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Olson About the Author Home Learn More Inspiration About the AuthorAbout the Author
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Do you know any kids asking for attendance, and plan books for holidays? The likelihood of this is slim to none, but if you knew me then at least you knew one. From my very first day of school, I fell in love with learning, and I immediately adored and admired the nurturing, supportive, and inspirational nature of all of my educators. I always remember having a very clear awareness of the influential powers my elementary school teachers withheld and I was truly in awe of the role they played in the lives of all of their students. This awareness ignited within me an innate drive to become a teacher in order to make long lasting differences in the lives of my students. Teaching has not become what I do, but it is truly who I am.
After graduating from Sonoma State University’s Multiple-Subject Credential Program, I taught in the Cotati-Rohnert Park Unified School District for three years. The Napa Valley Unified School District provided me endless opportunities to not only identify my dreams, but foster them, and achieve them as well, and it was always an aspiration of mine to be able to give back to the district that has given me so much. In 2015, I had the opportunity to work not only in the NVUSD, but at the elementary school I attended as a child. Teaching Kindergarten in the Kindergarten classroom I was apart of as a child as my Kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Verkus, walked through the door to reminisce with me was a full circle type of experience that I will surely never forget. Being a Kindergarten teacher was a complete and utter game-changer for me. From the very moment I heard one of my students read a word/page/story for the first time, I knew how I could make the most everlasting positive impact on the lives of my students. Teaching early literacy skills to primary students was my driving force from that moment on.
With the ever increasing amount of technological, and pedagogical resources available, accompanied by my eagerness to guarantee all of my students a strong literacy foundation, I became driven by a hope for innovation in the typically mundane process of teaching phonics. The potential for improvement through professional development led me to seek out opportunities for an evolution in my teaching practice. When I learned about the Innovative Learning program through Touro from a coworker, I knew it could help guide my thirst for growth, and fuel my desire to fulfill my promise for literacy to all of my students through innovative implementations.
I am forever grateful for this program, my cohort members, and the abundance of generosity NapaLearns has displayed for helping the completion of this program become a reality for me. I have become so much more able to meet the needs of all of my prereaders because of this program, and therefore have been able to impact the futures of not only my current students, but my future students as well. In addition, this program has allowed my audience to expand upon and far surpass the walls of my classroom, thereby withholding the potential to grant an innumerable amount of students with the early literacy skills that will lay the foundation for endless opportunities.
After graduating from Sonoma State University’s Multiple-Subject Credential Program, I taught in the Cotati-Rohnert Park Unified School District for three years. The Napa Valley Unified School District provided me endless opportunities to not only identify my dreams, but foster them, and achieve them as well, and it was always an aspiration of mine to be able to give back to the district that has given me so much. In 2015, I had the opportunity to work not only in the NVUSD, but at the elementary school I attended as a child. Teaching Kindergarten in the Kindergarten classroom I was apart of as a child as my Kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Verkus, walked through the door to reminisce with me was a full circle type of experience that I will surely never forget. Being a Kindergarten teacher was a complete and utter game-changer for me. From the very moment I heard one of my students read a word/page/story for the first time, I knew how I could make the most everlasting positive impact on the lives of my students. Teaching early literacy skills to primary students was my driving force from that moment on.
With the ever increasing amount of technological, and pedagogical resources available, accompanied by my eagerness to guarantee all of my students a strong literacy foundation, I became driven by a hope for innovation in the typically mundane process of teaching phonics. The potential for improvement through professional development led me to seek out opportunities for an evolution in my teaching practice. When I learned about the Innovative Learning program through Touro from a coworker, I knew it could help guide my thirst for growth, and fuel my desire to fulfill my promise for literacy to all of my students through innovative implementations.
I am forever grateful for this program, my cohort members, and the abundance of generosity NapaLearns has displayed for helping the completion of this program become a reality for me. I have become so much more able to meet the needs of all of my prereaders because of this program, and therefore have been able to impact the futures of not only my current students, but my future students as well. In addition, this program has allowed my audience to expand upon and far surpass the walls of my classroom, thereby withholding the potential to grant an innumerable amount of students with the early literacy skills that will lay the foundation for endless opportunities.
My Teaching Philosophy
I strongly believe that every learner has the right to an inspirational, motivational, and equitable education that adheres to their individual learning styles, needs, and backgrounds. It is my privileged responsibility as en educator to provide ALL of my students with a safe, supportive, and community-oriented learning environment, that provides opportunities for students to meaningfully interact and engage with the curriculum through creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, and communication. Through the instillation of essential early literacy skills, I fully believe that I can provide the future (my primary students) with incomparable access to any form of future they will one day inhabit.
Reflections on my Journey
The single word, "aware" can describe my growth throughout the beginning of my journey. Dictionary.com defines "aware" as an adjective that describes being, "Concerned and well-informed about a particular situation or development." At the end of the first semester, I can most definitely say that I was "well-informed" and therefore highly "concerned" about our current educational system and the continual development of it. I became concerned that my students would be robbed of their innate creativity, and passions derived from their individual interests and therefore from the inability to connect to real-world problems in a meaningful, and impactful manner as well. I was concerned that we as educators were not enabling technology and student curiosity as the educational driving forces they can and should be. I am extremely thankful that my thinking has become transformed by my awareness because I know that this is what led to the transformation of my planning, implementation, facilitation, and overall role as an educator. Becoming aware allowed me to become far more fearless regarding not only the use of technological resources, but the participation in professional development and the trial/error/revision process that has so immensely improved my teaching.
The middle portion of my journey can be defined by the word, “empowered.” Through exploration and unpressured implementation of pedagogical and technological resources, I was able to mold my previous sense of awareness into empowerment. I became empowered by TPACK and the “Sweet Spot” that can be achieved by seamless integration of technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge. I was empowered by the usefulness of the technology, pedagogy, and content I brought with me to Touro, the ones I gained in the program, and the ones I will continue to acquire far after completion of the program because of the resources and open mindset made available to me. Most significantly, empowerment derived from the ability to let go from the notion of perfection, and the subsequent ability to test out implementations of TPACK in my classroom without fear of failure, but rather with hope for innovation.
“Responsibility” is what defines the final portion of my journey. Once I was able to create a TPACK “Sweet Spot” in my phonics instruction and it proved beneficial to the reading readiness of my students, I became motivated by a sense of responsibility to share with my fellow primary educators what I have found to be effective in preparing students to read. I desired to pass on how I was able to arm my students with essential early literacy skills through a multimedia-enhanced format. Learning how to most effectively present ABC ME to my audience became my primary focus for the duration of my journey, which was a process defined by cohort and instructional support, experimenting, reviewing, and revising.
The middle portion of my journey can be defined by the word, “empowered.” Through exploration and unpressured implementation of pedagogical and technological resources, I was able to mold my previous sense of awareness into empowerment. I became empowered by TPACK and the “Sweet Spot” that can be achieved by seamless integration of technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge. I was empowered by the usefulness of the technology, pedagogy, and content I brought with me to Touro, the ones I gained in the program, and the ones I will continue to acquire far after completion of the program because of the resources and open mindset made available to me. Most significantly, empowerment derived from the ability to let go from the notion of perfection, and the subsequent ability to test out implementations of TPACK in my classroom without fear of failure, but rather with hope for innovation.
“Responsibility” is what defines the final portion of my journey. Once I was able to create a TPACK “Sweet Spot” in my phonics instruction and it proved beneficial to the reading readiness of my students, I became motivated by a sense of responsibility to share with my fellow primary educators what I have found to be effective in preparing students to read. I desired to pass on how I was able to arm my students with essential early literacy skills through a multimedia-enhanced format. Learning how to most effectively present ABC ME to my audience became my primary focus for the duration of my journey, which was a process defined by cohort and instructional support, experimenting, reviewing, and revising.
Lasting Learning from the Innovative Learning program
I will forever carry with me the awareness, empowerment, and responsibility that I gained from the program and the combination of the three will forever perpetuate my desire to improve every aspect of my educational career, and share with others what I have found to be successful in assisting me in meeting the needs of ALL of my learners. The ability to meaningfully research, fearlessly implement based on research, review and revise implementation in reflection, share my findings, and repeat the cycle again has not only already instilled, but will continue to produce long lasting learning.
TPACK Reflection:
Before entering this program, technology was often unknowingly implemented in my classroom as a separate entity that did not enhance or drive the learning of my students. It existed in my classroom as a direct replacement for implementations already in place in my classroom. Through this program I have learned about the true impact of TPACK, the seamless intersection of technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge. Such an intersection requires all three components to work with one another in a way that without one the learning would not be as enhanced and the teaching would not be nearly as effective. When I plan a lesson or any implementation in the classroom, I now first consider my context, and then determine what content meets the needs of my context, what pedagogy assists the understanding of the content within all of the needs present in my context, and what technology can drive/enhance the pedagogy and content within my particular context. My multimedia-enhanced phonics lessons are a direct product of the “Sweet Spot” intersection point encompassed by TPACK. The early literacy skills content relies on the the pedagogical delivery revolved around images, songs, and movements, which all rely upon the the technological resources that deliver the content and provide the songs, movements, and images. There is no one component of the direct phonics lessons that could be missing in order for it to reach its’ full efficacy, and deliver students the foundational skills necessary to become successful and transferable readers.
TPACK Reflection:
Before entering this program, technology was often unknowingly implemented in my classroom as a separate entity that did not enhance or drive the learning of my students. It existed in my classroom as a direct replacement for implementations already in place in my classroom. Through this program I have learned about the true impact of TPACK, the seamless intersection of technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge. Such an intersection requires all three components to work with one another in a way that without one the learning would not be as enhanced and the teaching would not be nearly as effective. When I plan a lesson or any implementation in the classroom, I now first consider my context, and then determine what content meets the needs of my context, what pedagogy assists the understanding of the content within all of the needs present in my context, and what technology can drive/enhance the pedagogy and content within my particular context. My multimedia-enhanced phonics lessons are a direct product of the “Sweet Spot” intersection point encompassed by TPACK. The early literacy skills content relies on the the pedagogical delivery revolved around images, songs, and movements, which all rely upon the the technological resources that deliver the content and provide the songs, movements, and images. There is no one component of the direct phonics lessons that could be missing in order for it to reach its’ full efficacy, and deliver students the foundational skills necessary to become successful and transferable readers.
Context
Over the past three years, less than half (43.90% in 2017) of California’s Grade 3 students have met or exceeded the English Language Arts/Literacy standards as measured by the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) (https://www.cde.ca.gov/nr/ne/yr17/yr17rel67a.asp). In consideration of all grades tested (3rd-8th, and 11th), less than half (48.56%) of students in 2017 met or exceeded the English Language Arts/Literacy standards as measured by the CAASPP (12.09% of English Learners, 35.52% of economically disadvantaged students, and 13.86% of students with disabilities met or exceeded the English Language Arts/Literacy standards). This data released in the California Department of Education’s 2017 CAASPP Test Results news release suggests that early literacy skills are an area in California’s educational system that is lacking and in need of improvement. The school district of this study has adopted the use of the DIBELS Next assessment to measure the acquisition of early literacy skills in elementary students. The district yielded the following results for the beginning Letter Naming Fluency section as measured by the 2017-2018 DIBELS Next assessment: 63% of Kindergarten students were likely to need intensive support, 12% were likely to need strategic support, and 25% were likely to need core support. In addition, 45% of Kindergarten students were likely to need intensive support as measured by the beginning period’s First Sound Fluency section of the 2017-2018 DIBELS Next assessment, 22% were likely to need strategic support, and 33% were likely to need core support. This district-specific data, suggested that over half of the incoming Kindergarten population were in need of intensive support to meet the core benchmark standard in Letter Naming Fluency, and nearly half were in need of intensive support to meet the core standard in First Sound Fluency in the 2017-2018 school year. This need for intensive measures among incoming Kindergartners, has created a significantly wide gap among students’ readiness to read in regards to their acquisition of early literacy skills, such as letter identification, letter-sound relationships, sight word identification, phoneme segmentation, reading consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words, and overall phonemic awareness. Isolated phonics instruction as taught solely according to the appointed district-adopted curriculum does not meet the needs of every learner and has not closed the gap in reading readiness that is so prevalent in the classroom.
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Miss Olson's Kinder Kiddos
Miss Olson's Kinder Kiddos