework.

RED 4312 (Fall 2015)

RED4312 Syllabus Fall2015

Comments from Course Evaluation for RED 4312 (Fall 2015)

  • Allison was consistently prepared for class, linked the appropriate materials on canvas, attached rubrics, directions, etc to the assignment page. This made it clear and direct. I appreciate Allison’s enthusiasm for the subject and her dedication to the Residency program. The only thing that I think Allison could improve on is response time to emails/texts/etc.
  • I really liked how you were open and willing to coming into the classrooms to help and observe. I wish the coaching cycle would have started sooner.
  • Allison is a great teacher. I really appreciated her willingness to come into our internship classrooms to watch us teach a literacy lesson. Her feedback was helpful and will make me a better teacher in the future. Allison made all of the activities that we did in class interesting and made us see how they were relevant to our current and future teaching.
  • Allison was always extremely helpful and accommodating to the learning process, and always had the best interests of her students in mind.
  • I love how she was understanding and gave feedback to everything we did. We had the opportunity to correct things before we had to submit it to chalk and wire. She taught the course very well and I would recommend her to any student.
  • Clear in instruction and helps connect reading to internship. Goes out of the way to help students.
  • Allison was a great instructor full of enthusiasm and insight. She varied classes making it interesting for our whole class. I really enjoyed her genuine interest in my experiences in the classroom and her willingness to go out of her way to do coaching cycles in the classroom. This was useful and made it apparent that she cared about my learning and was very willing help. In addition, I think she set us up for end of the year assignments in a organized fashion that made us feel very prepared.
  • I appreciate the fact that she catered lessons to our field experience. Many assignments were very effective. I plan on using many tools in the future. She is professional and very relatable.
  • I liked the structure of the course, the assignments, how the critical task was divided throughout the semester, etc. I look forward to continuing the study of literacy in the next semester.
  • Assessment tools were very helpful.
  • This course has been very helpful in preparing us to give literacy assessments like a spelling inventory or a reading survey. The literacy portfolio has been a great opportunity to learn how to collect, analyze, and reflect upon data so that it can inform our literacy instruction and able to more effectively help students.
  • I would love to see this class include more relevant material to including literacy in music education. And conversely, for those students in the residency program, especially those without music programs in their schools, how best they could interweave music with teaching literacy in lieu of a traditional music education. It could be a growing experience for all involved!
  • The books provided great activities to implement into the classroom.

Survey Feedback from Pre-Service Teachers on My Science Coaching (2014 – 2015)

How have you grown as a science teacher during the past 5 weeks?
  1. I have integrated more formative assessments in my lessons and given more immediate feedback to my students.
  2. I have been taking the lead for science most of the weeks. This experience has helped me become more confortable with the subject (science) and how the class should look during science (students doing it).
  3. I must admit that science is my most comfortable subject to teach. I feel confident planning lessons and units lessons and delivering them to students. At the beginning of the school year I was unable to do this. I’ve also grown as a science teacher by incorporating the components of science, such as the nature of science in my lessons. I’ve grown as a science teacher as well by becoming more knowledgeable of science content in order to teach it to my students.
  4. As a science teacher I have grown over the last five weeks with planning. I think that my planning of science lessons ha gotten better and my students are more engaged in the lessons that I am planning. Also, in planning in what my students need.
  5. I feel so much more confident about my questioning and how to scaffold my questions. I can quickly plug my ideas into a lesson plan template that is organized for me. I’m the bomb at 5Es!!!
  6. Yes! I had the opportunity to plan and carry-out science lessons. I saw areas that I need to work on and had time to reflect and change those areas (questioning).
  • collaboration/ seeking out support & recourses
  • allowing students to do science and being “ok” with “organized chaos”
  • planning/ implementing engaging science lessons
  • questioning
  • assessment strategies
  • technology to supplement lessons
How has content coaching supported that growth?
  1. Having a critical friend provided opportunities to collect data on my goal of increasing formative assessments in my classroom.
  2. Having the opportunity to be observed & give me feedback helps for future lessons in order to make the lesson more effective.
  3. Content coaching has helped me extremely. It has helped me by planning successful lessons, and also has helped me to reflect on those lessons and my science teaching.
  4. Content coaching has supported me in using student assessments to drive my instruction. Having a critical friend help me look at data helped me to grow as a science teacher.
  5. Allison really helped me set up the Prezi for my 1stcoaching cycle and supported me through the process of scaffolding questions. For my 2nd coaching cycle, she helped me develop smooth transitions and the idea for an exit ticket. Such a help!
  6. Yes! I was able to see that science was going on in the classroom and ways to enhance the learning for my students.
  7. Allison helped me utilize more technology during my lessons (suggested websites to download videos) and helped plan different assessment strategies at each component of my 5E lesson plans.
How will you continue to grow as a science teacher through the end of the school year? In your first year teaching?
  1. I will continue to focus on student learning by integrating more formative assessments. In my 1styear, I would like to increase the amount of feedback I give students by having some type of dialogue journal.
  2. I will keep taking the lead in science & reflect on my lessons (either on paper or mentally) for better lessons. I will also plan collaboratively with the 5thgrade team and Anita Ventura (like I’ve been doing) in order to make sure I’m teaching the “right” stuff. I will use everything I learned this & last year in my first year of teaching & ask for resources!!
  3. I would like to continue to grow as a science teacher by incorporating ways to teach science based from student wonderings. For example, I would like to incorporate long term investigations. I would continue to incorporate more of the nature of science components, enable students to use science skills, and incorporate a variety of ways to assess student learning. In my first year of teaching science, I would like to also incorporate Stem lessons and have students conduct fair tests on investigations/experiments in class. Giving these experiences to the students would help see areas of improvement in order to help me grow as a science teacher.
  4. This year I will continue to take the lead in science. I will reflect on my lessons and continue to use student assessments to plan to meet student needs. I will continue these things in my first year teaching.
  5. I will continue to get stronger at the 5E model because I love the idea so much! Have an engage and explore before the explain is powerful. Students discover through experiences.
  6. I hope to gain content knowledge by researching for lessons and taking trainings that will influence my teaching practice.
  7. Collaboration/ seeking support, trying new assessment strategies, planning engaging lessons -> students doing science, more organized and consistent use of science notebooks

Survey Feedback from Pre-Service Teachers on My Promethean Technology Coaching (2013 – 2014)

In what ways do you feel supported in your use of Promethean technology?
  1. If I am ever unsure of how to use the technology or how to integrate it into a lesson I know I can talk it through with someone to get help or another perspective.
  2. She makes herself available at times when we want to implement technology.
  3. Assisted in creating and implementation of lessons using technology in the classroom. Given a better understanding of the use of the technology and ways it can assist me in my teaching!
  4. You have always been available to help us create lessons using the technology, provide professional development opportunities around the technology and are present when we use the technology. You always try your best to fix the technology when it gets buggy.
In what ways would you like more support in your use of Promethean technology?
  1. Implementing the table into our classroom to use as a center.
  2. More ideas and ways to implement technology within my lessons. More planning opportunities.
  3. I would like more time to learn about all that the technology can do and learn more about the most effective ways to use it in the classroom.
  4. I’m not sure if it is possible to support us anymore. You are always there either by phone or in person.
Is there anything else you would like to share?
  1. Knowing I have someone to help me implement the technology in my classroom that knows how to use it, makes me feel more confident when using the technology.
  2. I feel very grateful to have a technology assistant and I think it has truly benefited my instruction and my student’s learning and engagement!

Supporting Pre-Service Teacher Inquiry

During the spring semester, I guided two pre-service teachers through the inquiry process in their classrooms using Promethean technology. I guided them in their literature review, design, data collection, data analysis, and synthesis of results. They presented their findings at the 2014 NAPDS National Conference in Las Vegas, NV.