A Brief Teaching Bio and More About A/T

Teaching is actually a second calling for me. I have worked for KPS in various capacities since 2002. I began teaching in the A/T program in 2008. I originally wanted to teach but the pay just out of college seemed too low. Before teaching, I worked for a couple of academic medical centers in Wisconsin as a physician liaison, building relationships between tertiary-care physicians and primary-care and other doctors in outlying communities.

What drew me to the teaching profession mostly was the problem-solving aspect. I thought teachers collaborated more than physicians and I really like a solid, creative team environment. Also, I had some great teachers growing up and I wanted to provide that experience for kids.

What I most enjoy about teaching is building relationships with kids and getting them to see just how much they are capable of doing. I feel lucky that there is a cadre of kids that begin in third grade that I get to have for three years and then I often have their siblings as well.

To summarize my personal beliefs about teaching: I believethat kids should be able to direct their own learning as much as possible. The role of the teacher should be to enhance a student’s ability to think through increasingly complex issues in an organized, thoughtful manner. To put it another way: creative guiding through questioning and lots of collaboration.

My personal beliefs about student learning: Students learn best through collaboration, experience and failure. Feedback and revision/editing across the curriculum are essential to learning. The role of the teacher in the learning process amounts to guiding students through direction, feedback, and questioning.

How I approach curriculum development in A/T: I have created most of the curriculum for my program since 2008. One of my methods has been to routinely query former students when they are four to five out of A/T — i.e., when they are ninth- or tenth-graders — about the extent to which A/T  helped to scaffold their subsequent learning. And then I make adjustments. Also on an annual basis I try to embed topics that I know kids don’t have access to in the regular classroom. It’s also important to keep in mind that kids need to learn how they learn best and what matters to them. Giving them choice and opportunity allows them to be able to figure themselves out. In short, I teach to build kids’ interests, creativity, and confidence in a meaningful way, hoping it will help them later in life.

How is A/T student performance assessed? Ours in a project-based curriculum where students are assessed by rubric at the end of a project.

I define A/T student success as a student who leaves the program and still wants to dig deep into something that interests them and is knowledgeable about how to do so.

My greatest strength as a teacher is probably my creativity. This ability helps me relate to most students and develop curriculum and lessons that are interesting to them and nourishing for them.