EDUCATION
B. A. Cornell College, Mount Vernon, IA June 2007
Major: Elementary Education
Endorsements: K-6 Classroom teacher, K-12 coaching
Honors: Dean’s List – Spring 2005, Fall 2005, Spring 2006, Fall 2006
GPA: 3.3/4.0
PRE-PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Student Teacher: First Grade, Van Buren Elementary School, Cedar Rapids, IA, August – November 2006
Language Arts:
• Led and designed a Read-Aloud unit based on class outdoor story book garden which encouraged students to use strategies such as making predictions and asking relevant questions while reading
• Worked with small reading groups of all levels and abilities, to encourage use of reading tools and strategies to develop fluency, comprehension, and decoding
• Taught whole-class lessons on the soundabet and led word forming activities to build vocabulary on sight words and to eliminate decoding time when reading
• Taught writers’ workshop by developing and executing creative lessons on sentence structure and writing to build recognition on parts of sentences and improve putting thoughts together
• Taught vocabulary in reading groups from all subject areas and from small group reading material to build vocabulary and to eliminate decoding time while reading
Mathematics:
• Taught three units from the mathematics spiral curriculum which included writing the mathematics assessment pieces for those three units
• Analyzed and assessed each student’s progress in mathematics on a rubric to check student progress and growth
• Developed and taught lessons that introduced new concepts such as money, time, addition, and subtraction using examples, student questions, visuals, activities and experiments and answering student questions
Science:
• Created and executed lessons on different habitats to provide students with a better understanding of the world we live in
• Created and taught a hands-on unit entitled “Being a Scientist” which brought science to life and included an experiment where students built a rocket out of film canisters and antacid tablets
• Led a series of K-W-L read aloud lessons on different animals centered around student ideas and input and any questions that were left unanswered after the read aloud were researched and answered the next day
Social Studies:
• Led and executed discussions and writing of classroom constitution which gave students a better understanding of classroom rules and procedures and why they are important
• Fostered students’ active participation in classroom decisions through discussions, silent votes, and tally charts
Special:
• Played an active role in fall parent-teacher conferences and prepared mathematic assessment material for the conferences
• Assisted in setting up the classroom and materials for the beginning of the school year
• Actively participated in research group meetings on staff in-service days
• Was responsible for the classroom behavior program and kept management consistent
• Wrote a journal entry every day to critique and analyze the successes and failures of each day’s teaching to improve teaching the next day
Practicum Teacher: Language Arts Practicum, Sixth Grade, Lucas Elementary School, Iowa City, IA,
February – March 2006
• Taught lessons on the different verb tenses to strengthen and develop writing and reading skills through cross-word puzzle activities
• Led writers’ workshop which worked on creativity, developing a writing voice, and proper sentence structure and grammar
• Led small literature circles based on students’ reading material interests
• Led and managed the spelling curriculum and program to see growth in vocabulary
• Worked with a child one-on-one in reading and writing to develop a plan of action to facilitate further growth
• Created a whole-class goal orientated reading program, in which class set a goal of reading 100 books collectively in a month and a half and if goal was met they received an ice cream party
Practicum Teacher: Math, Science and Social Studies Practicum, First Grade, Van Buren Elementary School,
Cedar Rapids, IA, October – November 2005
• Taught highly visual lessons on odd/even numbers and early addition to incorporate all learning styles and present multiple ways to solve a problem
• Developed and taught language arts lessons on writing captions for a picture to enable students to translate the picture into words
• Read daily with a small group to build vocabulary, comprehension, and fluency
• Developed and executed classroom management strategies
RELATED WORK EXPERIENCE
Varsity Assistant Basketball Coach: Mount Vernon High School, Mount Vernon, IA, November 2006 – March 2007
• Head coach of undefeated junior varsity team
• Prepared scouting reports on all opponents
• Worked with guards in break-down drills at practice
Basketball Camp Coach:
Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI, June 2004 – July 2006
University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, June 2005 – July 2006
University of Wisconsin – Green Bay, Green Bay, WI, August 2005
University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, July 2004 – June 2005
• Coached teams of elementary to middle school aged youths in camp games and on basketball skills
• Responsible for approximately 10 children a week
• Worked to ensure that all children had positive experiences while improving their skills
COLLEGE INTERESTS AND HONORS
Cornell College Varsity Basketball Team (2003-2005)
Cornell Presidential Scholarship Recipient (2003-2007)
Major Mentors Program (2005-2007)
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