Showcase of Work
For my master's degree, I chose to complete the Master of Arts in Education program with two concentration areas. The first area of concentration I chose was literacy education because I do not have a background in English Language Arts, but literacy instruction is essential to my current job because I am a special education teacher who focuses on math and language arts. Choosing literacy education as an area of concentration was important to me because it helped me to become more prepared to teach my students. The other concentration area I chose was special education. I am currently a special education teacher and enjoy learning more regarding my field. It was important to me to continue my learning in special education so that I am able to apply interventions with my students that are alligned with the most current research. Below I have showcased some of my work from my master's program that highlights knowledge and skills I have gained over the course of my studies. My showcase is organized according to which concentration area with which the artifact relates.
To access the artifacts, click on the icon to the right of the title.
Literacy Education
Awards and Classics of Children's Literature Essay
Case Study and Lesson Plans- Teaching Diverse Literacy Learners
This essay is a reflection on my views regarding the designation of the term "classic" and of awards given in children's literature. The essay above illustrates how I have learned to become more critical of books that are considered to be classics and have learned to judge texts based on the content and my personal views.
The top PDF above contains a case study of the small group of students to which I taught a comprehension lesson and a description of the lesson I taught. The bottom PDF contains the week long lesson plan used for the case study. These two documents together demonstrate my ability to use information about studenst gained through various data sources to design and implement lessons appropriate to their skill level.
Writing Instruction Teaching Project
Biography of a Literacy Learner Essay
The above paper explains and reflects on a project I deisgned to answer the questions "How do you get students with learning disabilities to write 'more'?" The results of my project were not necessarily favorable, but I chose to showcase this project because it is important in the world of education to know that everything we try within the classroom will not always turn out as expected. This paper shows that I am not easily discouraged when it comes to finding what works for my students.
The essay showcased above is a biography of a student as a literacy learner. While this artifact could fit under the heading of either "literacy education" or "special education," I decided to put it here because the focus is literacy education while including information about the student's disabilites. The information contained in this essay was obtained through file reviews and interviews with parents. The above essay highlights my ability to be thorough and detailed when constructing an educational history.
Special Education
Special Topics Presentation- ADHD Powerpoint
Self-Monitoring On-Task Behavior Case Study and Powerpoint
The powerpoint above is an independent project I presented to my colleagues. For this project, I chose the topic of Attention Deficit-Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) and focused on the broadness of this disorder and it's co-morbidity with other disorders. This topic was important to me because it is applicable to my every day job. This presentation illustrates my ability to provide information about disabilities and their classroom implications to my colleagues.
The above documents deal with persistent and problematic behaviors in the classroom. I chose a student to work with and identified which behavior was problematic for that student, then designed an intervention to implement. The top PDF contains the case study of the student and intervention information, while the bottom PDF contains the powerpoint presentation of the intervention and findings. These documents show my skills in designing behavioral interventions and my ability to adjust and scaffold interventions to make them fit the student.
Autism Research Article Summary
Assistive Technology for Students with Learning Disabilities
The above work is a summary of four research articles relating to Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Over the course of 3 months, I reviewed research on different interventions for students with ASD that related to communication, behavior, social skills, and functional or leisure skills. This research review and summary was very beneficial to me beacuse knowing how to find research based interventions is extremely important to the field of special education. This research review also exposed me to many interventions that may be helpful to the success of my students.
The link provided above will take you to a collaborate website I created with two colleagues. This was an important endeavour because it highlights my ability to work collaboratively with my peers to create a final product relative to our work. This site was voted as one of the favorites by a group of our peers, showing that not only am I able to work collaboratively to finish a project, but that the collaborative work I have been a part of is high quality.
All images on this page courtesy of WiX.