Spanish Specialist Teacher, Grades K-6
Valley Crossing Community School, Woodbury, MN
2004-2011
Revised entire Spanish curriculum to suit students' developmental levels, to match the parameters of an exploratory program, and to fit a curriculum cycle for multi-age classrooms
- Introduced performance assessments involving technology, giving students a motivating and meaningful goal for learning vocabulary, grammar and cultural concepts. Rubrics (constantly refined from assessment to assessment, with student help) helped quell student anxieties and provide direction for quality.
- Emphasis was placed on useful phrases rather than isolated word lists, cultural exploration, recycling of basic vocabulary by using themes to maintain interest and promote mastery, integration of choice into practice activities and performance assessments
Served as a leader in the use of technology at the classroom and building level
- The use of available technologies in my classroom was constantly growing and evolving. A mission of mine was to find more and more effective uses of the interactive whiteboard, which students utilized to practice vocabulary, explore newspapers from other countries, Skype with other places, make sound recordings of the songs they were learning to hear where to improve them, compare and contrast cultural practices, and much more.
- Performance assessments became more and more choice-laden, taking advantage of student-owned technologies as well as allowing for students who preferred to work "analog."
- Chairperson of the building technology committee from 2009-2011. During this period, the committee:
- Developed a new grading continuum for technology education at Valley Crossing
- Modeled and trained staff on countless ways of using technology in their classrooms: cameras, moviemaking, iPad use, SMART Board, Google Earth, Flickr Creative Commons searching, Glogster, and more.
- Worked together with administration to envision a hardware plan for future years
- Visited area schools, attended TIES Conference, read countless articles to see what is going on in ed tech in other schools
Founded the Spanish Club: Club La Paz ("Peace Club")
- Developed a language club-to-language club partnership with a school in Costa Rica thanks to the help of the White Bear Lake Rotary Club.
- Students utilized Skype and a wiki to communicate with other students over the course of the school year.
- Through the same partnership, in 2007-2008 Club La Paz students raised funds to help a Costa Rican teen with spina bifida to buy a motorized wheelchair
Photo by zcreem on Flickr
Participated in the life of the school as an active member
- Co-coordinator of the school-wide morning broadcast, widening participation to include students of many ages and abilities
- Served as a member of the building Shared Decisions Site Council for 2.5 years, including as secretary
- Wrote and published a blog for students, parents and staff members during a trip to Costa Rica