Table of Contents

  • Teaching Philosphy

  • Teaching Style

  • Youth Science Institute [content objectives]

  • 1 On 1 Academic Tutors [Mathematics and ELA in home tutoring]

  • Nasai Wittayakom School [TESOL in Thailand]

  • UCLA UniCamp [building tomorrow's community leaders]

  • Boston Public Schools [Classroom instruction]

  • Keys to Project Based Teaching

 

Teaching Philosophy

Teaching models of the past industrial age no longer fit today's information revolution.   Passively, previous generations remained seated while information was ladled into their "empty" heads by a teacher.   Today's globalization requires our learners to be active and more creative than ever before.  American students are bored and they are ranked 23rd world wide on Pisa scores but what's worse is that in many parts of the nation 50% high school graduation is a "good" number.  I believe implementation of blended learning is the key to solving these problems.

“From the very beginning of time until the year 2003 humankind created five exabytes of digital information. An exabyte is one billion gigabytes—or a 1 with eighteen zeros after it. Right now, in the year 2010, the human race is generating five exabytes of information every two days. By the year 2013, the number will be five exabytes produced every ten minutes. ”
— Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt

Information today is more readily available than ever before.  In kind, the role of a teacher as an information gate-keeper is no longer relevant.  This is a fantastic revelation that affords the time for us to focus on the individual, self-directed learner and spend less time on the dissemination of facts.  Students are not vessels for us to transport, they are individuals, agents of change!  Bright lights of our future!

The world is moving at an exponential rate, what do we teach to prepare for the future?  Well, the answer lies in not "what," but "how" do we teach out students.   We must teach them to become digital citizens, powerhouses of the internet, masters of digital tools. 

If the “at-risk” educators do not acknowledge the colonial legacy that informs their relationship with the oppressive conditions of the “at-risk” reality, they will become at best paternalistic missionaries or, at worst, literacy and poverty pimps who make a living from the human misery with which they are in ideological complicity. – Donald Macedo (Forward to Pedagogy of Freedom: Ethics, Democracy, and Civic Courage, 1998, pp. xxxi-xxxii)

and CSP to be added...

Teaching Style

Teachers teach themselves not the material.  This means, for students to love math, the teacher must love math.  For the students to be honest, the teacher must be honest.  Talk about a job defining you!  My teaching style is a reflection of my student's needs and varies by school, but more on philosophy later, let's get to some specifics.

Project based learning (PBL) and portfolio grading:  Students should be graded by projects which represent their learning process.  These projects must be designed to fit content standards and  assessed formatively.  Many schools today are using  PBL in science and shop classes and engaging their community around them with their products.  As an English/Humanities teacher, I engage my students with the community in social services and community activism.  

While in Boston Public I learned to teach and assess using a content standard approach.  As students completed the standards they received credit.   Final grades then function as a percent of completed standards.  This way content, grades, and state assessments were uniformly aligned.  Using data research was still meeting resistance in BPS schools, but as research data loops are becoming shorter and shorter, teachers are reacting to data better than ever before.  I say bring on the data!

Information is available today like never before.  A Masai warrior in Saharan Africa today has more computing power on his cellphone than the P.O.D.U.S. had 30 years ago.  Public schools have not harnessed this power yet but I believe they will soon.  I cannot stand, however, for the restriction of technology in the classroom.  I say that we need to loop students in so that they can continue homework and discussion outside of class on their smart devices.  They need to be part of the conversation regarding necessary tech restrictions in the classroom, because if kids are not naming the system they are gaming that system.  My classrooms do not have rules, they have agreements.  Student consequences are an agreement discussed and agreed upon and everyone is held accountable.

Youth Science Institute

Content Objectives: Summative assessment

  1. Creek Week- After one week of studying the physics, buoyancy and creek Eco-system (including the water shed) my students designed, crafted, and launched their own "research vessel" boats in a race down stream. 

  2. Acting Animals-Students learned about the different family relationships of mammals, reptiles, birds, and insects and in teams they performed a five minute play in front of parents at the end of the week. 

  3. Scenic Science- Learning to explore nature is essential to any good natural scientist.  After one week of camp students were able to safely and scientifically guide themselves through the trails of Alum Rock Park

1on1 Academic Tutors: Grades 1-8

Mathematics and ELA in home tutoring

  1. In home, free tutoring to students of LAUSD attending poorly performing schools.  Funded by No Child Left Behind

  2. Each student pretested, was tutored for 30 hours, and then post-tested by tutor Nathan Cleckley

  3. Minimal materials and suggested lesson plans were provided by the employer, 1on1 Academic,  but I had the freedom to develop most of the curriculum myself.  With 4-7 students at a time I worked a full time position between planning their lessons, assessing progress, and meeting either in home or at a public library for instruction after school.

  4. I established strong relationships with parents and communicated a team effort between them and myself to deliver the highest results.  My students were often below grade level but I never failed to catch them up, not once. 

Nasai Wittayakom School, Thailand: K-12

TESOL in Thailand

  1. As the first foreigner and native English speaking teacher in the community, I played a pivotal roll to the future of Nasai Wittayakom.  Classes were mostly taught by rote memorization, but I was able to sway the school toward a more Bloomian approach.

  2. Nasai Wittaykom scored its highest marks in four years and earned a visit from a district official, congratulating us on our success in learning English. 

  3. In addition to teaching, cultural events were taken very seriously and I was required to attend them weekly.  From meditation with students, to parades, to practicing the Wai (bowing), I brought the very best representation of the western culture that I could muster. 

UCLA UniCamp (Volunteer)

UCLA UniCamp is the official student charity of the University of California, Los Angeles. UniCamp operates as an independently funded non-profit organization linking the University with the community. Each year, UniCamp inspires nearly 1,000 children from low-income families to envision brighter futures by sending them, along with 350 student volunteers, to its residential outdoor summer camp.

Building tomorrow's community leaders

  1. Between rock climbing, sailing, swimming, mountain-biking, and hiking my co-counselor and I build curriculum to foster the value of leadership, teamwork, and compassion with "at risk" youth.   Each of our youth team building and leadership programs incorporated the theme of the hit movie Transformers, "more than meets the eye."   Linked is a quick references guide to our week of programming, though not as in detailed as my previous year, which I hope to find at a later date. 

  2. Counselor training was exceptional, often calling on trainees to make the same strides we would later make with our youngsters up at camp. We trained in activities to foster conflict resolution, team building, leadership, individuality, self-confidence, compassion, understanding differences, and building bridges.

Boston Public Schools

Classroom Instruction

  1. The schools I’ve taught at have all been unique, but my passion to excel remains constant.  =

  2. I stay late to get the job done, bell dismissal does not mean the end of my workday

  3. I prepared 6th graders for state MCAS English test, 7th&8th for Science fair. 

  4. Individual Education Plan contributor

Keys to Project Based Teaching

  • Embed assessment throughout the assessment-formative assessment is woven into the project pipeline

  • Establishing real world connections- grounding learning in local, community issues drives student interest in their own learning

  • Backwards design for disciplinary content- thinking from standards first planning appropriate activities second.  

  • Collaboration- students need to learn to work together, like we do in real life.

  • Learning is student driven-Students take ownership of their own learning as a skill to take with them for a lifetime.