Professional Showcase

Leigh Ammeraal

Professional Teacher Showcase

1. Check out this video on California State Senate Bill No. 328. The video explains the bill in detail and describes why sleep deprivation is so detrimental to student health and academic performance.

2. Infographic with school data comparing two different middle schools in the San Diego Unified School District.

3. A project with my fellow TeachNow candidate David Stewart on Differentiated Instruction.

4. Venn Diagram Analyzing School Climate and Culture

5. Behavior Management Plan

This is my management pan for my preschool class ages 3-4. We are located in China and this is the students first introduction to English. I have a chinese teaching assistant who helps translate for me.

1. Philosophy for Motivation

Goals

Create a positive, encouraging and safe learning environment.
To instill a love of learning English in young learners.
Prepare students for kindergarten by teaching essential skills.
Help develop gross motor skills and fine motor skills.

Actions

Use protective classroom equipment like foam borders, padded flooring, and stools to keep children safe.
Create and english speaking environment by singing english songs, reading english books, teaching english alphabet and words, and communicating in English using a translator (the teaching assistant)
Prepare students for kindergarten by having students follow procedures and setting high expectations for students.
Help develop motor skills by engaging students in a number of different activities, crafts, writing, cutting with scissors, obstacle courses, PE lessons, music lessons, etc.

2. Preventative Methods for Managing the Learning Environment

Teaching norms and procedures on the first day of class and reinforcing them every day.
Modeling procedures and activities to ensure students know what to do and when to do it.
Using effective transitions to start the day, move from one activity to the next, for lunch and snack times, nap time, and at the end of the day.
Using positive reinforcement to encourage students to use good behavior.
Using positive peer modeling to point out students who are behaving well and encouraging other students to follow suit.
Using a sticker reward system: Each student receives a sticker when they are caught with good behavior or at certain times (lunchtime, etc.). When students reach ten stickers on their reward chart they are allowed to pick a small prize.
Student expectations will be set using age-appropriate developmental guidelines. Developmental Milestones 3-4 years

Procedures

Morning Procedure: Come into the center, put away your belongings in your cubby, take off your shoes and put on your school shoes, play with toys, puzzles, or books until students here the cleanup song to transition to morning circle time.
Bathroom procedure: students tell the teacher they need to use the bathroom. The teacher gives them permission to go. They follow proper bathroom procedures (wiping, flushing, washing hands).
Lunch/snack procedure: Students sit on the circle rug and listen to a story. Students are called one by one to go wash their hands and go sit at the table to eat lunch or snack.

3. Norms/Rules

During the first day of class, we will sit down to talk about how we should behave while we are in class. I will ask leading questions and try to draw from student's experiences and help them come up with these norms. Norms will be visible and posted throughout the center.

Be respectful of yourself, other people, and your environment
Treat others with kindness
Listen to your teacher
Keep hands and feet to yourself
Use your inside voices

4. School Policies and Procedures

The school does have some policies regarding our class. Students must put their backpacks in their lockers and they must change out of their outside shoes and into their school shoes upon arrival before entering the classroom.
School policies and procedures wil be communicated to parents.

5. Communicate the Rules

On the first day of school we will brainstorm and come up with our class norms as a group. We will go over the rules and the teacher will make sure that they unerstand the rules.
Rules will be displayed on multiple posters throughout the center. The rules will be visible, clear, and simple.
Rules will be communicated with parents on the first day of school and parents may be able to reference them in our newsletters and handbook.

6. Communication with Parents

Weekly newsletters will be sent home about our lessons and what the children have done the past week and what to expect the next week.
Weekly Menu and Weekly Schedule will be posted at the center where it will be visible to parents when they come to check students in.
Behavior reports for individual students will be sent home as needed. Behavior reports will have a detailed description of the child's misbehavior, how the behavior was handled, and how the behavior will be handled in the future.
Parents will be called in for conferences once a semester, and as needed.