The First Day (and Weeks) on the Job

The first day on the job as a teacher, as a military commander, or as a new boss, is incredibly important. It is arguably the most crucial to setup a safe and supportive environment for students, subordinates, and employees to learn and thrive. Students and military or business professionals will need to become accustomed to rules and procedures, and they will be looking for routines to follow as well as consistency from a leader when enforcing consequences (both positive and negative).

In addition to establishing a welcoming and appropriate environment on the first day for learning and being productive, leaders should introduce students and subordinates to knowledge and skills for behaving appropriately in the classroom or workplace as individuals and with each other over the first one to two weeks. An educator and leader can use activities that may involve some content-related examples and discussion, but primarily they should focus on generic, cross-discipline skills that transfer to any work or life experience such as:

  1. Business Orientation. Each member of a team needs to know the framework within which to complete assignments, communicate with the staff and leaders, and organizational rules and procedures. Students, employees, and teams should not only read company or school policies, but they should also read about workplace and classroom-specific rules and procedures. Beyond reading, these company or school documents should be reviewed and taught by a leader or teacher to the ones they intend to lead to ensure everyone will move forward with a clear understanding of expectations for performance.
  2. Ice-breakers. Students and employees who will work together effectively in groups benefit from taking time to focus on learning about each other. This builds a platform for effective communication founded on mutual respect and understanding.
  3. Self-Reflection. People may not often, or ever, reflect on their own life, career, and character goals, but as leaders and educators we should nurture a mindset and setup activities aimed at building moral fiber and making sure our subordinates’ and students’ character counts as a factor in everything they do while they pursue success in the short and long term tasks at hand.

In business, we often have the expectation that employees “hit the ground running,” however, even the hottest burners we hire still need to orient themselves to the organization, meet department heads, customers, contractors, their teams, and their indirect supervisors before they can have a very meaningful discussion with a direct supervisor on the priorities and modus operandi. While a whole week or two weeks may be an over-estimate for many businesses, taking the time up-front for orientation, ice-breakers, and self-reflection will ensure that a new employee is taken care of and integrates well into their new roles and responsibilities.

The same holds true for new students in a classroom. A teacher will have a clear idea of the rules, procedures, and boundaries for students to operate within while learning in the classroom, and they need to be taught to a classroom full of new students (in my case averaging around 40+ people in each of my current five classes at a California public school). This process, given a high school classroom with about five to six hours of instruction time per week, should take about 2 weeks. And it should be completed before the job begins (for students, the job of learning).

Teaching Strategies and Approaches

Teaching Strategies

The following are some of my preferred teaching strategies for life sciences, as well as my approach to use them within the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework.

Present Content in Multiple Modes

Students are presented content in multiple ways including oral discussion, reading text, viewing visual aids and videos, and manipulating realia (Slavin, 2017).  Students can seek additional information from a variety of texts during their individual and group research activities.  Students who read and comprehend multiple texts will have more opportunities to transfer their skills relating text to visual aids according to this literacy standards for science (Lems, Miller, &

Soro, 2017).  This strategy increases student access to content so students can integrate ideas, data, and facts into their explanations that demonstrate their understanding of science concepts. 

  • UDL – Multiple Means of Representation is a key tenet for UDL.

Group Cooperative/Collaborative Activities

Students can each contribute to find and discuss facts from varied sources to complete an assignment.  Students work together to support their explanation for patterns of interactions within and between biology concepts.  Students remain individually accountable for distinct roles and responsibilities to avoid one student doing a majority of the work (Frey & Fisher, 2011).  Students can capitalize on each other’s strengths and develop cognitive skills in areas of weakness through observation and discussion (Slavin, 2017).  Students share diverse perspectives, background knowledge, and use academic vocabulary (Lems, Miller, & Soro, 2017).  This strategy supports development of social and literacy skills through science content (Lems, Miller, & Soro, 2017). 

  • UDL – Group activities increase engagement through social accountability and specialization of roles and responsibilities.

Building Models

Students use models to serve as a visual aid to explain the interactions of biological processes. Students may choose their own way to express their knowledge, such as through writing, drawing, or creating 2D or 3D models using a variety of drawing materials and craft materials, their own smart phones, or provided computers and smart pads.  When using a computer, students can find resources and images online to build a digital model. Using a computer to build digital artifacts and post them online lets students share them in class and publish them for external access, providing more opportunities for peer collaboration and problem solving (Budhai & Taddei, 2015). 

  • UDL – Students who choose their own topic to focus on and present their knowledge in multiple ways will be more motivated and engaged in learning (Slavin, 2017).  This shows students there is more than one pathway to competence and students can learn more difficult tasks through their interactions with each other (Gordon, Meyer, & Rose, 2015).

Scientific-Content Text Reading Strategies

Teach students to pay attention to title and section headings, make predictions and ask questions about the information contained in a text, read first and last sentences in a paragraph to capture main ideas and find clues to find specific information they’re looking for, and to use the glossary and index as they check for their own comprehension or determine whether their predictions were right or find answers to questions.  Teaching content-specific text reading strategies helps students to learn effective ways to access the content available to them on the internet and in the books and visual aids in class (Slavin, 2017).  Students will need to comprehend, make personal connections, and make connections across multiple texts to analyze and explain interdependent processes and concepts.

  • UDL – Teach reading strategies early in a course, and encourage students to identify the strategies that work best for them.

Think-Aloud

Teacher demonstrates orally describing how to make meaning from a text and what conclusions they are drawing from the text.  Students then execute think-aloud in groups.  This strategy exposes students to several tactics to learn new material, such as: Rereading, stopping to ask questions to drive meaning, making personal connections, investigating new explanations to build understanding, referring to visual aids, or looking forward or backward in the text to connect background concepts or understand why this information is important to following concepts (Lems, Miller, & Soro, 2017).  This activity builds metacognitive skills and awareness (Lems, Miller, & Soro, 2017).  While reading and announcing their thinking on content, students are able to make information more meaningful so they can effectively cite textual evidence. 

  • UDL – Think-Alouds are important to make students aware of the way others think, to give the teacher an idea of how students are thinking, and to give English learners a chance to practice using academic language.  Exposure to thinking strategies helps students identify their personally favorite ways to make meaning from texts in the future.

Pre-Teach Key Vocabulary

Select new vocabulary that will be used most heavily in my activities and student reading to teach definitions to students at the beginning of the lesson (Lems, Miller, & Soro, 2017).  Students should be told how to say the word and asked to repeat the word back as part of informal assessment.  Students should be given the definition with additional memory support such as a picture, audio, or by making a personal connection.  This strategy introduces new vocabulary as the first step in wondering about the word, discussing it in oral communication, and then being able to read, write, and speak with it in context (Lems, Miller, & Soro, 2017).  Students will need to understand key vocabulary to relate written text to visual images in texts, and then use that vocabulary to adequately meet literacy and content standards.

  • UDL – Using multiple memory supports when teaching vocabulary such as pictures, videos, and physical movement and models helps students understand and make meaning.

Retelling 

Retelling is a tool to check for understanding.  Students consider and describe a sequence of changes within or between ecosystems, describing key facts and why each step occurs along the way (Frey & Fisher, 2011). 

  • UDL – Allow students to retell in their preferred style and method, including orally, in writing, or with creative digital or physical models.

Think-Pair-Share

Think-Pair-Share is a cooperative discussion strategy for students to discuss a topic with their peers before sharing their ideas in class (Frey & Fisher, 2011). A teacher can evaluate students’ understanding from their responses, while also perceiving students’ thinking processes as they discuss their responses with peers.  Include a requirement for students to use hand motions and gestures when they are sharing ideas to improve knowledge retention. 

  • UDL – Students who work with partners gain alternate perspectives to comprehend content and also practice using academic language (Gordon, Meyer, & Rose, 2015).

Summary Writing

Students read a text and focus on condensing each paragraph into a sentence summary, ensuring that only facts (no opinions) are captured and no more than about 4 words in a row from the original text are used while paraphrasing (Frey & Fisher, 2011). A teacher can evaluate students’ ability to comprehend, summarize, and write, including their ability to capture main points and evidence in the text that might be used when analyzing science texts. 

  • UDL – Students choose among texts with varying complexity to support accessibility and comprehension (Hinchman & Sheridan-Thomas), and they are given options for the format of their writing.

Crystal Ball

After viewing a selection of visual aids, students predict the main points to learn about each week based on previous concepts (Frey & Fisher, 2011). Teachers understand how effective previous lessons were, whether students read preparation texts, and whether they know how to interpret various visual aids.  Students periodically reflect on their previous responses to reconsider the key information found in the visual aids. 

  • UDL – Students will have a variety of aids to consider containing written text and pictures, and they may note their predictions among a choice of formats.

Construct an Experiment

Students define an experiment through the scientific process to test or refine a model.  Students may also research and test creative ways the model could be interrupted or enhanced by making changes (Slavin, 2017).  This strategy supports student choice and creativity, as they can choose to test a wide range of factors at varied levels of complexity when they define controls and variables. 

  • UDL – This strategy is especially beneficial to differentiate instruction for advanced students (Standard 3, n.d.).

Project-Based-Learning

Students, ideally in groups, will pick a problem to research related to interdependency in biology or across sciences, and propose a solution.  Students engage with family and community members to gain additional perspectives or professional insights.  Students may post information on line to collaborate within their student groups and with other students in class.

  • UDL – Students may choose their own topics from a list or a teacher can leave it open-ended.  Students may also choose their own way(s) to express their knowledge and findings.

Close-Reading

Students read written scientific text with visual aids including diagrams and illustrations, usually multiple times, with specific purposes to answer questions.  Students make notes of key information on the text and write down what they are thinking to drive them to ask questions of themselves and others that supports a quest for more knowledge and learning.  Students can build critical thinking and self-regulation skills through rereading for different purposes (Hinchman & Sheridan-Thomas, 2014).  Teacher should also model how to identify Question and Response (QAR) relationships, helping students to recognize what sources they need to draw from to answer questions (e.g. class text, multiple texts, or themselves) (Frey & Fisher, 2011). This can help students to recognize discrepancies between visual diagrams and written text so they can ask questions that drive deeper understanding and learning about the topics .

  • UDL – This exercise should be done with various texts written in different styles and using diverse visual aids to help students access content in different ways.

Teaching Approaches

Here are additional general teaching approaches to make the strategies above more successful as part of a unit learning map or individual lesson.

Feed-up, feedback, and feed-forward

Set expectations and goals with students based on their prior knowledge, give feedback on their performance throughout a lesson so they can adjust focus or effort, and adjust instructional methods according to individual student needs and performance.  Within the Gradual Release of Responsibility Framework (Frey & Fisher, 2011), establishing goals and purpose, guiding students during instruction (rather than just answering questions directly), ensuring students are individually accountable in groups, and assigning independent learning tasks at times when they are effective for promoting learning after students understand a concept that can be applied to a novel situation promotes good habits of self-regulation and self-efficacy.

  • UDL – If we are focused on informally assessing individual students throughout our lessons, we will be better able to meet the needs of all students to learn by making appropriate adjustments to instructional sequences.

Guide Students toward Increased Understanding

When individual students give their first answers to a problem or question, I will follow this progression below as needed to check for understanding and guide students to recall information and make connections on their own as much as possible:

  1. Ask follow up questions (explain your solution, what did you write and why)
  2. Prompt students to recognize errors in their thought process
  3. Provide specific cues for where to find the right answer
  • UDL – Each student will have a different way of understanding and demonstrating skills and knowledge, so this approach helps to differentiate instruction by assessing students informally.

Praise Effort

Teachers praise effort for individual students rather than accomplishment or intelligence (Frey & Fisher, 2011).  If a teacher mistakenly praises intelligence, then failures may lead a student to believe they aren’t smart.  Instead, students need to learn that effort is a key ingredient for learning, and that challenge and struggle is a sign of learning, just like in sports, games, or other activities they may personally excel in.  Therefore, students should seek challenges to grow as learners.  Students need to realize that school, sports, and work get harder to achieve a level of high performance as you reach higher grades, levels, and positions.

  • UDL – Students will need to find their own paths to learning, and we can encourage their love of learning by helping them recognize their own pathways and praising their hard work.

Student Reflection on External Feedback

Students are asked to reflect on feedback they receive from teachers or peers.  Students should think about the feedback they receive, make adjustments, and describe what adjustments were made and why.  This will help students gradually integrate feedback by finding meaning and making their own corrections.  Include time for reflective feedback in each daily lesson.

  • UDL – Feedback and reflection helps students think about ways to improve and learn by considering new methods and approaches.

Pay attention to how ELs summarize instructions

A teacher needs to know whether English Learners (ELs) understand instructions fully.  ELs may understand content words, but not functions (i.e. conjunctions and propositions), which in a list of procedures for my science class are critical to carrying out an experiment or completing an assignment correctly.

  • UDL – We need to find ways for all students to access content and learn, and we can provide the right level of support for ELs when we take this extra step to ensure language is not a barrier to understanding instructions

References

Budhai, S. S. & Taddei, L. M. (2015). Fostering the 4Cs with technology: How can I leverage technology to teach 21st century skills? (ASCD Arias) [VitalSource Bookshelf version]. Retrieved from vbk://9781416621515.

Frey, N. & Fisher, D. (2011). The formative assessment action plan: Practical steps to more successful teaching and learning. [VitalSource Bookshelf version]. Retrieved from vbk://9781416613381.

Hinchman, K. A. & Sheridan-Thomas, H. K. (Eds.). (2014). Best practices in adolescent literacy instruction, (2nd ed.) [Kindle version]. Retrieved from www.amazon.com.

Gordon, D., Meyer, A, & Rose, D. H. (2015). Universal design for learning: Theory and practice. [VitalSource Bookshelf version]. Retrieved from vbk://9781930583542.

Lems, K., Miller, L. D., & Soro, T. M. (2017). Building literacy with English language learners: Insights from linguistics (2nd ed.). [Kindle version]. Retrieved from www.amazon.com.

Slavin, R. (2017). Educational psychology: Theory and practice, 12th Edition. [VitalSource Bookshelf version]. Retrieved from vbk://9780134524290.

Standard 3: Curriculum planning and instruction (n.d.). Retrieved on June 7, 2019 from https://www.nagc.org/resources-publications/resources/national-standards-gifted-andtalented-education/pre-k-grade-12-3

This is the first page of a 5 Day Learning Map for my Intro Unit of physiology and Honors phys. I have sticky notes where I have reflections on what I need to adjust and students and strategies I need to focus on for engagement and classroom management.
Student work sample: One exercise I use at the beginning of the year to support scientific content-text reading comprehension is to have students learn to find facts in their text or on their social media and news, and then to verify those facts with another source(s).

Link to a video from my Intro Unit

High School Anatomy and Physiology Online Resources

This page lists resources for parents, students, and fellow teachers to research content and educational leadership strategies to support learning in a high school anatomy and physiology course.

General Life Science Content

  • Khan Academy – Health and Medicine – https://www.khanacademy.org/science/health-and-medicine – Khan Academy hosts many modules for learning about life science, and content is primarily delivered through videos.  Transcripts of the videos are also available with each video if you have any difficulty understanding the speaker.  This link specifically goes to a section useful for anatomy and physiology. 
  • CK-12 – The Human Body – https://www.ck12.org/c/biology/human-body/ – CK-12 is a site hosting educational materials for elementary, middle, and high school students for most core subjects.  You may view and interact with content through written text, linked videos, activities, and quizzes.  If you create a free account, the site will help you track your knowledge and skills so you can understand your strengths and weaknesses and reflect on where you would like to spend more time learning.  This link specifically goes to the human body section within their life science

Anatomy and Physiology Content

  • BioDigital – 3D Human – https://www.biodigital.com/ – Create a free account and you’ll have access to 2D and 3D images of human organ systems labeled with individual organs so you can identify their precise location in the body.  There is an app for smart phones as well.
  • Mayo Clinic – https://www.mayoclinic.org/ – This is the Mayo Clinic Health System landing page.  If you search for a disease, organ, or organ system, you will have a chance to find texts, videos, and research related to your inquiry to deepen understanding of how afflictions progress and are treated.
  • Merck Manual – https://www.merckmanuals.com/professional – Begin a search for disorders related to an organ or organ system and you will find written descriptions and example pictures for various medical conditions.
  • Orthobullets – https://www.orthobullets.com/ – This free site is meant for collaborating physicians to review orthopedic health topics, techniques, cases, and medical board questions with text, videos, and referenced journal articles for evidence. 
  • Science Daily – https://www.sciencedaily.com/ – Resource for finding summaries and meta-analyses of some of the recently published science literature.
  • American Academy of Dermatology – https://www.aad.org/ – Hosts information related to the integumentary system (skin and its appendages).  Many interactive videos and modules are available, in addition to articles and research updates, to learn about how the skin, hair, and nails work, how to take care of them, and related health issues and causes.
  • National Osteoporosis Foundation – https://www.nof.org/ – Hosts information related to the skeletal system (bones and joints).  Many interactive videos and modules are available, in addition to articles and research updates, to learn about how the bones work, how to take care of them, and related health issues and causes.
  • American Heart Association – https://www.heart.org/ – Hosts information related to the circulatory system, also known as the cardiovascular system.  Many interactive videos and modules are available, in addition to articles and research updates, to learn about how the heart and blood vessels work, how to take care of them, and related health issues and causes.
  • National Kidney Foundation – https://www.kidney.org/ – Hosts information related to the urinary system, also known as the urinary tract.  Many interactive videos and modules are available, in addition to articles and research updates, to learn about how the kidneys work, how to take care of them, and related health issues and causes.
  • National Cancer Institute – https://www.cancer.gov/ – U.S. government site with general information about cancer and updates on the latest clinical trials.
    • SEER – https://seer.cancer.gov/ – Training modules are available to learn about cancer related to specific organs and organ systems.
  • News websites and shows often have episodes and articles dedicated to health and science.  Search on the sites for anatomical and physiological terms related to your organ system unit of study.
    • Health Channel (PBS) – https://www.allhealthtv.com/ – Good for getting high level tips of caring for organ systems, as well as ideas for additional research.
    • KCET – https://www.kcet.org – local news for southern California, where you may find articles and videos that address regional health topics.

Education and Leadership

  • Edutopia – https://www.edutopia.org/ – This site serves blog articles and videos about educational best practices and how they might be used to improve and promote lifelong learning.
  • Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) –  http://www.ascd.org/Default.aspx – This site serves blog articles about education and leadership in K-12.

Content Standards

  • Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) – https://www.nextgenscience.org/ – This site contains science standards that teachers may tie their lessons to, and they are have been adopted by the California Common Core State Standards.  The reference for California’s adoption of these standards for science can be found here: https://www.cde.ca.gov/pd/ca/sc/ngssstandards.asp
  • California Department of Education (CDE) Common Core State Standards CCSS – https://www.cde.ca.gov/re/cc/ – This page leads to the list of standards in English Language Arts and Literacy in Science and other subjects, in addition to related state-specific approaches to the common core standards initiative.

Group Work

Working in groups can help create a better, more complex product at work and school.

Group work can also be a disaster when 1) an assignment lacks distinct roles for each contributor, or 2) groups don’t have a member that is able to expertly lead and collaborate with others to define roles and responsibilities.

Without defined roles, the distribution of work and/or learning may be unfair and the product will likely suffer. For an advanced student in these environments, they may volunteer to take on a vast majority of the work to ensure an acceptable product is created, and they may grow to despise group work or working with others as they these experiences lead to teammates riding their coattails for undeserved credit.  For a student who contributes little to a product, very little academic learning occurs, other than perhaps the ability to manage and manipulate others to do work for them.  

A supervisor, teacher, parent, or coach should set up group assignments for each teammate to feel like they are fairly contributing and being recognized for their work.
Leaders must take time to teach the expectations for group work to students and teams, and to design assignments with clear roles and responsibilities. Ideally, roles are defied and assigned so that the amount and challenge of work is fair, commensurate to each individual’s skills and abilities. A leader should emphasize respectful communication that invites participation and involvement.

As a teacher or student leads and communicates with a group to facilitate progress, I posit that it is primarily the person delivering a message to ensure it is received.  You have to know enough about your teammates to know some of the most effective ways to speak to them so they receive the right message. A related sports example is found in basketball, when a person passing a ball has the responsibility to deliver a pass that a teammate can catch. Listening skills accompany this focus, and we should guide our students to pay attention, summarize, and repeat back to ensure they understand what someone says, and so students will know the message was received correctly.

Experience working repeatedly with the same groups also builds effectiveness. There isn’t a single best way to communicate with everyone, so groups need practice working with each other to solve problems and to complete assignments to build unique rapports. In turn this experience advances each groups inter communication skills as they become more effective and learn more ways to communicate and learn by modeling behaviors for each other.

Learning amidst stress: Losing a loved one

When a student has lost a loved one, they will be dealing with it by taking a significant amount of time thinking, talking, writing, or taking action to honor that person.  As leaders we must recognize when a person is processing a loss and adjust our approach to support that student appropriately. A prerequisite step in leading a student who has suffered a loss is to build a trusting relationship. When a student shares their thoughts about the loss, we may discuss ways to deal with it in healthy ways.  During these conversations, we can help students plan to take action and reflect on how what they do helps to rebuild self-esteem and productivity.

Here are some topics to consider:

  1. It will take more time to learn new things and complete homework. This may seem obvious, but the challenge for us is to recognize that students will need extra time to learn and complete their work, because much of their attention will (and SHOULD be) on processing their loss. Students will struggle as they find ways to make meaning from the loss while they continue to carry out some of their routines and responsibilities.
  2. Performance on difficult tasks may suffer.  Complex tasks require students to pay attention to details and to draw from knowledge across a broad range of knowledge and skills.  As they conduct research and explore connections from their experience and background knowledge, they are likely to find information that reminds them of their lost loved one, which interrupts a work task at hand. Switching contexts between projects and processing a loss makes it difficult to integrate information across multiple sources and to produce an artifact that demonstrates deep understanding and sophisticated learning. How long will this condition last? It depends on the person, the significance of the loss, and how much time they are allowed, or allow themselves, to deal with it.  Visible signs of suffering may last only a few days or weeks, but performance and behavior is affected by a loss for years.

So what can we do or suggest with our students, if they are seeking guidance?

  1. Listen. Be kind, compassionate, and warm so students can process their thoughts if they choose to share them with you.
  2. Adjust expectations.  Help the student understand that dealing with a loss requires time, and this means they will need to set different personal goals and expectations for themselves for work, school, and recreation activities.  Making a realistic change is ok, and is a premise for setting goals so they are achievable.  Reinforce the idea to set small, daily goals and accomplish tasks by breaking them into simple sub-tasks.  We must continue to foster their love of learning, and building a plan to meet goals for bouncing back from a loss while also achieving in other areas that will still be important is good for maintaining and rebuilding self-esteem and self-efficacy. 
  3. Be a well of encouragement.  A devastating loss will deplete a student’s emotional stamina and make them more susceptible to giving up or adopting a predominately negative outlook in the face of difficulty.  Students will need to be encouraged throughout the process of planning to recover as outlined above, and when a plan or action doesn’t work out as well as hoped for, they will need reassurance that they can always try something different.  When brainstorming for new approaches, discuss healthy activities such as committing to regular exercise and physical activity, eating regularly healthy meals, getting rest, and looking for ways to use their natural strengths and interests to complete their work.

This is a broad suggestion for helping students deal with loss in an academic setting.  We should all work to help students in our one-on-one settings, encourage them to seek mentor-ship from their favorite trusted adults, and guide them to professional resources at our disposal in school administrative staff and in our community. 

Remain solicitous to demonstrate that you care, and follow through on any help you offer with your students. Every person has a story of stress and concern, and establishing a trusting relationship will help us to uncover problems our students are dealing with so we can support and lead them back to a productive learning path.

Daily Goals

A friend recently showed me the results of his “Screen Time” tool on his iPhone, which tracks how much time he spends looking at his phone and what applications he’s been using, such as web browsers, social media, games, and entertainment.  He was embarrassed by the hours he was spending on social media, and tracking the amount of time spent has helped remind him to put the phone down and do something more productive towards his goal of being more social with people around him.  A good next step to drive long-term change is to set daily goals.

Daily goals are distinctly narrow in time and focus, as opposed to life goals, annual goals, or goals for projects and professional work.  A daily goal should be motivating because it is personally meaningful and reflects personal interests. 

In the context of a high school classroom, a daily goal can help students engage with the content by making connections to their own life through that goal.  Daily goals at the start of a lesson aren’t valuable if students don’t have experience setting goals.  They need to be shown how to set them, and especially how they are different for an individual classroom setting. For inexperienced students, goal-setting should be taught in a similar fashion that content, procedures, and learning strategies are taught: Through engagement, modeling and representing the concept in multiple forms, and giving the students as many options as possible for how and why they set their goals.

A good example of a daily learning goal during a lesson about the interdependencies of ecosystems, is to find out what are three of the most important biotic or abiotic factors in a given ecosystem that, if disturbed or removed, would have the greatest effects on changing, improving, or destroying an ecosystem. This goal may be derived from and supported by a variety of personal interests such as world politics, life science, or outdoor recreation. This goal would drive a student’s questioning and research throughout the lesson and promote learning in the content area that applies to other fields of study.

Setting a goal, reflecting on your progress, and revising your goal (or changing it) based on that reflection can give one a sense of empowerment by recognizing success and exercising free will to choose a destiny.  One can work towards achievement and greater understanding and then may change their destiny as they learn more.

Introduction: Ty McKeever

I currently attend National University (NU), pursuing a Master’s degree in Education.

After graduating from the U.S. Air Force Academy with a B.S. in Biology, I earned a M.S. in Information Technology (IT) Management from Trident University International and served for 7 years as a Cyberspace Operations Officer in the military, and then led as an IT Program Manager for 3 years at Blizzard Entertainment.

I am pursuing a single subject teaching credential for Life Science in California with the intent to teach in high school.  This specific age group interests me because it is a time when children have some of the greatest opportunities to open doors to colleges and careers, and I’d like to offer my full support to our future leaders.  I believe anyone can and should lead at their level, and I aim to support everyone to become a leader with character!

My interest in teaching began when coaching volleyball at the high schools and private clubs near my various workplaces.  I also tested that interest by teaching CPR, suicide prevention, and sexual assault prevention and response to my brothers and sisters in the military.  Leading and inspiring teams to take care of business while building great relationships has stoked a fire of passion in me for learning and helping others to learn.  I’ve found that facilitating discussions and developing knowledge and skills with others has always brought me a great level of fulfillment.  Now I’m seeking to strengthen our country and the world by helping our youth determine productive life goals, build plans to achieve them, and provide support for their success in and out of the classroom.

Education Philosophy

I aim to develop students to become productive members of society commensurate with their talents and abilities.

Leadership Style

I practice servant leadership, focusing on the needs and success of the people that work with and for me.  I adopted this style during my time as an officer in the Air Force, and the more I have acted from a platform of genuine concern for individual people, the greater success I’ve enjoyed with teams, units, and classrooms that I’ve led or participated in.  As a teacher, coach, and parent, I will continue working to recognize what students, players, and my children need to be productive in the long term. 

Personality and Learning Profile

I’ve taken a variety of personality tests, and while the results have slightly changed over the years based on my experience and the state of affairs at those points in time, I have generally hovered near the middle, and have been able to adopt traits as the situation calls for.  Throughout my life I’ve been able to make positive connections with most people, and to genuinely have fun with groups of people sharing a wide array of interests.  I love learning and trying new things, and I am open to change my mind about my views based on reasonable discussion and fact.  As a leader, I focus on using my ability to make initial connections and leveraging that to help students make broader and deeper connections between course content and their lives. 

I find ways to connect content to my personal life and interests through a variety of mediums.  I have a tendency to be reflective, thinking before acting, sometimes to a fault.  As a teacher, coach, and parent, I benefit when I make an extra effort to plan for contingencies and problems so that I can handle important crises and common issues quickly, having already thought about or rehearsed my response. 

Why am I writing a blog?

  • Because I find new resources as an educator and leader that I evaluate and integrate into my toolkit, and I want to share and discuss my learning with a broader community of teachers, coaches, and parents
  • Because it will help me forge and document key lessons and strategies for future reference

What will I write about?

  • I will focus my writing on what I learn related to education and leadership
  • I would love to connect with fellow teachers, coaches, parents, and members of professions that use the transferable skills and knowledge I aim to discuss in this blog.
  • If I blog successfully throughout the next year, I hope to have researched and shared a useful tip related to education or leadership at least once per week, and to have captured some input and enhancements to my posts from others.
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