My primary mission is to inspire and rejuvenate educators, instilling confidence through practical suggestions for classroom management and instruction.  Through my work, I aspire to create tools that simultaneously enable educators to increase the quality of their instruction and curriculum creation while making the time spent more effective, efficient, and enjoyable. My ultimate goal is to increase the focus on the student-centered classroom so that all students can receive an education that is tailored to fit their individual and unique learning needs. 

Please join me as I explore the world of differentiated instruction strategies that begin with knowing your students.  I am developing usable tools to make differentiating your classroom instruction a breeze beginning with an investigation of learner profile inventories.







EDUCATION
University of California at Berkeley
·       M.A. in Education, Emphasis on Child Development and Multiple Subjects Credential
·       B.A. in American Studies, emphasis on Education in America, and Minor in Education

EXPERIENCE
Classroom teacher in large public and small private schools in the Bay Area
Faculty Leader and DI Training Facilitator at Francisco Middle School and Convent of the Sacred Heart
Produced New Teacher Professional Development Training Video through the New Teacher Center
Love and Logic Classroom Management Consultant and Professional Development Facilitator at Francisco Middle School
Curriculum Development Facilitator at Francisco Middle School and Convent of the Sacred Heart
After School English Language Development Program Curriculum Developer at Bridges Academy
Learning Center Curriculum Coordinator at the University of California at Berkeley

• Build a safe environment
• Make lessons novel with a sense of safe predictability
• Include opportunity for all students to build connections to material

We can regain 80% of attention that is involuntary due to concern about environment connection, and material difficulty level if we address these concerns.

• Respect and believe each student can be successful.
• It is my job to get them where they need to be.
• Success comes from effort, not inherent ability, and with hard work, most students can do most things.

Readiness

• A student’s proximity to understanding
• Readiness can change from topic to topic and over time.

Ability

• Inherent ability
• Ability cannot change

Provide appropriately high supports and scaffolds to ensure students’ enter their Zone of Proximal Development without reaching their frustration level (lessons with “just-right readiness” lessons tailored to their learning needs and strengths).

• Relationships:  Teacher-Student and Student-Student
• Relevance:  Curriculum Materials, Lesson Formats, and Connection to Material
• Rigor:  Student Profile Assessment, Pre-Assessment, and On-going Assessment
  
  A classroom with a strong community foundation understands and appreciated that equity is not always equal.  We might sometimes need to be different and do different things in order to achieve the same understanding.
  

Services

• Support implementation, design, and development of differentiated standards-based core and intervention curriculum
  
• Provide coaching and lesson development support through observation-reflection cycles, lesson recording and analysis, lesson modeling as well as other strategies in order to increase teachers’ instructional knowledge and maximize student learning
• Facilitate Professional Development Trainings: differentiated instruction strategies, utilizing learner inventory profiles in curriculum planning, and classroom management procedures and protocols
  
• Support technology integration in unit planning

Skills

• Successful experience working with a diverse adult and student population

• Experience in coaching, mentoring and modeling of lessons in subject matter

• Experience in group facilitation and conducting professional development in the subject matter

• Demonstrated ability to collaborate with district and school-based administrators

• Excellent skills in communication, organization and time management

• History of successful instruction with both educationally and socially under-served communities as well as gifted and talented student populations
  
• Skillful in analyzing assessment data, instructional planning and professional development of teachers