It all began in the fall of 2011.

I was in my company car when my boss called and said

they had to let me go, I was crushed. This job was my chance to get out of my job at Taylor
Books as a barista and begin my lifelong career as a wine and beer connoisseur. I went home and
told my husband and he asked, What are you going to do? I said, One of us has to go back to
school and not a trade school, so who is going to do it? His response was all I have ever wanted
to hear in our six years of marriage, he said, You go, you are the one that wants to be a teacher.
It has been my dream since I was in high school but life and bad choices got me suspended from
Concord College and West Virginia State College in the first four years I was out of high school.
Life went on and I ended up having two children and doing some growing up as well.
When I arrived at West Virginia State University in the fall of 2012, I knew my life would
be forever changed. I no longer was this single female looking for a good time around campus; I
was a mother who had a responsibility to her children and her family and I was here to learn this
time, not party hardy. I soon learned about the HUMAN Developer and took an interest in its
framework around teaching in the 21st century.
The H in HUMAN Developer is for holistic approaches to student learning. I take this
one into consideration because not all students learn the same way and not all students dig that
lecture on a daily basis. I am committed to developing my teaching methods around my students
personalities, character, spirituality, and reflect my lessons on their everyday culture to bring a
more individual aspect to their learning. The U stands for understanding diversity. I am
committed to bringing some new culture and experiences to my students everyday lives. I am
committed to leading my classroom into the 21st century and teaching that all students are diverse
and different in some way or another. Bringing this feature into the classroom gives students the
idea that the world is a much bigger place with different people and traditions, but most of all,
full of adventures. The M stands for managing the learning environment. I have learned that it
is critical that teachers be organized with grade books and lesson plans along with an up to speed
approach to new technologies in the classroom. My greatest attribute is organization in the
classroom. A teacher who is not organized will not have good classroom management skills. The
A stands for assessing students according to the national and/or state standards. I assure that
my lesson plans and activities will correlate with the WVCSOs and be taught in the fullest
degree. The N stands for newer approaches to learning through technology. Ever since I took

my EDU 300 technology class at WVSU, I have learned about so many apps and websites that
will help bring some fun and new approaches to learning in my classroom. Technology can be
used for lessons such as a Webquest for students to complete at home or they can be used to
assess a test from quiz websites such as kahoot. Many apps are being developed every day to
help teachers with grades, lesson plans and classroom activities. It is a major factor to include
technology into the classroom setting because this is the 21st century after all and students are
already glued to their phones; might as well take advantage of the situation.