Teaching With Heart Miles Apart

Kaitlyn’s teaching experience: • 4th and 5th grade special education math and reading self-contained • 4th grade collaborative math and reading • 4th grade general education • 2nd grade special education • K-2nd special education students with emotional and behavioral disorders. Kelsey’s teaching experience: • 6th grade special education math and reading self-contained • 5th grade collaborative math and reading • 4th grade special education • K-5th special education

We (Kaitlyn and Kelsey) believe that the best learning is facilitated by curious students. To ensure that the students are engaged it is important to meet them at their individual level. One of our goals is to have students working on their instructional level while still participating in the whole group setting. When differentiating instruction, it is important to maintain the authenticity of the information being taught while also adjusting the rigor to appropriately meet the child’s level of understanding. As teachers, we strive to promote critical thinking through a variety of multisensory activities. This teaching style provides students with a chance to access content in a way that is unique to them. Whether the child is an auditory, visual or kinesthetic learner this approach provides them with many opportunities to gain a deeper understanding of content.

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We attended Indiana University of Pennsylvania to study early childhood and special education. During this time, we became close friends and supported each other in our pursuit to become educators. We fantasized about one day co-teaching together in a collaborative classroom that catered to both special and general education students. After graduating with honors from IUP we went on to start our teaching careers together in the same school district. It was not exactly co-teaching, but we were excited to continue teaching together side by side.

Early on in our teaching careers, we realized just how powerful of an impact teachers can have on their students when they band together with other educational professionals. While working at the same school, we strove to collaborate with our fellow educators on researched based teaching strategies that would empower our students. Even after moving to different states and working in different schools, we continued to seek out each other’s professional opinions and advice to enhance our teaching style and better support our students. We hope to inspire teachers and promote student growth, through our teachers’ pay teachers site, Teaching With Heart Miles Apart.