Teaching & Learning
My classes at Auburn University have been preparing me well for my role as a teacher outside of college as well as within the program. I have had several opportunities to design and teach lessons from multiple subject areas.
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Some of my lesson plans include integrated material from various other academic areas to expose students to the real-world connections between subjects. In creating these lessons, I was familiarized with different teaching strategies to reach varying student needs, while also learning about assessments and how to assess students effectively.
EDMD 3300
Utilization of Instructional Technology for Educators
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As a final project, I pulled together mini-lesson plans that I had designed throughout the semester to construct a 5-day lesson that met my 2nd-grade science standard while also incorporating various forms of technology. This project exposed me to numerous resources for teachers to utilize technology effectively in the classroom.
KINE 4360
Health and Physical Ed in Elementary
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In this course, I was placed in a teaching group with 4 other peers where we developed weekly lessons that taught skill themes like kicking, throwing, catching, dodging, etc. while also integrating classroom standards from subjects like math, science, language arts, and social studies. We would plan a 30-minute lesson with several tasks and objectives that were age-appropriate for 3rd-grade students.
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Later in the semester, we were challenged to integrate physical activity and movement into a traditional classroom. This assignment required strategic thinking in order to modify lessons to be effectively taught in the classroom setting while still giving students the opportunity to practice physical education skills. Another component of this project involved creating several "brain boosters" to optimize student thinking through movement.
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With the same group, we also created a short children's book about the health concept 'hydration.' This story was designed for younger students to teach the importance of hydrating and the effects of dehydration.
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CTRD 3000
Fundamentals of Language and
Literacy Instruction
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As part of our field experience for this course, we were assigned a first-grade student at Richland Elementary to tutor for the semester. In doing so, I developed personalized lessons to meet my student's specific reading needs. I taught several short and long vowel correspondences, decoding strategies, and used book talks to engage the student in a read-aloud.
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In addition, I was able to create and publish my own website that showcases 4 lesson designs that meet readers at the various stages of learning to read: Emergent Literacy, Beginning to Read, Growing Fluency & Independence, and Reading to Learn.
CTEE 3100
Introduction to Elementary Education
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As a semester-long project, we were placed into groups to design an 8-day lesson plan that integrated 2 course standards within one overall unit. My group chose to combine 2nd-grade language arts with science.
Our project focuses on the science standard of living things and their biomes where students will be gathering information from multiple sources to answer questions about animal habitats. Throughout the lesson, several technology tools are utilized to make the lesson engaging and interactive for students.
CTMU 3040
Music and Related Arts
Wacoochee Elementary School
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In this course, I learned how to integrate music into the elementary classroom. I was placed in a teaching group with 3 other peers where we developed a total of four lessons that taught various musical concepts while also integrating classroom standards from the subjects literacy, math, social studies, and science. Each lesson lasted around 30-minutes and included several activities for students to explore new musical skills while meeting common core standards. The lessons lasted around 30 minutes and included several tasks and objectives that were age-appropriate for kindergarten students.
In addition, I created a final project centered around the first-grade science standard on conducting experiments to provide evidence that vibrations of matter can create a sound like plucking a guitar string. This four-day lesson plan I developed included the procedures, materials needed, a formative and summative assessment checklist, adaptations to meet individual needs, and examples of finished projects to show students what their DIY stringed instruments could look like.
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CTEE 4010 & 4020
Social Studies & Language Arts Lessons
For CTEE 4010, I created a Social Studies inquiry lesson that focused on The Trail of Tears. Students analyzed sources to understand various perspectives on the historical event. I also designed a Journey Box for the class which I made into an interactive website for students to continue learning about the Trail of Tears. It contains more primary source images and documents with questions to get students thinking about how the Trail of Tears truly impacted the Native Americans.
For CTEE 4020, I designed two Language Arts lesson plans: integrated and technology. The integrated lesson combined comparing and contrasting, an English standard, with living and non-living things, a science standard. The technology lesson focused on similes and metaphors. Students used iPads and QR codes to examine song lyrics for figurative language.
CTEE 4030 & 4040
Science & Mathematics Lessons
For CTEE 4030 Natural Science Curriculum, I designed a fifth-grade science lesson that focused on how individuals and their communities can protect the Earth's environment and natural resources. In small groups, students were able to build, budget, and collect data to effectively save a town from potential hurricane flooding. The purpose of this lesson was to teach students how to properly organize ideas that their communities can use to protect their environment and the natural resources that surround them.
For CTEE 4020 Mathematics Curriculum, I designed a fifth-grade math lesson that focused on the order of operations in solving multi-step expressions. Students were able to evaluate expressions within small groups using the order of operations appropriately. The purpose of this lesson was to build on student's previous knowledge of simple expressions and introduce mathematical expressions that contained multiple symbols (i.e. parentheses, multiplication, division, addition, subtraction).