To Whom It May Concern,

I am a passionate educator and a self-directed, continuous learner.

I teach to create a safe place for students where they are known, empowered, and loved. One of my goals is to share my enthusiasm for learning and to inspire a desire to become a life-long learner in my students. I consistently create pathways between parents and guardians of students and the world of education, and place importance on engaging with families outside of an 8:00 am- 2:15 pm school day in order to make them feel valued. At the end of the day, I want my students to walk out of the classroom encouraged, knowing that they have classmates and teachers who are on their team.

I believe in teaching students accountability and responsibility for their actions, providing students with ownership over their learning, and giving students space for critical and creative thinking within the environment of a democratic classroom. I have experience monitoring student progress through planned formative assessments, scaffolded instruction, and student self- assessments.

I value data that drives my instruction, authentic assessments within the classroom, and collaboration with colleagues through both vertical and horizontal alignment of grade levels. I believe that I have expertise in innovations in curriculum to bring to an educational environment, and at the same time my colleagues will have expertise in other areas that I can learn from as well. I have learned how to ask for help when approaching different situations after working multiple solutions myself in the classroom first.

I am passionate about integrating arts, science, and technology into lesson plans because I believe that it molds kids into well-rounded students. I am skilled at delivering instruction in unique ways that integrate core concepts. I believe that kinesthetic learning promotes the formation of new connections within students’ brains, and therefore I integrate movement as much as possible into my instruction.

I plan to emphasize the importance of providing students with standards-based lesson plans within my classroom that incorporate real-world connections in order to make content purposeful and relevant to their lives. Education brings a greater awareness to the student of the world around them and instills in them a passion and a purpose to grow to become effective democratic citizens.

I believe that I have developed excellent classroom management skills through my diverse experiences in different grade levels, and base my classroom management techniques on the strategies of the practice of Love & Logic. I strongly believe the best classroom management comes from rewarding positive behaviors rather than punishing incorrect behaviors.

I bring strengths that include communication and organizational skills, a seamless ability to work with varying ages and developmental levels, and a passion for integrating technology into the classroom to any collaborative teaching team.

My bottom line in education is that students will walk through my classroom door every morning knowing that their teacher values them as an individual and excited to express their creativity and uniqueness throughout the school day.

Thank you for taking the time to get to know me!

With joy,

Tiana Grap

teaching joys

keeping my thinking visible

Thoughts on Classroom Management

It has been so interesting for me to be in a class that I feel relates directly to my future classroom, which is this education class! The topic that we are covering, which is classroom management, is seemingly scary at first when you think about it, but there are so many helpful resources and strategies available to teach future teachers such as myself! There are several classroom management techniques that I have learned about that I could see myself employing in my future classroom. One of these is making sure that I am clear with my directions and what I want my students to be doing so that they understand fully what they are expected to do. I understand that many problems in the classroom can stem from misunderstandings, and I would like to prevent this as much as possible! If I taught a younger class, I would like to have a spectrum that students could move their names along, where there are many opportunities for improvement and the emphasis is on doing good and listening to directions in the classroom. Lastly, one management technique that I like is to give a student who is not listening choices of the options they have, so that they are able to make the right choice themselves instead of me simply telling them what to do.

Along with these strategies that I would like to employ in my future class, I have found that practice makes perfect and I am extremely lucky that I get to practice these different strategies when I am a nanny! My job right now is taking care of a 5 year old girl three times a week, and although there are many fun times, there are also times where I have to be firm if she is not listening to me. When I first started out, I would count down from 3 if she wasn’t listening because that seemed to be the only strategy that would work to get her to listen! Now though, after discussing and learning about classroom management techniques, I have been employing a few of those with her and they have worked out great. The biggest technique that I use with her is giving her choices if she is disobeying, and I have been surprised that every time she decides herself to do the right thing without me having to countdown anymore.

Posted 702 weeks ago

Mrs. Tiana Grap

teaching joys