hi!

Hi! My name is Adrienne Reininga. I am a Teach For America corps member, and a lead teacher at P.S. 325 in Harlem.   I grew up in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and majored in African-American & African Studies and Biology at the University of CA, Davis. During college, I lived in Argentina and Ghana. My experiences in college made me poignantly aware of the ways in which educational disparities unjustly limit the life prospects of children of color and/or low socio-economic status. I decided at the last minute to join TFA instead of going to medical school as planned. I teach 2nd grade, and had the privilege of looping with my kids this year (I had the majority of them last year in 1st grade). I absolutely adore my kids, and am so proud of how far we've come together! 

   I am finishing my second year in the Childhood Special and General Edu program at Bank Street, and although it has been difficult to balance my teaching responsibilites with my coursework, it's wonderful to be able to immediately apply what am learning to my teaching.

   I'm really looking forward to this course!

The Owl@ Purdue (APA Website)

Hello All!!!

This website has been very helpful to me and I hope it can be to all of you. In addition to the APA Formatting and Style Guide, there are resources for ESL, grade 7-12 instructors and students, profissional writers, and more.

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/

Monica

Community Presentation

Hey Guys, here is my community presentation.
Summer
http://www.slideshare.net/summertrio/community-presentation-1514131

KK, I have been trying to load this presentation, but each time my references are not indented correctly. I have checked my original and it is correct. Everything after the first line is indented, but once it publishes something happens and it won't indent the last two lines. Thanks for understanding.

Hi Everybody.

I'm Joe Weisberg. I teach U.S. History and Literature at the Summit School in Queens, a special ed high school for students with emotional/behavioral disabilities. This is my fourth year there, and I love it, although this being June, I'm burning out fast!

I'm not sure how long I've been at Bank Street, but I'm definitely taking the slow road, one course per semester. My goal is to finish my degree before I retire.

I love leading groupwork as a teacher! I see my students learning about how to interact with people - an area that is a weakness for a lot of them - and I feel like I'm doing something worthwhile. As a student, though, I have to admit I struggle with groupwork. I like to work at my own pace (often very fast), and I like to prepare but also wing it (in a good way). These things can be hard in a group. That being said, don't be scared to work with me - I'm easygoing, and happy to find a happy medium with fellow group members.

mi vida

Hi EDUC 513 classmates! My name is Kimmy Wentling. I am getting a dual degree in special and general education. This is my first year teaching and I teach at P.S. 63 in the south Bronx. I am the general education teacher in a K/1 CTT classroom. I did my undergrad at NYU and got my BFA in photography and imaging and psychology. My school follows the Scott Foresman social studies curriculum and I've found myself a little dissapointed about the lack of hands on activities for the students. I'm very intersted in learning ways to engage my students in teaching them social studies. This is my third online class and I consider myself decent at navigating technology. I'm looking forward to meeting and collaborating with you!

-Kimmy

My Community Powerpoint

http://www.slideshare.net/secret/MXoG5cLNsi3IEI
Please see my powerpoint presentation, click on the link above. The pictures didn't copy, so here they are seperately.

From top to bottom, the first two go on slide 2 and other one goes on slide 3

Hello Everyone!!!!

My name is Monica Schmidt and I am in the Childhood Special Education program. This is the beginning of my second year at Bank Street. Let me tell you about my education journey.

I am from São Paulo, Brazil. I graduated in Liberal Arts: Portuguese Language and Brazilian and Portuguese Literatures – Certified Teaching degree. For 5 years, I taught 6th to 12th grades in public and private schools.

In 2001, I married an American jazz musician and in 2002 I moved to New York. Arriving in this country, I realized the importance of continuing my studies and I embraced the opportunity to achieve my goal to become a teacher. Since the educational system in USA is different from Brazil, I went to college again and I graduated in Childhood Bilingual Education.

Last summer, I was working as an assistant teacher in a private school for children with mental retardation. This amazing experience reinforces my desire to work in this area. In addition, I worked as an undergraduate student teaching in a first grade dual language gifted and talented classroom. I have been involved in community projects, which include going to the parks and playing with children, as well as volunteering at school helping kids with their lessons in class.

Besides education, I have a passion for chocolates, cooking, and knitting. Also, I love to travel with my husband on his tours or stay at home watching a good movie eating popcorn.
This is my first class online and like some colleagues in this blog, I am very excited too. I am not currently working right now but I am interested in a 1st to 3rd grade class.

Looking forward to meeting and working with you all!
Monica

Hi Everyone!

My name is Summer Burns. I am a dual degree Childhood General and Special education. I also have a dual degree from Columbia in Social Work. I currently work at the Parkside school on 74th and Columbus. I too have never taken an online course and feel a bit overwhelmed by all the technology, but I am sure I will get used to it as time passes.
When I was hired this year, it was during the mid-year point and the 2/3rd grade class I work with was just finishing their social studies curriculum and moving into science (the school puts social studies half the year and science the other half). Needless to say, I did not get to see how my head teacher taught social studies and so I do not feel totally comfortable teaching this subject area. However, I am excited to learn and work with some of you this semester!
Summer Burns

Intro

Hello all,

My name is Amanda Mattei and I am in the Elementary General and Special Education program. I am a little over halfway done with my masters. I just finished 2 years of being an assistant teacher at an all boys' independent school in Manhattan, and I will be a 3rd grade head teacher at a different all boys' independent school this fall! In the past two years, I have created many social studies "units," which is how the school that I work at frames their social studies curriculum.

I am really looking forward to this course, however, I am very nervous about taking an online course. I am already overwhelmed, but I am happy to see that some of your names are familiar to me from other classes!

I look forward to working with you, and please, if anyone has any tips as to how they are organizing themselves for this online course, feel free to send your advice my way!

Introduction

Hi Everyone!

My name is Chloe and I am finishing up my second year at Bank Street. I will be done with my program in December and I can't wait!!  I am in the Childhood General and Special Education program and although it has been a lot of work I have really enjoyed my experience so far.  I was a career changer and was initially overwhelmed by my lack of knowledge about teaching however, now that I have learned so much I am certain I made the right career move.

I am currently an assistant teacher in a 2nd Grade classroom at a Jewish Day School in Brooklyn. I have learned a lot of what to do and not to do in order to create an exciting and supportive learning environment for my students.  Next year I will be a 1st Grade head teacher at the same school and I am so excited to finally have my own classroom!  

This year in my classroom I helped create a community study as part of our Social Studies curriculum.  Much of our study was based on the story of Roxaboxen, which if you have not read it I really recommend it.  I planned a number of hands-on activities which culminated in my students building their own Roxaboxen.

I look forward to meeting and working with you all! 

~ Chloe

EDUC 513

Hi All, 

My name is Stephanie Kaplan.  I am a student at Bank Street in the Childhood Special Education Program.  I graduated from Hofstra University last May with a B.A in Spanish and a certification in General Childhood Education.  

I always knew I wanted to become a teacher.  I have such a passion and desire to work with children and am eager to share my positive experiences in education with my students. This past summer I worked as a summer school teacher in Yonkers, NY teaching 2nd grade bilingual students. Currently, I am a 3rd grade assistant teacher at the Rippowam Cisqua school in upper Westchester County. 

I have thoroughly enjoyed my first year at Bank Street and am looking forward to taking this Social Studies course.  I am interested in building on what I already know as well as ways to enhance a Social Studies curriculum.  

Looking forward to working with you all! 

-Stephanie K.   

Hi Everyone,

My name is Meg Edwards and after this summer I will be just about finished at Bank Street, save my IMP. I am in the Childhood Special and General program and am currently an associate teacher in a second grade classroom at an all girls independent school on the upper east side. Next year I will be in the same school, but will be an associate in first grade. This year has been the first that I have taught in a regular classroom. My experience prior to this year has been at a Saturday morning/summer tutoring program where I volunteered for two years. I have really enjoyed my time so far in the classroom and have especially liked my opportunity to teach social studies! The girls in my class responded so positively to the lessons that we taught this year and were so excited to make connections between the units that we did on mapping and NYC to other subjects and their everyday lives. It was such a fun class to teach!

I look forward to learning more about how to integrate social studies into a curriculum in this class, both from our readings and projects, but also from all of you.

Meg

Hi everyone,

My name is Lisa and I am almost done at Bank Street. I will be completing my degree at the end of July and I am extremely excited about that! My teaching experience has been pretty diverse over the last 2 years. My first year student teaching, I taught in a public school in East Harlem with emotionally disturbed 5th graders. It was a very eye-opening and truly rewarding experience. I built wonderful relationships with my students and I was also able to develop lesson planning skills and deepen my ability to self reflect.

Second semester I student taught at a "choice" school in midtown in a general education setting for second graders. I worked with one teacher and her 27 students, each with very large personalities and different needs academically. During that semester, I developed a social studies curriculum that revolved around the birds of central park. I planned several lessons and the students successfully completed their bird studies using different mediums to research their particular bird. The presentations at the conclusion of the project were wonderful!

Now, switching gears, I work full time at a private school for children with autism. I am currently a teacher's assistant and my students are between the ages of 6-8. Out of the 7 children, 4 are almost completely non-verbal, one of which I work with on a one-to-one basis everyday. This year has proven to be the most challenging yet while working with my students full time and going to school full time, but has by far been the most rewarding and educational year of my life. I hope to continue to my work with children who have autism and look forward to seeing how I can adapt my lesson plans and curriculum to suit their needs.

Looking forward to meeting all of you!

Lisa

Hi everyone. My name is Haruka Mori. This is my second year at Bank Street, and my major is General Elementary Education. I am taking 9 more credits on top of this class this summer, so it's going to be a busy summer!

I am currently a fourth grade teacher at the Allen-Stevenson School. I am a homeroom teacher to 23 boys!

Since everyone has shared something interesting and profound, I will try to do the same. (:
By the time I reached the age of eleven, I had lived in five countries across four continents and had attended thirteen different schools. My father’s job as an international banker required our family to become experts at packing and unpacking. Moving from Japan to Australia to Bahrain, back to Japan, then to the U.S. was a difficult task just in itself. From early on, my parents placed great value in learning and maintaining proficiency in Japanese, along with sense of heritage and culture, while adapting and fitting in comfortably in a foreign land. Like many parents who take their children to foreign countries, they wanted me to experience the ‘best of both worlds,’ which is easier said than done. Each country I lived in, each school I attended brought a new challenge, which I learned to overcome by being flexible and accepting different customs and practices. To this day, my unique childhood plays a significant role in shaping the kind of the person I am, and kind of educator I aspire to be.

I'm looking forward to our online conversations.

Introductions - Part II

Hi everyone,

KK asked me to share with everyone my difficulty posting to the blog to let you all know that if you had not yet tried to post, try to log in and add your introduction. Make sure that you received an e-mail that invites you to be a "contributor" to the blog and not just a "follower," and make sure you accept the invitation. This way you can actually post content and not just comment to someone else. There may be a time limit on the actual invitation sent out, so if you have not received an invitation, or if you did and have not accepted, you may encounter the same difficulty of trying to post to the blog. If you do have this problem, you can contact KK and I think she can send another invitation to contribute to the blog.

Looking forward to working with you all soon!

Introduction

Greetings all,

My name is Chris Doyle and I'm in the Childhood General Special Education program. This is the second-to-last class I have to take before completing my studies at Bank Street. Needless to say, I'm excited.

I started in September 2007 coming from Washington, DC. There, I worked for a not-for-profit organization conducting education research, primarily in the field of reading. It was a unique opportunity to travel the country to observe in K-3 classrooms, interview school-, district-, and state-level folks, and see how schools around the country (rural/urban/west/east/south) are dramatically different. Writing comprehensive reports is much less satisfying than actually teaching students, so I came to Bank Street in order to work more closely with children.

This semester I'm working as an assistant teacher in a private school for children with autism. Most of the students with whom I work have Aspergers. In the fall, I worked a student teaching in a school in Brooklyn. In each setting, I've had a chance to use a team-based approach to teaching. It's been a great experience, and I can see so many advantages to collaborative format.

I'm originally from NJ and recently decided to return to the Garden State next fall to teach in a progressive charter school. I feel connected to the area and I'm really invigorated about the opportunity to return home and work in a community that needs lots of help.

With the spare time that I have outside Bank Street, I enjoy cooking, photography, following baseball, reading graphic novels, and traveling with my girlfriend.

UPDATE:
I finally was able to post this introduction after a few unsuccessful attempts. You may see this post in duplicate elsewhere on this blog, so if you do I apologize. Initially, I was not given the option to post content to the blog on the dashboard page. I used my google account and an existing blogger account to follow the class blog, but I couldn't find an icon inviting me to, "post," anything to the site. I tried to rejoin the blog a few times, but to no avail. Using trial and error, I ended up just posting a comment to the initial introductory post, but of course it existed only as a comment and not an actual post visible to everyone on the home page. Since it's an online course and we'll be posting periodically throughout the semester, I had to redress this blogging blunder and figure out how to post a new entry. Back to the drawing board.

I have an existing blog on blogger which I deleted it b/c I thought for some reason that I couldn't post content to a blog I was following in addition to a blog I already had on blogger. I even went to the 'blogger help group' and posted a question to the larger blogging community asking for help. I consider myself pretty tech savvy, so I was somewhat frustrated when I couldn't figure out what was going on. To make a long story short, I received an e-mail from blogger inviting me to be a contributor to the class blog. I accepted the invitation and went back to the dashboard. Low-and-behold I saw an icon that asked me if I wanted to post. I'm about to click publish, and I have to admit I'm excited to see what happens. Talk to y'all soon!

Introduction

Hello Fellow EDUC 513 Participants,

My name is Rachel Walton, and I am in the Childhood General and Special Education program at Bank Street.  This is the first online course I have ever taken, and I am very excited and a bit nervous about the experience.

I fell into teaching accidentally.  An undergraduate professor I had asked if I would be interested in visiting her son's class for some research I was doing on language acquisition.  I walked into Carolyn Bridge's fourth grade classroom and fell in love.  I spent the next year volunteering before I became a student teacher in her classroom.

My college did not offer full certification, so I joined Teach for America after graduation.  I taught a CTT class at P.S. 70 in the Bronx.  I then moved to Miami-Dade, where I taught a self-contained class for severe emotionally and behaviorally classified students in the Little Haiti section of Dade County.  Realizing that I needed more education in order to fully support my students and develop my practice, I returned to New York to attend Bank Street.

As I mentioned before, I am both excited and nervous about this course.  I have deeply enjoyed social studies as both a student and a teacher.  I found that all of the students I have taught have been drawn to social studies, and it served as a pivotal part of my day.  I am excited to expand my knowledge in this area and to be able to bring new perspectives, strategies and curriculums to my students.

Warmly,

Rachel

Introduction

Hello EDUC 513,
My name is Zach Galin and I have just finished my second semester at Bank Street in the Childhood Education program. I am the 6th grade science teacher at South Bronx Prep, a public 6-12 school in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx. At the school, I also assist with college and financial aid applications and help to coordinate our small group academic guidance program, called Pathways.

I came to teaching after growing up thinking I had to be an investment banker to be considered successful. I began my undergraduate career at Northwestern University in a program that can be dubbed "econometrics." I became active in Hillel (the Foundation for Jewish Campus Life), both on my campus and internationally, and took a strong interest in studying how organizations run and how to influence change within them. To that end, I switched majors to one called Learning and Organizational Change, which was in the School of Education and Social Policy.

This track at Northwestern was paralleled with my summer experiences. I spent my childhood as a camper at a residential camp in northeast Pennsylvania. My youngest brother, who is currently 11, kept me going back to camp well into college as a counselor and currently as the Director of Programming. Now approaching my 16th summer at camp, I have realized that I owe much of my success to my camp experience and am passionate about helping to build confidence within children through informal educational institutions, such as camp.

With my new interest in education and my studies in organizational change, upon graduation, I joined Kaplan Tutoring to run one of their centers. After a year, and working with hundreds of diverse children in NYC, I began to see the inequity that exists in the outcomes of our city's educational system. I decided I wanted to get a better understanding of this inside the classroom, and joined Teach for America.

My work in school has been quite the educational experience for me and has made me realize, first-hand, that schools are truly the key that opens the door for every child's future - and we should treat it as such.

~Z

Hi Everyone,
I often ask myself "Who am I and what am I doing here?"
This seems to be an appropriate forum for briefly answering those questions.
I am 2nd semester student in the general childhood education program.
I am also in the process of a career change. I taught for a couple of years long ago - one year of student fieldwork in a children's home and 2 years as an assistant at Trevor Day - and then decided to go to law school so that I could work for progressive change in our society on a macro/system-wide level. I have now been a lawyer for about 15 years. I am the Deputy Director of the U.S. Legal Program at the Center for Reproductive Rights, a national non-profit that works to protect and advance reproductive rights and health. (Basically what this means I do is bring lawsuits to challenge state laws that restrict women's access to abortion, deny minor's access to confidential reproductive health services, or discriminate on the basis of sex). I have worked in this field for virtually my entire career. It has been a challenging and rewarding 15 years. Nonetheless, I am now looking to explore and use some of my other interests and abilities by moving back into teaching. In particular, I seek the directness of teaching, the immediacy and interpersonal nature of the work, the diversity of skills and tasks involved, the creative challenge of providing interactive and accesible learning experiences, and the fun (not all the time, of course) of working with kids.
So, I think that pretty much tells you who I am and what I am doing here. I am excited about this course as I really loved social studies as a child (I still remember the brand name of an atlas I was given to keep in 3rd grade social studies), and I have not yet had a chance to teach it. I have take one on-line course previously (through Bank Street at the Museum of Natural History) and I found it to be a lot of work but a great learning experience. I was impressed by how much thoughtfulness and effort many of the students brought to it.
Bonnie

Intro

Hello Everyone,

My name is Eva Broder. I'll introduce myself by giving a bit of background information about me and how I got into teaching.
I majored in Psychology in college. I loved the courses, but before and after graduation I was wracking my brains trying to think of the perfect career path for me with the degree I was coming out with. I did not see myself becoming a psychologist, or a researcher, and knew there was a plethora of other options but none seemed to appeal to me. Finally, sort of on a whim I decided to teach for a little before making any big decisions. I ended up finding a job as a co-teacher in a preschool in the city and loved it! I realized that in teaching, one needs to have an acute awareness of the personalities and needs of those around her/him. All the reasons I had gone into psychology in the first place were the same reasons I wanted to go into teaching but for once I fully felt perfectly suited for the career I was considering. I made the decision at the end of last year that I wanted to remain in the field of education and I find new reasons to be glad about my choice all the time. Now I work in a private day school in Riverdale in a kindergarten class (a little closer to home than the preschool--I took my commute down from an hour and twenty minutes each way to twenty minutes!).
This will be my fourth semester in Bank Street college. I am sort of in-between programs right now--in the midst of switching from literacy to special education.
This is my first online course so I am curious and excited to find out what it will be like.

I look forward to meeting everyone else in this course!

Eva

Welcome Introductions Please

Welcome everyone. Let's first use this blog to get to know each other, and later, use it as a way of sharing ideas, resources, or other concerns we have over this month.

I'll start it off:
I'm KK. Nickname given to me by my sisters who were babies at the time, they couldn't say Kathleen. It stuck and I've always been called by that nickname except for when I was in 4th grade and the teacher said she refused to call me by a baby name (not nice!) and insisted the class call me Kathy. Needless to say, her power was only in the classroom because after school and after fourth grade, KK remained.

I was formerly the co-chair of the Sp.Ed. Department at Bank Street and was also the program director of the Middle School Programs. I was formerly a national instructor for Schools Attuned (Mel. Levine's program), and before that I was a fifth and sixth grade general/sp ed teacher in a regular classroom. And before that, I was a museum educator in an art museum.

I am married and have two grown children John, and Katie, ages 27 and 29 who live and work in NYC. I mention their names because a few years back, I had two students in my class who had gone to school with them and it was nice to have that connection.

My outside interests are working in a local food pantry and soup kitchen. I am also taking an online course in photography. I love reading 19th c. novels because I love the language.

My work ethic is that I like to get work done in advance. I like to get to know the people with whom I work. I like to think creatively and prefer creating to following. I am a good listener and enjoy brainstorming with others.

When chosing a group to work in, or a partner, I always look for a detail person, someone who will notice, what I left out in my work, typos, or spelling errors. I also look for someone who loves coming up with new ideas that are reasonable,doable, and interesting. Most of all, I look for someone who can laugh and take some time from serious work, to see the lighter side of the project.

One of my favorite classroom stories is when I came back into my class (after lunch) to find my students acting kooky, laughing, and pointing to one student who was crawling around the room on all fours with his rearend stuck into the trash can. The class hushed because they expected me to get cross. Instead I screwed up my face and said, "Johnny, what are you doing?" He answered, "Impersonating a turtle." We all laughed, and made good friends when I responded, see if you can pull your head into the shell then it will be perfect."