Vitae Goal Statements Coursework Professional Experience Analytical Thinking Research Artifacts


Professional Experience
(November 2010)

    This current school year marks the beginning of my sixth year of teaching students with disabilities.  I have spent three years in a public school setting and three years in a therapeutic school.  During those six years I have chosen to be a classroom teacher.  Many leadership opportunities have arisen over the course of the past two years; however, I have chosen to remain in the classroom for several reasons.  The reasons are because I a) want to maintain a connection to students with disabilities, b) feel that teaching five years or greater in the classroom holds more credibility to teachers when in a leadership position, and c) need to balance my professional, personal, and academic life in order to remain successful in all three.

    Even though I have remained in the classroom over the past year, I have taken on more responsibility in my current position.  The program for students with emotional and behavior disabilities has been expanded to include an additional teacher and teaching assistant.  Therefore, the responsibility has fallen to me to oversee and guide the program.  I have become a member of the Behavior Intervention Team (BIT), which responds to students in crisis.  Lastly, I have taken on the responsibility of teaching a self-contained and a team-taught Algebra 1 class. 

    Over the past year I stopped working as a Graduate Research Assistant (GRA) for Dr. King-Sears so I could focus on my own research and develop a pilot project to measure the effects of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) on students with emotional and behavioral disabilities (EBD).  However, I have been unable to start that project for a variety of reasons (mainly, because there are not enough hours during the day).  Instead, I have written and submitted three manuscripts for publication, and one is already accepted for publication in TEACHING Exception Children.  I have also presented at the 32nd International Conference on Learning Disabilities, and I participated in an internship at Johns Hopkins University. 

    The 32nd International Conference on Learning Disabilities introduced me to the process of creating a poster and presenting a portion of my published manuscript to other educational professionals.  My internship built on my GRA experience of cleaning organizing, and developing descriptive statistics on data collected from a research study.  I believe both of these experiences will help me in the field of education research and as a professor in the future. 

    Over the summer I attended the Council of Administrators of Special Education (CASE) Summer Educational Leadership Seminar and the Contemplative Educator Summit, to further develop my leadership skills.  I was introduced to the idea of education advocacy during my EDSE 843 class with Dr. Baker.  I attended the conference with Dr. Kealy and had an opportunity to lobby upcoming educational legislation with local elected officials on Capitol Hill.  The experience alone was an exceptional learning opportunity.  After completing the conference, I feel that educational advocacy is not something I want to pursue in the future.  I think if I was able to advocate for educational reform in the area of emotional and behavioral disabilities I would feel more strongly on pursuing that line of work.  But lobbying for general educational reform or funding does not peak my interest.  I felt more comfortable participating in the Contemplative Educator Summit hosted by the Center for Consciousness and Transformation at George Mason University.  This particular summit was held to discuss how MBSR (or contemplative) practices could be introduced and implemented into the local school system.  In this case I felt that my voice and ideas were heard and carry more of an impact, because of the smaller scale of the project.  Both of these experiences were excellent learning opportunities that will help guide me in the future.

    Even though I attended and participated in these conferences, I plan on continuing to work in the classroom until I finish my Ph.D. to gain as much classroom experience as I can.  I feel that I am a young teacher and can benefit from as much student interaction as possible to bring that understanding to any future leadership position.  However, I will continue to look for leadership based projects, conferences, and develop manuscripts to build my experience.

    One of my mentors, Dr. Rick Leichtweis, recently pointed out, “a Ph.D. program teaches you how to think differently, to see the world in a different light.”  What he said made immediate sense to me.  In the past year I have seen how my thinking has changed.  I believe I view the world differently now.  For example, I examine new information differently.  I take time to research all points, I reframe situations to gain a better understanding, and I seek advice when needed.  My thoughts and actions are different and I am able to communicate in a way that has the potential to lead people in a different direction.  At work, I have become more of a front-line leader in my school and among my peers.  For example, I have been asked to take on special projects outside of the scope of my duties because Administration believes I have the skill set to accomplish the task effectively.

    This change has happened because of the growth I have accomplished through the academic courses I have completed.  By changing the way I process, analyze, and think about a situation, I am able to convey information in a different way to my peers or those I manage.  For example, at work I have bi-weekly clinical meetings with the school administrators, social workers, and counselors to discuss the progress of the students with EBD on my caseload.  Over the past few months I feel that I have been presenting stronger supporting data to convince the clinical team of action plans that should be implemented for the success of the student.  If the team opposes my action plan, I am able to reframe the situation from their point of view and either accept their argument or present an alternate plan.

    I have felt a strong pull to move into a leadership position over the past year; however, I feel that I am not ready at this point.  Mainly because I want to continue working as a classroom teacher, finish my academic classes, and start my dissertation.  I believe my current level of stress would not permit me to be an effective leader if I took on more responsibility at this time.  I also feel that if I can gain as much experience now over the next year I will be a more effective leader in the future.  I believe with more classroom and research experience I will acquire more knowledge, which would allow me to be a more effective leader.