Lauren McCracken

Where are you teaching? What subjects and grades?
I am a 2nd-4th grade Special Education teacher at New Story.  I teach students who qualify to be in Autistic Support classrooms and Emotional Support classrooms.  Most of my students have one or several of the following diagnoses: Autism, Oppositional Defiance Disorder, ADD, and/or ADHD. My students all come to my school from public school districts and are unable to participate in regular educational programs because of moderate to severe behavioral and social skill impairments.  I teach my students to learn coping skills.  When my students make significant academic and behavior progress, they return to the public school setting. This is my second school year teaching at New Story.

What advice would you give to current students who are enrolled in the teacher preparation program?
Be willing to try different types of placements during your field work. For example, you might think that you want to be a regular education kindergarten teacher, but after being placed in a middle school special education classroom, you might find that you prefer it! When I was a freshman at SRU, I wanted to have a Early Childhood Education major only.  However, I decided to double major in Early Childhood/Special Education, and I am so glad that I did. If it were not for making this decision, I would not have discovered that I prefer the field of special education.  Ask your professors as many questions as you can. You will thank yourself when you get your first teaching job that you took classes seriously. Make the most of all experiences that you can get in the field (for example: teach after-school tutoring, help run a club, etc.)  These types of experiences will look great on your resume.

 

What is one positive experience that you have had with a student?
I have had the opportunity to work with a few of my students for two school years. They have all made a great amount of growth.  It is very rewarding as their teacher to see the progress that they have made in the past year and a half.
 

What makes a great teacher?
A great teacher is always willing to adapt to the situation.  Several things could happen in the school day that you don't plan for.  A great teacher makes plans in advance and makes back up plans just in case.  A great teacher cares about his or her students and takes time out of the day to build relationships with them.  A great teacher is willing to work with others and learn new methods in the field of education.  Working as a team gives you the opportunity to share great ideas.  Learning new methods and completing professional development will help you grow as a teacher and help your students learn.

Jared Stanley

Where are you teaching? What subjects/grade are you teaching?
Currently, I am in my second year within the Alexandria City Public School System, located in Alexandria, Virginia. I am holding the position of a special education inclusion teacher and case manage students in Kindergarten and First grade. While working full time, I am also a part-time graduate student seeking a Master's Degree in Special Education with a certificate in Applied Behavior Analysis.

What advice would you give to current students who are enrolled in the teacher preparation program?
Going into college, I was told that you should be open to trying new things and take advantages of new opportunities—there are a lot of experiences that I had the opportunity to partake in at SRU that helped develop me into a stronger teacher, professional, and leader. There are going to be a lot of opportunities within your program which may be challenging; however, the experience and gratification will surpass the time and effort.

What is one positive experience that you have had with a student?
Working in an inner city school, with high poverty rates, and extremely low socio-economic statuses, I try to find the silver lining in everyday. I try to reflect on the positives, but there is a particular student who does stand out. This year, I had a nonverbal, developmentally delayed, and English language learning student come to me on the first day of school that was terrified to be left by their parents. After a lot of hard work, numerous attempts at providing specifically designed instruction, positive support, and some extra genuine concern for this student—he is making incredible progress despite all of the obstacles that have been thrown at him. I take a lot of pride in seeing how far he has come in a short amount of time. He is now attempting to talk constantly, and starting to convey his messages clearly. He has come a long way socially with peers and adults!

What makes a great teacher?
In my opinion, your every motivation at work and school should be the kids. The first year of teaching is definitely hard, filled with lesson plans, countless trainings, meetings, professional developments, prepping materials, etc. All of this responsibility finds itself weighing on you while you find your way through a new school system and come to terms with the reality that you are no longer a student, and that you are responsible for the education of others. There will be obstacles during the teaching experience—but the true mark of success is seeing all of your hard work pay off when your students succeed.

Emily Sivak

Where are you teaching? What subjects and grades?
After graduating from Slippery Rock in 2015, I went to the PERC job fair with the goal of getting a teaching job and just hoping it would be somewhere warmer than Pennsylvania…fast-forward a few months and I was hired to teach at WR Odell Primary in Concord, North Carolina. This is my second year teaching and I have the pleasure of teaching all subjects to my favorite grade—second grade!   

 

       What advice would you give to current students who are enrolled in the teacher preparation program?

My biggest piece of advice would be to take advantage of every opportunity.

·      Learn as much as you can and build relationships—Professors who were role models in college will become a valuable network to you even after you get that diploma. It’s nice having those same mentors just a quick email, text, or Facebook message away from advice even in my post-grad career. The Slippery Rock community is a wonderful one!

·      Get as involved as you can—as cliché as this piece of advice seems, it is also the most important! Joining an education club (such as NSTA, NCTE, ECE, Kappa Delta Pi, etc.) is one of the best ways to get experiences teaching in a variety of settings (at museums, on campus, in classrooms, afterschool programs, “fun days” and so much more!) and they could lead to campus leadership positions which will later become great resume builders.  

·      Take risks—This program is the time to figure out not just how to teach, but what your personal teaching style is. Take chances in your field placements with creative lessons. Go the extra mile, always. Maybe even get out of your comfort zone and try an experience teaching abroad! I spent a spring break in Sweden and student taught in Mexico. While both were definitely out of my comfort zone, these were among the best experiences I had at SRU -- and both had tremendous effects on my teaching skills and confidence.

 

     What is one positive experience that you have had with a student?

My favorite moments of teaching so far have been the ones in which a student completely lights up in disbelief and says “Wow! Learning this is fun!” Just this past month it has happened several times---A struggling student who hates reading told me our daily interventions were the “best part of her day”; hard-to-motivate students were shining and persevering through a Mayflower engineering project—hardly realizing they were putting to good use all the math skills they had been learning; and a research project on animal life cycles had students begging for more time because they just wanted to learn more. No matter how stressed I am as a teacher, those positive experiences are the moments that I strive for in my classroom. I believe that every day should be one where learning is fun!

 

    What makes a great teacher?

I believe you need patience, passion, and determination to be a great teacher. The reality is that teaching is a hard profession which requires lots of hours in and out of the classroom. To be successful in this field is to be fully invested in your students. From the time they walk in the doors to the time they get on their buses, students crave challenges, need to be supported, want to be loved, and are ready to learn. There are only a certain amount of hours in a school day, so it’s up to the teacher to give their all to those kiddos each and every day. Simply put, every day as a teacher will have it's own unique challenges and opportunities...and that means every day is an opportunity for students (and their teachers!) to learn and grow and to become better than they were yesterday!