Process of Improving and Expanding My Instructional Repertoire
As a teacher, it is imperative to continue growing and learning along with your students. There are always ways we can improve, and through my time at MSU and my field experience at Grandville High School, I was able to expand my instructional repertoire by implementing a new strategy to solve a problem I was finding with my students.
Process of Improving and Expanding My Instructional Repertoire
As a teacher, it is imperative to continue growing and learning along with your students. There are always ways we can improve, and through my time at MSU and my field experience at Grandville High School, I was able to expand my instructional repertoire by implementing a new strategy to solve a problem I was finding with my students.
Process of Improving and Expanding My Instructional Repertoire
As a teacher, it is imperative to continue growing and learning along with your students. There are always ways we can improve, and through my time at MSU and my field experience at Grandville High School, I was able to expand my instructional repertoire by implementing a new strategy to solve a problem I was finding with my students.
About Emily
I am a professional secondary educator with a focus on history, but I am also certified to teach psychology and social studies topics, such as civics and economics. I graduated from Michigan State University in May 2018. Michigan State prepared me well by providing rich background knowledge and rich experience-based learning for teaching. I am a enthusiastic educator, passionate about spreading the joy of learning. I hope to help students discover what they are capable of and teach them the importance of studying history, social studies, and psychology by relating it to their lives. My goal as a teacher is to challenge my students' thinking by catering my teaching towards students in the best way that I can in order to encourage curiosity, perspective-taking, and creativity while developing problem solving skills.
I have always been interested in learning new things, from biology to swimming, but some of my greatest passions outside of history include music, ballroom dancing, and travel. All of these passions include communication between people, whether it is the non- verbal transmission between a conductor and a performer, two people communicating through movement on the dance floor, or interacting with people that experience a different culture. I have always been interested in people and how we interact, a reason why I minored in psychology, and I believe that is why I am passionate about history, music, ballroom dancing, and travel – communication and social interaction are important facets in all of these interests and hobbies.
My Teacher Values
I am a passionate and enthusiastic person, especially when I am able to listen to and help others discover what they love. As an educator, I value student curiosity and creativity. What inspires me to learn derives from both curiosity and creativity, so I try to provide those for my students. I recognize that students are unique -- they have different strengths, interests, and motivation levels, and I hope to inspire each student's unique self and interests in my classroom. Being a historian or a psychologist is like being a detective. I want to teach my students how to analyze history and psychology in order to make meaningful connections and statements about the past and the present.
Traveling
In the summer of 2017, I travelled to South Africa for an education abroad experience, where we learned about the history and education in South Africa. I will forever be grateful for this learning experience; it taught me how much I value learning about other cultures, understanding other perspectives, and making connections between different cultures. I look forward to future abroad trips where I can continue to learn about other cultures and experience other countries' histories first hand. I look forward to using my experiences abroad to help me teach students and help them appreciate the world that is becoming ever more available to us in our globalized world.
Learning
I have always loved learning. As I said, I have been interested in a variety of subjects and activities. I love learning about the world and other perspectives, and learning about a variety of things allows me to understand a bit more about others. Reading, biology, photography, swimming, basketball, music theory, and playing the cello are just a few of things that I became involved with over the years out of interest. My desire to understand others and appreciate others' interests will be beneficial as a teacher as I encourage students to do the same.
Dancing
One of my strongest passions is dancing. Even before I joined the Michigan State Ballroom Dance Team in 2015, I was tap dancing and swing dancing to my heart's delight. Teaching others how to swing dance is actually how I learned that I wanted to be a teacher -- I wanted to provide opportunities for students to discover things they are passionate about. I hope to teach students after school how to either swing dance or ballroom dance if there is interest among students.