Biography and Philosophy
I am a professional educator and interdisciplinary artist living and working in central Missouri.
Born and raised in northeastern Ohio, I graduated cum laude from from Kent State University with my Bachelor of Music degree. After a summer as brass caption head for a Division III DCI drum and bugle corps and a year as a full time educator in the inner-city schools of Akron, Ohio, I attended graduate school at Miami University (Oxford, Ohio), where I earned my Master of Music Education degree and was inducted into the prestigious Pi Kappa Lambda honor society. Shortly thereafter I moved to Columbia, Missouri, and enjoyed my first five years building a strong elementary music program in the Hallsville R-IV School District. Two cats and my son Andrew, joined me along the way.
My educational philosophy—based on high expectations for mastery and literacy, varied instructional approaches, energetic lesson pacing, active student involvement, discovery of interdisciplinary content connections, and continuous performance-based assessment—has been well-received by students, parents, faculty, and administration. In 2002, I accepted the charge to serve in an instructional leadership role within my building and district. During the summers of 2002 and 2003, I was honored to work in a faculty position with the the innovative Missouri Fine Arts Academy. Over the past seven years, I have had the opportunity to function in several professional capacities for the nationally renowned University of Missouri College of Education and MU Partnership for Educational Renewal. The summer of 2008 saw another change in job title; I now have the honor of serving as Hallsville's Director of Curriculum & Instruction.
I have many other interests and hobbies, most of which are documented online. I am eager to create using most any medium available: music, visual arts, and writing, for example. I also fancy myself and amateur philosopher specializing in the spiritual, sociological, and political.
My Current Position
I began my career as a professional music educator, but my interests, roles, and responsibilities have continued to evolve. Nearly fifteen years of public school teaching—the last six as lead and mentor teacher—have provided experience and knowledge that serve me well as my district's Director of Curriculum & Instruction. With the support of the community, my colleagues, students, and parents, I spend my days crafting and implementing our new teacher induction program, providing faculty professional development on research-supported educational best practices, serving as PLC coach and teacher mentor, coordinating curriculum development efforts, analyzing district achievement data, working as district assessment and at-risk coordinator, and serving as an ad-hoc member of key district committees.
While in many respects quite different from my first teaching experiences, there is still much common ground here. I have quickly learned to apply the same concepts I used as a master educator to my current work with adult learners. Unfortunately, my duties provide much less time and fewer opportunities for interaction with students. I've overcome this problem by maintaining a studio for brass instruction, attending district events, eating lunch in the student cafeteria as many days per week as I am able, and continuing to teach summer school classes.
Philosophy of Teaching
My approach to teaching is broad, and my own opinions and theories on education could easily fill many pages. In general, however, my educational philosophy centers around a few main tenets in which I strongly believe (these apply to all learners, be they children or adults):
Expectation of student mastery over knowledge and skills is a prerequisite to quality teaching. As professional educators, we must know with absolute certainty that every student is capable of mastering both the content and the skills to use that content, and commit ourselves to taking whatever action is necessary to assist each individual in attaining such mastery.
Students learn best by doing. As a result, education must be active; students should be constantly and willingly immersed in new challenges and activities that lead to mastery of new concepts and skills. Teacher-led discussion and lecture must be used only in conjunction with other, more engaging activities.
Fast-paced lessons with smooth transitions increase the efficiency and effectiveness of instruction. Careful advanced preparation allows us the opportunity to cover more material and reduces off-task behavior.
Varied approaches to a single concept provide opportunities for all students to understand the material and master it through distributed practice. Reaching all students is of great importance. Implementing lessons which include a variety of approaches—for example, providing access to to new information through multiple intelligences, such as kinesthetic, musical, and spatial—increases the likelihood that all students will be successful in acquiring the new knowledge and skills. Additionally, such an approach provides all learners with distributed practice and the opportunity to access the new content via various pathways.
Assessment of student progress should be continuous, performance-based, authentic, and inform instruction. Assess early and often, and then use the results to immediately modify instruction. Expert use of formative assessment processes, coupled with quality feedback to students, will—without exception—increase student learning. The traditional model of "teach, teach, teach, teach, test" stands as an ineffective relic that long ago outlived its usefulness.
Research-supported educational best practices must touch all aspects of pedagogy. Regardless of the arena—unit and lesson planning, questioning, instructional strategies, curriculum development, assessment, classroom structure and management—we need not look far to locate research that absolutely must inform our professional practices. Visit my suggested reading list for more information.