Marlyn

Certified Tutor

I want to impart knowledge to students. I am a firm believer that all students can learn and will learn. As an educator, I also find it necessary to prepare, plan and present lessons that accommodate all students' learning styles. Each student is unique in mental capacities. It is important to provide students with a stimulating, clean, and safe learning environment so that students will become life-long learners.

As an educator, I find it essential to communicate with all stake-holders (students, teachers, parents, administration, support staff and community members) because it helps to move each child, each day. As a transformative educator, leader and collaborator, I am aware of a need to stay abreast of the latest research on methods, pedagogy, and curriculum to enhance learning and teaching for all children because every child is unique in their learning styles. In collaborating with teachers, I find it important to have good interpersonal skills, listening skills, be open minded, and be able to use each of the teacher's gifts which has allowed me to build success for each of the teachers at the school. This in turn also helps our students and parents. Another success in teaching is collaborating with parents. On the high school level, parents love to be aware of their child's growth or regression in the classroom.

The Role of the Teacher in Education/Teacher as a Learner

In my experiences as an educator, I find it necessary to update one's skills by taking educational courses and attending professional development courses or online. Serving the students in another state since 2005 through 2011, I have completed one hundred and sixty-one hours of professional development workshops via face to face and online in the state of Alabama. The professional development has ranged from Special Education, Gifted, Reading Online Professional Development Courses, and Online Facilitation Courses through E-Learning. In September 2008, I was selected from the state's technology and received training as an online facilitator to teach professional development courses for educators in the state and completed online facilitation training in December 2008. On February 11, 2009, I started facilitating an online six weeks professional development course for teachers entitled: Reading First: Supporting Early Reading Instruction with Technology. Teachers throughout the state discussed strategies via discussion board and email, respond to and reflect on research based articles and educational literature.

In August 2011, I am back in New Orleans, Louisiana and glad to be back home. I have attended several professional development activities on Tuesdays face to face and I also participate in several webinars for various initiatives and programs at the school.

From the spring of 2004 to the present I have attended several professional development activities in the areas of reading, writing and technology. All of these professional activities have enhanced my teaching methodology. The skills that I have attained through reading, researching, and interfacing with professionals in the field of education have allowed me to serve as a catalyst in the urban school district and rural county in which I am presently employed as a seventh grade English Enrichment Teacher.

On May 17-19, 2004, I attended the 6 + 1 Writers Trait Workshop. While going through the training, I was able to receive one semester of college credit for the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory's course with the (WSU). This provided me the opportunity to enhance my teaching methodology in writing and share with educators across the nation about improving writing of students in grades K-12. After attending the workshop, I shared the information with colleagues at the district office and at one of the schools that I monitored for their summer school program entitled: Summer POWER (Pushing Onward With Excellent Results). The information from the workshop was helpful to teachers of English/Language Arts because it expanded their body of knowledge in the content area. After the presentations, the teachers completed evaluations and many of them rated the workshop as helpful to instructional programs.

The Role of the School Interventionist/Teacher with Community of Learners

My role as an interventionist is to infuse technology rich lessons for students and teachers. It is important to meet the needs of students of all reading levels and provide support for students ranging from independent reading levels to struggling reading levels. In addition, it is important to work together with teachers and support their classroom practices.

As a catalyst for change, I plan to continue with professional growth and take graduate level courses. Taking additional coursework is instrumental in helping educators to grow professionally.

The Role as a Tutor of English/Language Arts
I plan to interface with students face to face and online. In addition, I plan to meet with parents to discuss students growth and progression in the program.