Brief Biography

Current Grade Level/Content Area

I currently teach special education for grades K-2 at Wallin Elementary School
in Henderson, NV. This is my first year teaching at the elementary level. I teach the
subject areas of math, reading, and writing. Currently I have 22 students on my
caseload. My students are both resource students and students who receive push in
services (where I go into the general education classroom and help the students
with the lesson in a small group). I use their IEP goals and benchmarks to drive my
instruction in the resource room. Many of my resource students are 1 grade level
below in reading or math, so I have to pull lower grade level curriculum for those
students. For my push in students, they are working on grade level material, but
they just need extra assistance and accommodations from me to help them succeed
in the general education setting.
Past Locations Grade Level/Subjects Taught
I started teaching special education in 2004 at Foothill High School and
taught there for 9 years. During my first year I taught all resource classes in English,
Health, and Study Skills for grades 9-11. Each year after I started teaching more and
more co-taught classes in the general education setting for Science and Health
classes. During my last 4 years at Foothill I taught in all co-taught classes in Biology
and Earth Science for grades 9-10. I loved teaching in the co-taught setting and
working with my general education teachers. I worked very well with my general
education teachers to create a great co-teaching environment.
Experience Using Online Content
Before completing this program I used Edomodo as an online instructional
tool for my Biology and Earth Science co-taught classes in high school. My co-taught
general education teacher would set up a class for each period we had in Edmodo.
The students were required to create an Edmodo account and join our class at the
beginning of the school year. Each week we would post videos that the students
were required to watch 2 times a week, and complete a short quiz that went over
the content in the video. These videos went with the topic we were teaching in class
that week. Example: If we were teaching about the planets that week, they would
be required to watch 2 videos on planets, and complete the 2 corresponding
quizzes. These quizzes counted as their quiz/test grade, which made up 50% of
their overall grade for the class. We would also use Edmodo to post discussion
questions, extra credit, reminders about upcoming tests or projects, and posting
notes for students to print for themselves at home. For high school students I
thought Edmodo was a wonderful tool to use outside of the classroom. Many of my
students would log onto Edmodo right from their smart phones using the wireless
internet at the school. The kids seemed to enjoy the videos and always did very well
on the quizzes.

This year was my first year as an elementary special education teacher so I

did not have any experience using online instruction before the year started.
However, in October of this year our school bought the program iReady for the
whole school. It is an online learning environment for kids to learn reading and math
concepts on their own personal level. Each student at our school was required to
take a 50 minute diagnostic test in October. This test would place them at their
current reading and math level. I was amazed with the results and how detailed
they were. After the diagnostic was done each teacher could print a detailed
description about what each students weaknesses and strengths were in reading
and math. This diagnostic test then created a learning path for the students to
complete on the computer. These were online lessons that taught kids mini lessons
in a short period of time (each lesson took about 10 minutes to complete). The
lessons were very interesting, colorful, and enjoyable for our kids. My students
really loved creating their own character and seeing their progress after each lesson
was completed.
Each lesson in iReady had 4 parts: the lesson that explained the concept, 2
practice lessons that had about 5 questions each to complete, and 1 quiz section
that had about 10 questions to complete to pass the entire lesson. If kids did not
pass the lesson, they would have to redo the lesson again. The program would not
let the student move onto the next lesson until they passed the lesson before. This
was a great resource to use in the resource room for my special education students.
I would see each student 50 minutes a day for reading and 40 minutes a day for
math in my resource room. Many times I would provide small group instruction
about a topic, then the students would do a short assignment with me to practice
the concept, and then they would log onto iReady at the classroom computers and
do a lesson that went right with the topic I was just teaching. It was wonderful! The
students got a variety of resources in just a 40-50 minute time period. They were
also required to complete 1 lesson of math and 1 lesson of reading each night at
home as their required homework. This program works very well with all students in
grades K-5 and I recommend it to any school looking for an online instructional tool.