Stacey Avery's Portfolio
Educational Showcase
When selecting my Master's program, I chose to explore the areas of literacy and special education as my concentration areas. Literacy is the foundation for learning. If a student cannot read or write, he/she will struggle with every other subject. With this fact in mind, it became clear I needed to expand my understanding of literacy. With the demands in education, I observe more and more students who struggle with learning and who may or may not qualify for special education services. Therefore, my responsibility was to find ways to assist my students with their struggles. This showcase is a sample of my research from both of my concentration areas. The design is centered on three concepts: literacy, behavior management, and technology. Each exhibit has a given solution to a problem whether the problem is individual or whole school based.
Literacy
Letter Writing Unit
This letter writing unit was created to show an authentic way to use writing. Writing becomes a mundane activity for most students in the classroom. They usually do not have a proper audience to write to and believe they are only doing the assignment for their teacher. In this unit, I had my students explore the formal process of letter writing. Even when the lessons were over, my students were still very excited to write letters to each other, myself, and others outside of our classroom.
Digital Storytelling for Narrative Writing
Last fall, I had my students explore heavily with narrative writing. Narratives consume a majority of the books we read in our classroom. I wanted my students to be comfortable with personal narratives as well as make believe narratives. However, my students were not excited about finishing their stories. In the spring, I explore the option of digital storytelling and decided it was time to revisit the narrative unit. I partnered my students up and had them use a site called Little Bird Tales to publish a narrative story. This document shows my findings from this exploration and how digital storytelling was a great option for my students to publish their work.
Literacy Solutions
Literacy emcompasses many different elements between reading and writing. As students learn to read and write, challenges may arise through their developmental process. I chose to focus on five areas of literacy (decoding words, fluency, comprehension, reluctant readers, and the writing process) and find various technology options to assist these challenges. Even though these solutions are meant for first grade, they can be tailored to other grade levels as well.
Behavior Management
Positive Behavior Intervention and Support (PBIS)
This presentation shows how Positive Behavior Intervention and Support (PBIS) is a useful school program for developing positive social behaviors among students and adults. The school selects specific social skills to address and develops teachable lessons for the classroom. When implementing this program, classrooms are designed to address behaviors before they arise by creating a strong, structured classroom environment. For more information beyond this presentation, visit the PBIS website.
Design Project for Behavior Modification
Within the classroom, there are several different behaviors that can arise, some wanted and some unwanted. When creating this project, I had a student in my classroom who exhibited several unwanted behaviors. I assessed his situation both inside and outside the classroom and tried to decide why he was behaving the way he was. After my evaluation, I was able to design a plan to meet his individual needs and diminish the unwanted behaviors as much as I could. This document shows my research as well as the plan I developed for the student.
Conflict Resolution
Conflict is a daily component of an individual's life. Since this is a daily situation, conflicts arise in the classroom daily as well. It is important to teach students how to successfully mange these conflicts and do so peacefully. This presentation demonstrates the importance of establishing a conflict resolution program in the school system and some ways to implement the program.
Technology
Using Book Builder
One of my favorite units to teach my first graders is the life cycle of the monarch butterfly. I wanted to create an online accessible book that would be helpful for students with mild learning disabilities. The text can be read to the students as well as provide definitions for some key words. Cast UDL (Universal Design for Learning) Book Builder is a great site for creating books that are accessible to all students.
Technology Tools to Assist Challenges within Common Core Standards
The Common Core State Standards were established to provide teachers a foundation for teaching their students. However, each standard may be a stumbling block for some students. In this document, I selected a few standards and found technology tools to provide extra support to students. Even though I chose frist grade standards, the tools can be adapted to any grade level.